Conference Session

Tools and Support for Software Education

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Barbara Gannod, Arizona State University; Kevin Gary, Arizona State University; Harry Koehnemann, Arizona State University

Tagged Divisions

Software Engineering Constituent Committee

covered in each course of the sequence.The Software Enterprise combines the presentation and practice of software engineeringconcepts with project activity. Instead of gaining exposure to software engineering disciplineareas in separate courses and then applying them in a later semester in a capstone course, thesequence provides the initial exposure to concepts, follows it with in-depth problem solving, andasks students to apply the knowledge immediately in an ongoing, significantly challengingproject. We elaborate on this approach in the next section. Page 11.1331.2 Course 1 Course 2 Course 3

Conference Session

Software Engineering Teaching Methods and Practice

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Bruce Maxim, University of Michigan

Tagged Divisions

Software Engineering Constituent Committee

than simply use agame for the term project of a software engineering course, as some authors have suggested.1, 6, 11Real software engineering involves acquiring application domain knowledge in order tounderstand the client’s needs. Adding game topics to crowded software engineering courses, assome authors have suggested,2, 6 requires sacrificing important software engineering topics.Focusing on one application area in the first software engineering class is not fair to all students.Not every software engineering student wants to become a game developer. The author believesthat the capstone design course should not be the only opportunity for students to managecomplex software development projects. This suggests the use of elective courses as a

Conference Session

Software Engineering Curriculum Components

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Michael Lutz, Rochester Institute of Technology; Gregory Hislop, Drexel University; Mark Sebern, Milwaukee School of Engineering

Tagged Divisions

Software Engineering Constituent Committee

intended to foster discussion within the software engineeringcommunity about developing and maintaining shared curriculum resources on an on-going basis.The paper approaches this topic by summarizing the experience of the SWENET project increating shared curriculum materials for software engineering. SWENET, The NetworkCommunity for Software Engineering Education, was an NSF funded project to developcurriculum modules for faculty members wanting to incorporate software engineering conceptsin new or existing courses. The paper discusses the project results, focusing on lessons learned.Although the benefit of sharing course materials is obvious, the practice is not particularly widespread in higher education. Reasons for this low level of sharing

Conference Session

Software Engineering Teaching Methods and Practice

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Eric Durant, Milwaukee School of Engineering

Tagged Divisions

Software Engineering Constituent Committee

Requirements and Interdisciplinary WorkAbstractThe author discusses an interdisciplinary approach to helping students learn to write a systemrequirements specification (SRS). This approach has been refined during use over the last threeyears and involves students in the first quarter of their junior year. Software engineeringstudents enrolled in a required requirements course act as the requirements team over an eight-week period while biomedical engineering students who are ready to begin the requirementsphase of their capstone design project act as clients. Each of the requirements and client teamsconsists of four to six members. The experience was documented in ASEE conference papers inOctober of 20041 and June of 20052.Benefits of the process and

Conference Session

Software Engineering Teaching Methods and Practice

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Martin Zhao, Mercer University; Laurie White, Mercer University

Tagged Divisions

Software Engineering Constituent Committee

various stages of an incrementaldevelopment process so as to teach them software engineering by really doing it.In this paper, the effectiveness of such an approach in a Software Engineering class will bediscussed in detail. A simple voice mail system with a sound OO design is adopted from apopular OOAD text 8 as the baseline design of the sample application used in the workshops.Throughout the semester, this system is expanded functionally to introduce advancedprogramming techniques. Basic OOAD activities and key software development best practiceswill also be demonstrated in the series of workshops.Background and RationalesTypically, Software Engineering is designed as a senior capstone course in a Computer Scienceprogram for students to