Enhancing Student Employability through Projects

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Enhancing Student Employability through Projects

• Frank Milsom,
• School of Design, Engineering Computing

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What makes graduate Software Engineers employable?

• Technical skills
• Problem solving ability
• Communication skills
• Team player
• Professional approach

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BSc (Hons) Software Engineering Management

• First course intake in 1989.
• Part of the Computing programme.
• 24 final year students in 2004/05.
• Final year units
• Individual Project.
• Group Project.
• Software Engineering Management.
• Two electives.

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Group projects in computing

• Concept is well established
• First (?) UK paper on this in 1977 by Horning et
  al. on the Sheffield Software Hut experience.
• Unusual in final year of undergraduate course,
  but does occur at Masters level.

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Group Project - organisation

• Groups of 4 (or 3).
• Staff act as Client and as Supervisor.
• Client may represent end users.
• Groups bid for projects, and work in
  competition.
• Two phases
• Feasibility study, plus prototype.
• Completed, documented application.

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Group Project - Requirements

• Work as a team.
• Interact with client(s) and supervisor.
• Elicit and document requirements.
• Build and test a software application.
• Produce technical and user documentation.
• Plan and manage the project work.
• Give presentations and demonstrations.

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Group Project - Deliverables

• Management
• Feasibility Study, Project Plans, Quality Plans,
  etc..
• Technical
• Requirements Specification, Prototype, Software
  Application, Prototype, User Documentation,
  Technical Documentation.
• Reflective
• Project post-mortem (group), individual report.

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So what about employability?

• Do employers really value a professional
  approach?
• Example (from a local company)
• Our strategy To maintain a professional
  attitude to our work, our quality of design and
  our considered use of technology.

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Extracts from the British Computer Society Code
of Good Practice (1)

• Use standards in an intelligent and effective
  manner to achieve well-engineered results.
• Groups define and use their own standards, such
  as coding standards and change control
  procedures.
• Be aware that most people within the
  organisation do not share your expertise avoid
  technical jargon and express yourself clearly in
  terms they understand.
• Interaction with client and supervisor.

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Extracts from the British Computer Society Code
of Good Practice (2)

• Ensure that you have the necessary resources to
  complete assignments within agreed time scales.
• Feasibility study.
• Accept constructive criticism of your work,
  appreciating that your colleagues may have better
  solutions.
• Peer reviews common (but not universal).

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Extracts from the British Computer Society Code
of Good Practice (3)

• Devise mitigation actions that will reduce the
  chances of the most serious risks happening.
• Risk assessment, containment actions and
  contingency plan.
• Utilise technical reviews as an aid to your
  professional judgement, seeking specialist advice
  where appropriate.
• Access to specialist expertise through Internet
  User Groups is commonplace.

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Extracts from the British Computer Society Code
of Good Practice (4)

• Accurately record the effort spent on each task
  do not hide overruns by booking to other tasks.
• Timesheets group sign off.
• Honestly summarise the mistakes made, good
  fortune encountered and lessons learned when
  closing a project.
• Project post-mortem report.

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Thats all very well, but what about overseas
students?

• From the ACM/IEEE Software Engineering Code of
  Ethics and Professional Responsibility
• Software Engineers shall Ensure an appropriate
  method is used for any project on which they work
  or propose to work.
• Select methods and justify in the Feasibility
  Study.

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Does professionalism cover everything?

• Monty Finniston Six aspects of professionalism
• Know-how (skills)
• Know-what (understanding of principles and
  knowledge of facts)
• Know-when (business awareness)
• Know-why (choice of process)
• Know-how-much (cost and performance estimation)
• Know-whom (to seek advice from)
• Communication? Teamwork? Creativity?

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Group Project Knowledge / Skills developed

• How to co-operate.
• How to communicate.
• How to compromise.
• What a professional approach involves.
• Enhanced technical skills.
• Self-awareness (strengths, limitations).

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• This project has been the most valuable
  experience I have undertaken in all my years at
  University. I have learned that group work is
  not about splitting a project into tasks and
  sending each member off to do a task as I had
  been used to in previous projects. It is more
  about working together, no matter what task you
  are working on. By meeting all together a
  problem that may have taken one hour to resolve
  can take a matter of minutes when the whole group
  is present.
• (Final year student, 2004)

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Client
Supervisor
Peers
Software Engineer
Organisation
Experts
Successors
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Group Project - Limitations

• Fixed completion date.
• Group members are multi-tasking.
• Other units, other assignments.
• Reward system differs from industry.
• Cannot truly simulate business culture.
• No appointed Project Manager / Team Leader.
• No team mix of junior and senior engineers.

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Industry Evolution Challenges (1)

• Component development.
• Skills in identifying integrating components.
• Students frequently do this.
• Rapid (Agile) development.
• Less documentation, short duration projects, more
  responsive to change.
• Relaxing need for certain documentation, but
  still require good specifications.

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Industry Evolution Challenges (2)

• Legacy systems.
• Skills in understanding and in making controlled
  enhancement to existing software applications.
• Some opportunities exist.
• Outsourcing of software development.
• Skills in negotiation, requirements
  specification, acceptance test, etc..
• Difficult to simulate could outsource specific
  subset of features?

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Summary

• Possible to simulate many aspects of the real
  world environment.
• Emphasis on professional practice.
• Feasibility study designed to develop estimation
  skills.
• High mark premium on reflection to encourage
  learning from experience.
• Project environment encourages development of
  other attributes.

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• Tell me,
• I forget.
• Show me,
• I remember.
• Involve me,
• I understand.
• Chinese proverb