15th%20Conference%20on%20Software%20Engineering%20Education%20and%20Training

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15th Conference on Software Engineering Education
and Training

• Foundation Software Engineering Practices for
  Capstone Projects and Beyond
• Annegret Goold and Peter Horan
• School of Computing and Mathematics
• Deakin University
• Melbourne and Geelong
• Australia

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Introduction

• Foundation practices required for effective
  studies and for later life
• Our curriculum
• The first-year SE course and its enhancements
• Evaluation of the course over a number of years
• Group behaviour in the capstone course
• Some implications for teaching and further
  research

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The need for foundation practices

• Industry expectations of graduates skills and
  knowledge in
• Problem solving
• Communication verbal, presentation, written and
  interpersonal
• Critical thinking
• Working within a team
• Time management/ project management
• Capstone projects expose students to a variety of
  experiences in these areas but can they cope?

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Curriculum development

• Framework
• Three year undergraduate degree (24 courses)
• Twelve courses as core
• Majors in Computer science,
• Info. systems and Multimedia technology
• Software Engineering minimum of 3 courses
• Philosophy of the SE Courses
• Our definition the application of engineering to
  software development
• Developing a software solution not just writing
  software
• A disciplined process

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Concept Map of Software Engineering
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Analysis of the Concept Map

• Problem solving theory as well as practice
• Working in groups theory and an awareness of
  group dynamics
• Writing software involves group processes,
  especially communication
• How best to teach this?
• Lecture and private study
• Project work in groups

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Concept Map of Software Development
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Skills and Software Development
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Introductory Software Engineering
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Undergraduate Programme at First Year
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Course Details

• Lectures
• Working in teams
• Software development processes
• Problem Solving
• Tutorials
• Groups of 4 or 5 allocated by staff
• Assignments and team building activities
• Presentations
• Assessment
• Examination and assignments (both 50)
• Minimum 60 for group work to pass

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Group Work and Assignments

• All have a SE focus but emphasis is on process,
  successful group work and presentation
• Some examples
• Personal styles assessment
• Research of SE topics
• Interview of a user (usability)
• Writing a proposal
• Project management activities
• Evaluation of user manuals (for quality)
• Evaluation of problem-solving software

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Assignment Cover Sheet
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Enhancements to our Course

• Continuous improvement
• Closer connection between lecture theory and
  tutorial work
• Use of industry standards and practice
• Visual Basic component removed
• Guest lecturers
• Improvement in assessment of individuals

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Evaluation Responses
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The Capstone course

• Undertaken in last semester of programme
• Combines all areas of previous study
• Opportunity to work on real-life software
  development projects
• Strong emphasis on group work
• Real client with staff as supervisor

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Changes to the Capstone course

• Larger teams
• Sub-teams in specialisations
• Greater emphasis on project management activities
• Greater emphasis on presentation
• Staff consensus Students had better skills in
  communication (verbal, written, presentation,
  interpersonal) working in a team and (perhaps)
  problem solving.

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Conclusions

• Our first-year SE course
• Emphasis on group process and the learning
  environment
• Less technical content but solid grounding in
  practices
• Smooth transition to other courses and to
  industry (?)
• Implications for teaching practice
• Research directions