FOCUSING ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING EDUCATION: A GRADUATE CERTIFICATE IN SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

Transcription

1 FOCUSING ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING EDUCATION: A GRADUATE CERTIFICATE IN SOFTWARE ENGINEERING Heidi J. C. Ellis 1 and James C. McKim 2 Session F2G Abstract The creation and evolution of a graduate-level certificate program in software engineering is presented in this paper. The software engineering certificate offered by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) is a four-course sequence of graduate courses in the area of software engineering and is intended to provide students with a focused understanding of the principles of software engineering and their application to software environments. The paper discusses the motivation for the original construction of the Software Engineering certificate program by the Rensselaer at Hartford (RH) branch of RPI and discusses the expected audience for the program. The program itself is detailed including an overview of the student audience, an explanation of the prerequisites of the program, and descriptions of the graduate courses in the certificate. The paper describes recent changes to the content of the Software Engineering certificate and discusses the factors that have influenced the certificate as it has evolved. Index Terms Continuing education, education for the working professional, software engineering certificate, education for the working professional. INTRODUCTION The past decade has seen phenomenal growth in the software industry. According to the U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs in computer-related areas of engineering, natural science and computer and information systems managers and computer systems analysts, engineers, and scientists will be two of the highest growth job areas for the next several years [10]. The rapid expansion of the software industry coupled with the need for more educated software engineers [4,6] motivates the need for producing a greater number of software engineering professionals. In fact, several recent efforts have researched the growth of software engineering programs worldwide [14] and the re-education of students with no formal training in software engineering to become software engineers [5]. In an attempt to keep pace with the rapidly growing need for capable software engineers, many academic institutions have created some form of software engineering education program. Since greater time and effort is required to institute new degree programs, many of these software engineering programs have taken the form of certificates. These certficates vary widely in required student background, content, duration, and format. Programs range from a set of basic undergraduate Computer Science courses intended to prepare students for employment as programmers, as is the case in the certificate offered by Montgomery County Community College, to a series of professional (non-degree) short courses such as in the certificates offered by Georgia Tech and Northeastern University, to a set of graduate courses that can frequently be used towards a Master s degree in either Software Engineering or Computer Science. This latter category of certificate appears to be the most common with certificates comprising between three and six graduate-level courses. This type of certificate is offered by a range of academic institutions including Southern Methodist University, the University of Colorado at Boulder and at Colorado Springs, Oregon Master of Software Engineering, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Southern Polytechnic State University, and Brandeis University. Indeed, graduate-level Software Engineering certificates are offered world-wide as evidenced by programs at Oxford University, the University of the West of England, and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. The graduate-level Software Engineering certificate developed by Rensselaer at Hartford is oriented around current industry requirements and is intended to provide a broad background in Software Engineering. Rensselaer at Hartford (RH), a branch of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute located in Hartford CT, has a forty-five year history of educating the working professional. Originally founded to provide Masters-level engineering education primarily for United Aircraft (now United Technologies Corporation), today RH has almost 2000 graduate students working towards Master s degrees in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, and Management. Over 95% of students at RH are employed full-time in a diverse array of companies. While United Technologies remains the largest customer, RH draws from a wide range of companies, from engineering firms to financial sevices organizations. More than 100 companies are represented by students in Computer Science programs alone. The RH student population is primarily located within a fifty mile radius around Hartford CT, although a few students travel over three hours roundtrip to attend class. Student ages range from middle twenties into the fifties and student backgrounds are diverse including undergraduate degrees in computer science, accounting, mathematics, science, and engineering. Students attend 1 Heidi J. C. Ellis, Dept. of Eng. & Sci., Rensselaer at Hartford, 275 Windsor St., Hartford, CT heidic@rh.edu 2 James C. McKim, Rensselaer at Hartford, jcm@rh.edu F2G-16

2 classes on a part-time basis and classes are held one day a week from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. RH s population of working professional students create an educational culture characterized by a high level of motivation and self-directed learning. RH students desire application-oriented education that incorporates the most recent developments in their area of study. As described in Brown s work [1], the certificate programs at Rensselaer at Hartford have been offered since 1993 and the first certificate in Computer Science was offered in Currently the Computer Science certificates include Computer Network Communications, Database Systems, Graphical User Interface, Information Systems, and Software Engineering. Motivation for the creation of certificate programs was based in the economic conditions of the mid-1990s when many Connecticut companies were undergoing significant changes resulting in layoffs and relatively high unemployment. This alteration in business climate resulted in a population of potential students who were interested in refreshing their software skills but were unable or uninterested in committing to a full graduate program. A four-course certificate program allowed employed students to refresh their skills and allowed unemployed students to demo nstrate success in a subject area within a relatively short time span. This paper describes the Software Engineering certificate at RH including an overview of the student audience, an explanation of the prerequisites of the program, and descriptions of the courses required for the certificate. Recent changes to the content of the Software Engineering certificate are detailed and the projected future of the certificate is outlined. THE SOFTWARE ENGINEERING CERTIFICATE Existing graduate-level Software Engineering certificates can be broadly grouped into two categories: 1) those that provide a breadth of knowledge in Software Engineering (e.g, the certificate offered by Boston University); and 2) those that provide a focused investigation into a particular aspect of Software Engineering (e.g., the Oregon Master of Software Engineering which provides specialized certificates in Software Analysis and Design and in Software Quality Engineering). In this section, we describe the graduate Software Engineering certificate offered by Rensselaer at Hartford which takes the breadth approach to providing working professional students with an understanding of the principles of software engineering and their application to software environments. Students in the Software Engineering certificate program apply the latest techniques for the design and development of software systems and the application of theory to real world problems and situations is emphasized. The certificate is structured such that after obtaining the Software Engineering certificate, students may continue on to complete a Master s degree in Computer Science or Information Technology if they so desire. Specifically, the RPI Software Engineering certificate has the following objectives: to provide an understanding of the principles of software engineering and their application to software and environments; to provide a solid foundation in the fundamental frameworks, methods, and technologies of software engineering; to provide an understanding of the conventional methods of software engineering and managing software projects; and to provide an understanding of the most recent advancements in contemporary software engineering topics including object-oriented development methods and web engineering. The Software Engineering certificate is a graduate-level program whose audience comes from two main groups of working professionals. The first population is the group of engineers and scientists who are embarking on their professional careers and desire to expand their knowledge of software as they lay the foundation for their careers. These students are recent graduates with Bachelor s degrees in Engineering, Science or other analytically-related disciplines. The new graduates that enter the Software Engineering certificate may hold entry-level positions as application programmers or system analysts and require technical knowledge as well as exposure to the theory of software engineering. This group also contains a small number of full-time students. The second population of students in the Software Engineering certificate is the larger and contains individuals who have been in the workforce for five to ten years who desire to enhance and hone their software engineering skills. This population of experienced workers frequently have positions that involve some aspect of the design or development of large software systems for which they have no formal training. They may already have a Master s degree in Computer Science or a related discipline and are returning to school to expand and maintain their knowledge of software engineering. A small number of this population are currently employed in software engineering positions and enroll in the Software Engineering certificate in order to expand their existing skill set. While the student population in the Software Engineering certificate is somewhat diverse, both groups of students share the desire to enhance their software engineering skills in order to either further themselves in their current positions or to change careers into more software-oriented professions. In addition, both groups desire immediate benefits to their careers. These desires require that the Software Engineering certificate, while not neglecting theory, be application-oriented, providing as much real-world experience as possible. When originally developed in 1995, the RPI Software Engineering certificate was comprised of the four courses listed in Table I. (This certificate is similar to the Software F2G-17

3 Engineering certificate offered at Boston University which includes a general Software Engineering course, two courses on object-orientation, and a Software Engineering management course.) TABLE I ORIGINAL SOFTWARE ENGINEERING CERTIFICATE REQUIREMENTS ECSE-6770 Software Engineering I CISH-6050 Software Engineering Management CISH-6010 Object Oriented Programming and Design CISH-6320 GUI Building The goal of the certificate was and is to provide breadth of understanding across the spectrum of approaches, methodologies, and concepts that underlie software engineering, as well as to provide exposure to the most recent approaches in the field. The four courses listed in Table I were selected as, at the time, they provided a combination of fundamental software engineering understanding with exposure to the then emerging fields of object orientation and graphical user interfaces (GUIs). We next describe prerequisites to the Software Engineering certificate and the individual courses in the original certificate including their content and the motivation for including each in the program. As many of the students in the Software Engineering certificate do not have Bachelor s degrees in Computer Science or Software Engineering, they may be required to take one or more prerequisite courses before entering the program. The most common requirement is that of CISH Object Structures which is an advanced Data Structures course taught using an object oriented approach. Individual certificate courses may have additional prerequisites. We also note that in our experience, the knowledge brought into the classroom by working professional students provides a significant shared knowledge base to support learning for all students in the class. Software Engineering I (ECSE-6770) is the foundation course for the Software Engineering certificate and provides students with an understanding of the approaches used to engineer a large software system. The major objective of this course is to construct a solid foundation for comprehension and application of principles, techniques and technologies utilized in the development of good software systems by individuals or teams. Topics include the steps of requirements analysis, specification, design (e.g., top-down modularization), coding (e.g., structured programming), debugging and testing, maintenance, and thorough documentation, as illustrated by examples and papers from current literature. Upon successful completion of the course the student is able to identify and utilize a wide array of principles and techniques of software engineering in order to create or alter reasonably sophisticated software systems. Student assessment is based on a group project including progress reports (45%), quizzes (15%), a final exam (40%). The group project is completed in teams of students and it is the responsibility of the students themselves to form teams. Students are assessed roughly every other week on their performance of their assigned duties within the team and on the team s progress towards the completion of the final project. A variety of texts have been used for this course including those by Sommerville [18], Pressman [17], and Pfleeger [16]. Currently Bruegge and Dutoit s [2] text is being used. Software Engineering I is included in the Software Engineering certificate as it provides students with the groundwork of software engineering fundamentals of development. Students gain hands-on experience in developing a sizeable project in a team environment. Upon this support students can fill in their framework of software engineering understanding with specific knowledge and skills. Software Engineering Management (CISH-6050) introduces students to the principal issues involved in managing software engineering projects. Topics include state-of-the-practice, software project planning, software management fundamentals and classic mistakes, software engineering process models, software metrics and estimation, process engineering and process improvement, domain analysis and software reuse. Upon completion of the course, students understand the key issues and classic mistakes of managing large software projects, understand various techniques employed in software engineering management, and know how to utilize the techniques studied to prepare a development plan for a sizable project. The central focus of the course is a project involving preparation of a Software Development Plan (SDP) for a hypothetical software engineering project of the student s choice. Projects must be of a size to require a team of 4-7 software engineers with a 6-12 month development window. Potential projects include an inventory and valuation system for collectors; a personal finance system and/or investment advisor; a household appliance and equipment controller; an interactive game or other form of entertainment; or a World Wide-Web page that provides useful services. The SDP includes a system overview, description of products produced, discussion of project management, explanation of resources required and identification of schedule and milestones. The SDP, which is 70% of a student s assessment, is broken down into three deliverables including a project update, oral presentation, and the final. The remaining 30% is based on a final exam. The current text for this course is McConnel s Rapid Development [11]. Software Engineering Management complements Software Engineering I by supplying students with an understanding of the organization, administration, guidance and oversight required to successfully direct a software project through to completion. The real-life applicability of the material is emphasized through the creation and F2G-18

4 presentation of a detailed software development plan for a significant project. The two-course combination of Software Engineering I and Software Engineering Management provides the core of the Software Engineering certificate. Object Oriented Programming and Design (CISH- 6010) is an introduction to the theory and practice of object oriented programming and design. Topics covered include encapsulation, inheritance, genericity, dynamic binding, and polymorphism. The main focus of the Object Oriented Programming and Design course is the extension of a large project that has been under continual development by successive classes since The STOOGE project is a graphical video game and each semester students apply object oriented principles to extend and enhance the game with additional functionality. Through the process of expanding the STOOGE project, students gain both a solid grasp of object oriented development techniques as well as real-life exp erience with software engineering principles. See [12] for more information on this project and its design. Assessment is based on homework (60%) and two exams (40%). Homework assignments are developed via interactive dialog with students in the classroom where students and the instructor agree on planned enhancements to the STOOGE project. Students are encouraged to work in teams of two or three on the homework assignments. The text used for Object Oriented Programming and Design is Meyer s Object Oriented Software Construction [13]. Object Oriented Programming and Design is included in the Software Engineering certificate because it provides students with significant hands-on experience with a sizeable object oriented software project. In addition to learning principles of object oriented software construction, students gain hands-on knowledge of the software engineering principles of maintenance, evolution, reuse, designing for change, etc. The interactive development of project deliverables provide students with an understanding of the trade-offs involved in software development. GUI Building (CISH-6320) allows students to gain an understanding of the principles and approaches to developing graphical user interfaces. The focus of the course is on software architectures for user interfaces and the tools and techniques required for developing those interfaces. The concepts of the course rely strongly on foundations from computer graphics and the course deals with issues of event handling, widget tool kits and input syntax. Traditional computer graphics topics of drawing and three-dimensional modeling are also covered. Upon completion of the course, students are able to understand the elements of a GUI, select the appropriate software architecture for interactive computing, discriminate between control elements and their behavior, and generate a complex GUI program that involves both control elements and graphical objects. Assessment is based on a semester-long project (80%) that is split into the four milestones of design, basic controls, graphical objects, and integration with windowing system, and a final exam (20%). Olsen s Developing User Interfaces [15] is used as a text. In addition to CISH-4020 Object Structures, GUI Building also requires CISH-6330 User Interface Design or familiarity with user interface design as a prerequisite. The GUI Building course is included in the Software Engineering certificate as the construction of correct, efficient user interfaces is a critical component of software that is constructed for human use. The GUI Building course provides students with a more complete understanding of the issues involved with developing software for end users. The four courses described in this section provide the foundation of the Software Engineering certificate. In the next section we describe the evolution of the Software Engineering certificate during the past several years as software engineering has emerged as an engineering disipline. CHANGES TO THE SOFTWARE ENGINEERING CERTIFICATE Given the rapid rate of change in the software field, RH s Software Engineering certificate has evolved to accommodate these transformations. The certificate has been modified in 2001 from a requirement of four specified courses to two required courses and two elective courses chosen from a list of four. Table II shows the current certificate requirements: TABLE II CURRENT SOFTWARE ENGINEERING CERTIFICATE REQUIREMENTS Students Must Take the Following Two Courses: ECSE-6770 Software Engineering I CISH-6050 Software Engineering Management Students Must Take Any Two of the Following Four Courses: CISH-6010 Object Oriented Programming and Design CISH-6320 GUI Building CISH-6510 Web Application Design and Development ECSE-6780 Software Engineering II The Software Engineering certificate was modified to allow students more flexibility in their career paths as the two additional courses allow students to explore various specialized areas of software engineering. ECSE-6780 Software Engineering II is a topics course where the instructor selects subjects of current interest. In the past material has included distributed computing, real-time systems, and software architectures. CISH-6510 Web Application Design and Development provides students with an understanding of the application of software engineering principles to the Internet. We discuss these two courses in more detail. ECSE-6780 Software Engineering II is an extension of ECSE-6770 Software Engineering I and therefore requires Software Engineering I as a prerequisite. As a topics course, the subject matter covered in Software Engineering II has been decided primarily based on student selection from a list of possible software engineering-related topics. Most F2G-19

5 recently, the course has focused on the development of client/server and distributed applications. Students gain an understanding of the features and capabilities required of software that supports client/server and distributed computing. Upon successful completion of the course students are able to evaluate and select among various communication and interaction mechanisms to support a distributed or client/server application and understand the role and use of components in distributed object-oriented applications. Other topics covered have included software architectures and real-time and embedded systems. The Software Engineering II course has been taught as a collaborative learning experience where class meetings are a combination of exploring theory and concepts in the classroom and, after gaining a mental model, application of the mental model is implemented in the lab. Experience using this cooperative approach to learning new topics has resulted in more highly motivated students who have an increased capacity for critical thinking [3]. Assessment is based on a series of homeworks (70%) and two exams (30%). Homeworks are collaboratively developed during class, allowing students to influence the direction of their learning. The text for Software Engineering II is a collection of recent articles. The Software Engineering certificate was expanded to include ECSE-6780 Software Engineering II to allow students to gain specific desired knowledge and skills. The format of the course allows students to customize their software engineering knowledge somewhat by exploring topics either directly related to work requirements or related to a student s outside interests. Software Engineering II adds flexibility and extensibility to the Software Engineering certificate. CISH-6510 Web Application Design and Development is a course intended to provide students with the knowledge and skills required to develop software for the Internet. In this course, students gain an understanding of the theories and technologies that support Web-based interactions and their impact on the World Wide Web while learning how to establish and maintain a Web site. Upon completion of the course, students understand the role and capabilities of Web server software, have the ability to evaluate and select between different client-side and serverside approaches for supporting a Web site, and understand the impact of emerging technologies on the current state of the art in Web site construction. The future direction of Web applications is also explored. The main focus of the Web Application Design and Development course is the creation of a commercial-grade Web site from client-side through to server including database access. The project is broken down into five cumulating assignments that serve as milestones for the project. Students are encouraged to work in teams of two. Assessment is based on the Web project (60%) and two exams (40%). The course relies heavily on current Webbased readings, however three texts are suggested, two by Hall [7,8] and one by Hunter [9]. Web Application Design and Development was added as an elective to the Software Engineering certificate in order to allow students to expand their software engineering knowledge into the rapidly growing and highly popular area of development for the World Wide Web. The Web Application Design and Development course provides students with the principles and expertise necessary to engineer efficient and effective Web applications. The recent changes to RPI s Software Engineering certificate including the addition of two courses and the opportunity to choose two courses from four electives provide students with a wider selection of software engineering courses. Since the discipline of software engineering is too broad to be covered completely by four courses, these changes allow students the flexibility to customize their certificate to fit their work or personal goals. FUTURE OF THE SOFTWARE ENGINEERING CERTIFICATE Given the limitations of a four-course (12 credit) program, the Software Engineering certificate provides students with a broad understanding of the software engineering discipline. However, there are several areas of potential expansion for the Software Engineering certificate. Currently, the certificate is oriented towards a more Information Technology form of software engineering (i.e., focus is on the development of business software). Feedback from students indicates that some students desire to expand the Software Engineering certificate to include electives that address system engineering. Suggested topics include realtime software development, embedded systems, safetycritical systems, and intelligent systems. Another influence on the future of the Software Engineering certificate is the request from United Technologies Corporation (UTC) to provide their employees with a graduate-level certificate. In late 2000, UTC approached Rensselaer with a request for a certificate that combines four graduate-level courses with one to three short training courses. These short courses would provide students with in-depth experience on a very focused topic, allowing students to hone and refine their skills in that area in a way that is not supported by a larger graduate course where course constraints limit the depth of knowledge that a student may obtain on a topic. In addition to the request for short courses, UTC desires more extensive coverage of some software engineering topics such as Requirements Engineering, Software Quality Assurance, and Software Project Management. Support for these topics may result in the development of graduate-level courses which could be added as electives to the Software Engineering certificate, further enhancing its flexibility. Yet another influence on the future of the Software Engineering certificate is the continual emergence of new F2G-20

6 software engineering approaches. Practices such as agile processes, extreme programming, and the continued emphasis on distributed computing and technologies such as smart products, agents, and.net. A continuing question is whether the Software Engineering certificate should be upgraded to a full degree program, a Master of Science in Software Engineering. Currently RH offers three degree programs in which software can be emphasized. These are the MS in Computer Science, MS in Information Technology, and ME (Master of Engineering) in Computer and Systems Engineering. All three of these programs are sufficiently flexible to allow a substantial number of software courses. In fact the Software Engineering certificate courses can easily be incorporated into any of these degree programs. For now, the combination of these offerings appears to be meeting the demands of the corporate and individual clientele. CONCLUSION As consumer demand for software products grows, the need for educated software engineers to produce these products continues to increase, even in today s uncertain economy. Rensselaer s four course graduate Software Engineering certificate provides students with the foundation in software engineering principles and practice required for competent software engineers. As the field of software is rapidly changing, the Software Engineering certificate must also evolve to keep pace with these developments. Evolution of the certificate will be necessary at two levels of granularity. Individual courses must be updated to reflect the changing state of the discipline. For instance, Software Engineering I might be restructured to emphasize security aspects of software engineering in light of recent events. In addition to changes within a course, new courses must be developed to address emerging software engineering development approaches. For instance, a course on lightweight or rapid processes would allow students to study accelerated software development processes that are required by many businesses today. Since software engineering is a large discipline which must support a multitude of domains and approaches, the Software Engineering certificate must offer the maximum amount of flexibility possible to allow students to tailor their education. [4] Ellis, H. J. C., N. R. Mead, A. Moreno, and P. MacNeil, Can Industry and Academia Collaborate to Meet the Need for Software Engineers? Cutter IT Journal, June [5] Ellis, H. J. C., N. R. Mead, A. Moreno, C. Tanner, and D. Ramsey, Characteristics of Successful Collaborations to Produce Educated Software Engineering Professionals, Computer Science Education Journal, Swetz & Zeitlinger publihers, Spring [6] Frailey, D. and F. Moore, Maintaining a Capable Software Engineering Pool, Proceedings, 1998 Software Technology Conference, Apr [7] Hall, M., Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages, Prentice Hall, [8] Hall, M., Core Web Programming, Prentice Hall, [9] Hunter, D., Beginning XML, Wrox, 2 nd ed., [10] Kellinson, J.W. and P. Tate, The Job Outlook in Brief, Occupational Outlook Quarterly, Spring [11] McConnell, S., Rapid Development, Microsoft Press, [12] Kai, J. and J. McKim., Object Oriented Capabilities of Visual Basic, with Joyce Kai, Journal of Object Oriented Programming, October, [13] Meyer, B., Object-Oriented Software Construction, Second Edition. Prentice Hall, [14] Modesitt, K., D. Bagert, and L. Werth, International Academic Software Engineering: Results of the First Annual Survey, Proceedings, IASTED International Conference on Applied Informatics, Feb [15] Olsen, D. Jr., Developing User Interfaces, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, [16] Pfleeger, S. L., Software Engineering: Theory and Practice, Prentice- Hall, [17] Pressman, R., Software Engineering, A Practitioner s Approach, 5 th ed., McGraw-Hill, [18] Sommerville, I., Software Engineering, 6th ed., Addison-Wesley, REFERENCES [1] Brown, R. H., A Graduate Certificate in Computer Network Communications, FIE 00, Kansas, Oct [2] Bruegge, B., and A. Dutoit, Object-Oriented Software Engineering: Conquering Complex and Changing Systems, Prentice-Hall, [3] Ellis, H. J. C., An Experience in Collaborative Learning: Observations of a Software Engineering Course, The 2000 Frontiers in Education Conference, Oct F2G-21