Software engineering education: some important dimensions

Transcription

1 European Journal of Engineering Education Vol. 32, No. 3, June 2007, Software engineering education: some important dimensions ALOK MISHRA*, NERGIZ ERCIL CAGILTAY and OZKAN KILIC Department of Computer Engineering, Atilim University, Ankara, Turkey (Received 16 July 2006; in final form 21 November 2006) Software engineering education has been emerging as an independent and mature discipline. Accordingly, various studies are being done to provide guidelines for curriculum design. The main focus of these guidelines is around core and foundation courses. This paper summarizes the current problems of software engineering education programs. It also proposes some important dimensions as integral parts of software engineering education: interdisciplinary skills, practice experience, communication, skills on continuing education and professionalism. In the current guidelines and studies these dimensions are not addressed specifically. Although there could be other dimensions to be considered in software engineering education, we believe that the proposed ones are very crucial as software engineering is evolving more rapidly than any other engineering discipline. This study also provides a survey of some major universities undergraduate software engineering programs to evaluate these dimensions. Keywords: Curriculum; IT; Software; Software engineering; Software engineering education 1. Introduction Rapid development of information technology (IT) and the software industry provides several benefits to individuals, business and organizations. Today many organizations are performing their business by depending on these technologies and software. The results of several research studies in the U.S. showed that the government depends on very large and not well understood software systems, and is faced with many unpredictable failures (Boehm and Basili 2000). Several studies have also shown that many software projects were cancelled, being late and over cost according to their original estimates (It Cortex 2003, Lethbridge 2000a, Standish Group 1995). A failure in software can cause a failure in business. Considering the fact that most business applications are moving to an e-business environment, the quality of software is getting more critical. Advanced technologies and the increasing importance of software in daily life make these environments more sophisticated and complex. In this aspect, it is the software engineering (SE) professionals responsibility to manage this complex environment effectively. The quality of the SE workforce is a direct function of the quality of the SE education (SEE). Therefore, it is the responsibility of SEE to prepare the SE professionals by providing them with skills to meet the expectations of the software industry. Studies have shown that there is a wide gap between software industry needs and education for prospective *Corresponding author. alok@atilim.edu.tr European Journal of Engineering Education ISSN print/issn online 2007 SEFI DOI: /

2 350 A. Mishra et al. software engineers (Beckman et al. 1997). We are aware that SE is the fastest-evolving engineering discipline and most of the software development organizations tasks are diverse in nature. Therefore, it is not possible to produce ready-made graduates which can be absorbed immediately in the industry. As a solution, most of the time it is important to provide some in-house training and orientation before placing them in proper positions. It is also important that graduating students should get excellent exposure in different areas. So if the students are well-versed in emerging technologies then in-house training duration will be less, which means less time and money for organizations. In some countries including the UK, universities are offering sandwich programs, apprentice or internship programs as part of their curriculum structure to provide industrial and organizational exposure. This will help in practice experience, communication and motivation towards learning emerging technologies. This study attempts to propose some additional solutions during SEE in order to shorten this duration by highlighting some important dimensions of SEE. The objective is to present the importance of these dimensions and inspire SE educators to incorporate them in the appropriate weightings while designing SE curriculum. Although researchers have pointed out their importance, these areas have yet to find the place they deserve in SE curriculums of many universities. Even SEEK (2004) and SWEBOK (2004) are limited in addressing these issues. In order to get a better view on these dimensions, 26 universities SEE programs are analyzed in this study. 2. SEE programs Saiedian et al. (2002) observed that, the current situation of SE mirrors that of the computer science (CS) field in the 1960s and 1970s in the sense that CS degree programs were initiated by the electrical engineering and mathematics faculty. Similarly, the computing faculties are treating SE today (Saiedian et al. 2002). It is obvious that SE and CS both derive their strength from foundations of CS-like algorithms, discrete mathematical structures, etc. SE has emerged as an independent discipline from CS due to its vast applications, significance, diversity and complexity. Industry-relevant case studies and projects along with industry internship should be an integral component of the SEE curriculum (Saiedian 1999, Wohlin and Regnell 1999). Knowledge of different domains, process, modeling, tools and environments, interdisciplinary studies, management, quality, metrics, ethics and professionalism should also be significant parts of thr SEE curriculum (Hilburn et al. 1999). In the U.S., Monmouth University established the first SE department in 1995 while an undergraduate SEE program was first initiated by Rochester Institute of Technology in 1996 (McConnell and Leonard 1999, Rosca 2005). Since then, many SE programs have been initiated in different universities at undergraduate and graduate levels. An important issue to make SE a mature discipline is the guideline for SEE. Earlier brief guidelines for development of SEE programs were presented by various researchers (Hilburn et al. 1999). Several researchers have been working in the SEE area (Budgen and Tomaykoi 2005, Lethbridge 2000b). IEEE (SE 2004 Volume SEEK) provides the comprehensive and latest guidelines for undergraduate programs in SE. It includes directions for SE curriculum design, delivery, courses and sequences. Other program implementation issues such as faculty, students, infrastructure and industry co-ordination, assessment, accreditation have also been discussed briefly. 2.1 Problems of SEE programs It is believed that, historically, performance of software is poor in meeting society s needs and the practice of SE needs substantial changes (Hilburn and Humphrey 2002). Hilburn and

3 Software engineering education 351 Humphrey (2002) support a drastic change in the approach to SEE in order to consistently provide safe, secure, and reliable systems. In this context, understanding the problems of current SEE will help us to provide more appropriate solutions for it. On the way to becoming a mature discipline, SE has several problems in developing a quality SE program such as (Hilburn and Bagert 1999): SE program as an independent discipline is aspiring to be mature; there is confusion about the difference between computer science and SE; there is a lack of understanding and appreciation among computer science faculty about the need for SEE; and there is little available material on curriculum guidance. Therefore, careful attention must be given to the SEE, which will produce excellent software engineers to enrich the knowledge of society and to benefit mankind in the future. In this regard, several efforts have already been initiated (Hilburn et al. 1999, SEEK 2004, SWEBOK 2004). SWEBOK (2004) has provided information in terms of interdisciplinary courses, although it is not strong on providing comprehensive guidelines for the essential components such as practice experience, communication and continuing education skills which are discussed as weaknesses of the current SE programs (Lethbridge 2000a, Mills and Treagust 2003, Pour et al. 2000, SEEK 2004). The guidelines must get international acceptance (Saiedian et al. 2002, Moore 2002). Accordingly, we have studied several SE programs, current guidelines as well as other related research studies in this field. As a result, we have concluded that the following dimensions are very important for the SEE. We believe that these dimensions are also important for any other engineering discipline; however, the rapidly changing nature of SE makes it more crucial for the field. 3. Proposed dimensions for SEE programs There are several guidelines and studies for the basic and core courses of the SEE. For this reason the main focus of this study will cover the other dimensions (other than the basic and core courses) of SEE. Interdisciplinary skills: SE draws its foundations from a wide variety of disciplines (SEEK 2004). According to Parnas (1999), SE programs must also provide their students with enough knowledge about other areas of engineering so that they will know when to call for help from other engineers and to work well on a team with other types of engineers. In several studies it is also highlighted that the following disciplines are related with SE (Swebok 2004-I- 7, Boehm and Basili 2000): computer engineering, project management, computer science, quality management, management, software ergonomics, mathematics, systems engineering, domain sciences, behavioral sciences, and economics. In SEEK it is highlighted that students should learn some application domains outside SE and importance should be given in organizing the curriculum in such a way that several types of knowledge are learned concurrently (curriculum guideline6&8)(seek 2004). From these studies it is obvious that the curriculum of SE programs should cover some concepts from a wide range of fields. These interdisciplinary concepts should be integrated into the current structure of the curriculum. Therefore, SE topics need to be integrated with different disciplinary lenses instead of providing the students with general courses first and then professional programs later (Evans and Goodnick 2003). General studies should be integrated with professional studies (Evans and Goodnick 2003).

4 352 A. Mishra et al. Practice experience: An additional critical element in the success of SE programs is the involvement and active participation of industry (SEEK 2004). In this context, Wohlin and Regnell (1999) presented strategies for industrially relevant education for software engineers. The next important issue is the need for hands-on experience. The integration of theory and practice into SEE is the fundamental concern (Dart et al. 1997, Hilburn and Humphrey 2002, Saiedian et al. 2002, Parnas 1999). For example, according to Saiedian et al. (2002) SEE must include some practice experience before putting in workforce and handling important design and implementation responsibilities. They also argue that, The education, received on the best engineering practice and techniques to support various software life-cycle activities will benefit a job candidate for a lifetime. Graduates who lack practical competence cannot build useful systems. For example, according to Ford (1994), employers complain that new graduates have insufficient experience and preparation for working as part of a team. Therefore, in addition to solid education programs, proper guidance from industry and professional societies is critical to adequately prepare graduates for entrance into the SE profession (Pour et al. 2000). Industrial-related case studies and projects should be an integral component of SEE (Saiedian 1999). According to Bagert and Mengel (2005) the study of the software process, which is essential to the education of future software professionals, should be provided by using webbased projects throughout the SE curriculum which will also enhance communication skills and interaction between team members. According to observations from Lethbridge s study the following topics are very important for software industry; however students generally could learn these during job learning (Lethbridge 2000a): object-oriented concepts and technologies, requirements gathering and analysis, analysis and design methods, testing verification and quality assurance, project management, human computer interaction/user interfaces, databases, configuration and release management, ethics and professionalism, technical writing, delivering presentations/seminars to an audience, and leadership skills. According to Lethbridge (2000b) there is a need to include these subjects in a curriculum along with real industrial practice. Another important issue with the practice experience is the skills needed to work in groups. In a real environment, people need to work in groups. Kitchenham et al. (2005) also supports several observations of Lethbridge with respect to the over-emphasis of mathematical topics and the under-emphasis on business topics. However, their findings are different from Lethbridge with respect to topics that have a larger knowledge gap. SE students should have skills to work individually as well as on teams to develop and deliver quality software artifacts (SEEK 2004). Teamwork and professional practice play a vital role in SE (SEEK 2004). The importance of professional practice concerned with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that software engineers must possess to practice SE in a profession is also highlighted in SEEK (2004). Communication skills: The need to train software engineers with strong teamwork and communication skills have been stressed repeatedly by the industry world-wide (Heil 1999, Teles

5 Software engineering education 353 and Olivera 2003). Software engineers will be involved in large projects in which communication and interpersonal skills are very important (Cheston and Tremblay 2002, Favela and Pena-Mora 2001). All SE activities need good written and oral presentation skills, besides good documentation skills (SEEK 2004). In this regard, a software engineer needs to be competent in communications, be able to do good documentation and understand appropriate forms of documentation for each activity (Bagert et al. 1999), but they are weak in terms of these skills (Mills and Treagust 2003). According to Ford, even employers from different countries across the globe consistently rank these skills as important as the technical skills to be successful in a corporate environment (Rosca, 2005). They complain that new graduates do not know how to communicate (Ford 1994). A better option is to provide general training in communication skills to all students (Kichenham et al. 2005). SEEK also emphasizes that students should be trained in certain personal skills that transcend the subject matter. Students should learn to communicate well in all contexts, for example in writing, presentations, demonstration of software, and conducting discussions with others. Students should also build listening, cooperation and negotiation skills (SEEK 2004). Skills on continuing education: SE covers a wide range of knowledge and experience. With the inception of internet technologies, areas such as system development, parallel processing, database engineering, data management, network and distributed system security, software architecture and design, programming languages, performance modeling, and graphical user interface design are all becoming associated with SE (Blake 2003). Therefore, the body of knowledge of SE is very large and it is unreasonable to expect a software engineer to know all these concepts, even at the basic or knowledge level. In this context, continuing their education after graduation is very important for the individual working in this field. That is to say, during the formal education students need to develop some skills which will enable them to pursue their own path of learning. These skills include the study skills and habits as well as the ability to plan, initiate and complete a learning process. Professionalism: Professionalism in the field of SE may cover the ethical issues and licenses. In that sense, on the way to becoming a mature discipline SEE needs to cover these issues. In the current situation even though there are some trends towards SE professionalism, the end of the long and winding road is not yet in sight (Pokfulam 2002). 4. Evaluation of SE curriculums according to the proposed dimensions In this study, we have analyzed some pioneer universities B.S. (SE) programs in the context of proposed dimensions. Our main objective was to ascertain their courses under the proposed dimensions. The methodology of this study is summarized in the following section. 4.1 Selection process of the universities As it is really difficult to take care of all the countries and universities, we have tried our best to select pioneer universities around the world awarding B.S. (SE) (The Straits Times, 2004). We have selected the universities which either have independent SE departments or combined CS/Computer Engineering Departments. The universities were selected and found through search engines and then University and Software/Computer Engineering department s home pages were analyzed thoroughly to collect the information about courses. Later on, information from each course was collected from syllabi and analyzed accordingly.

6 354 A. Mishra et al. 4.2 Classifying courses according to proposed dimensions While classifying the courses, we did not include fundamental engineering courses such as mathematics, chemistry, physics and statistics. We simply focused on the courses that are directly or partially related to the SE field apart from core engineering courses. The proposed dimensions can be implemented into the current curriculums explicitly (as a separate course), implicitly (as part of other courses) or a combination of both. In this study, we have only included the courses which explicitly address the proposed dimensions. For classifying the courses according to the proposed dimensions, mainly the course curriculum and syllabus are taken into account. Accordingly, the content of each course is analyzed in the context of proposed dimensions. The major characteristics of the courses are considered for classification. Main issues that are considered for the classification criterion for each category are summarized below. Interdisciplinary skills: While classifying courses, we investigated the courses syllabi carefully to find out whether there were some intersecting subjects or not. For example, the course CSC454H1 The Business of Software is offered by the University of Toronto, Canada. This course aims to teach business aspects of software, principles of operation for successful software enterprises, software manufacturing and support, software marketing and sales management. Practice experience: This classification depends on how much the course requires practical aspects and working for the project. All the courses classified in this title are either summer practices or software project development. It includes both individual and group projects. Communication skills: While classifying these courses, we checked the syllabi to see that these courses require students to prepare presentations, oral and written materials in a formal way. Skills on continuing education: All the courses under this topic are classified according to encouragement of students to independent studies, special topic and self-paced researches in SE. Professionalism: Specific courses organized to provide skills on professionalism in SE are classified under this topic. 4.3 Information gathering The courses included in this study are the ones originally designed to address each of the proposed dimensions. Of course, there are some other core courses or foundation courses of SE which are partially addressing any or some of these dimensions. We did not include these courses in this study. Similarly, there are some courses designed specifically for one of these dimensions and may also include other criteria. For instance, in the Blekinge Institute of Technology, the whole program is built around three practice courses and other dimensions are integrated in these courses. For example, they provide communication skills as an integral part of project courses instead of having communication skills as separate courses. Their experience is that, it is better to integrate different skills into project courses instead of teaching them as an individual course. Therefore, it is extremely complex to compare such different overlapping programs and weigh their different components in this study. We have included these courses in one criterion only, which provides the major objective of the course. For each dimension

7 Software engineering education 355 listed above we counted the number of credit hours required for the program. In some cases this count was less precise because the departmental literature did not specify a precise number of credit hours. However, in most cases the required number of hours was clear. In the U.S. the credit hours earned correspond to time in class per week. Thus, a three credit hour course means three classroom or contact hours per week. The number of hours of work outside the class varies between instructors, institutions and the nature of the course, hence credit hours is only a rough measure of the amount of instructions in a topic. We also counted separately the number of courses and number of the non-credit courses in this study. The data was collected during June July Validation process After completing the comparison table, we sent s to the chair software/computer engineering department of all the selected universities to validate our categorization. We received around 70% responses back from respondents. Accordingly, we had also modified the results in the light of their feedback. Although we had sent a reminder after two weeks, it was also mentioned in the that in case of no reply within one month we will presume that our categorization for the courses against these dimensions is correct. 4.5 Limitations of the study However, there are some limitations to our study. First there is no inclusion of a M.S. program in SE and integrated five years masters degree of SE available in few universities. Second, we could not include those universities where web pages are either not available in English or not available at all. Third, our classification is based on data provided on the websites of the universities. However, we tried to get feedback regarding its validation from all the selected universities. While researching these dimensions in the curricula, we were faced with many difficulties such as: there are no standards in syllabus design. Some syllabi provide only course content. However, it is important to know how to cover the content, how to do group work and with how many students, what subjects the instructor will focus on, which dimensions cover what percentages and such related issues. Some syllabi are even lack of credit or lab information. We tried to gather information that is deficient in syllabi through s. Another problem that we found in this study is credit hours. Some universities follow different credit standards. For example, some courses (CPSC 607 Biological Computation, CPSC 587 Fundamentals of Computer Animation) from University of Calgary have different patterns such as: half, full, quarter course with varying seminar, tutorial, and laboratory information. Another example is UK universities; some of them provide different curricula (optional modules and optional fourth year) with more than 250 credits of courses. For example, each course of SE in Sheffield University has or 20 credits whereas every course in U.S. universities does not exceed 5 credits. 4.6 Universities In this study data from 26 universities have been analyzed. Table 1 lists all these universities and their country information. In this study, most universities are from the USA and Canada. We have studied the universities from the UK as well. But in most cases it is difficult to compare these programs with the ones that we have evaluated here. In the UK most universities provide three-year BSc (SE)

8 356 A. Mishra et al. Table 1. University names and countries. Label University Name Country 03 Australian National University Australia 07 Flinders University Australia 11 Monash University Australia 21 University of Western Australia Australia 06 Concordia University Canada 09 Mc-Gill University Canada 08 McMaster University Canada 16 University of Calgary Canada 17 University of Ottawa Canada 19 University of Toronto Canada 22 University of Waterloo Canada 25 University Erlangen-Nuremberg Germany 02 Auckland University New Zealand 04 Blekinge Institute of Technology Sweden 24 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich Switzerland 05 Bournemouth University UK 26 Coventry University UK 18 University of Oxford UK 23 University of Westminster UK 01 Auburn University USA 10 Milwaukee School of Engineering USA 12 Monmouth University USA 13 Montana Tech USA 14 Rochester Institute of Technology USA 15 San Jose State University USA 20 University of Wisconsin-Platteville USA programs, while in some universities there are provisions of four-year sandwich programs which include one full year paid industrial software development in an organization. Few universities have introduced MS (SE) with five-year integrated options. Various options like B.Sc. (CS SE) are also available. Interestingly, in some universities numbers of options are available to customize the courses in this way in terms of major and minor with computing. For instance, in some British and Irish universities BSc computer applications are also available in lieu of SE. 5. Results In this study we have found 164 courses in 26 universities which can be categorized in one of the proposed dimensions. There are 10 non-credit courses. We could not find the credit hours of 20 courses in five universities (5, 18, 23, 25 and 26). In table 2, we have summarized the course distribution in these universities according to the proposed dimensions. Table 2. Distribution of courses among proposed dimensions. Number of Number of Number of Dimension universities (A) courses (B) A/B Total credit must courses Practice Experience Interdisciplinary Skills Communication Skills Continuing Education Professionalism Total

9 Software engineering education 357 Table 3. Distribution of courses among universities. Interdisciplinary skills Practice experience Communication skills Continuing education Univ. Credit Course Must Credit Course Must Credit Course Must Credit Course Must Total Table 3 summarizes distribution of courses among the universities according to the proposed dimensions. The category of professionalism is not shown in this table, because, we could only find one course in this category which is offered as a one credit must course by Auburn University (01). In the category of Interdisciplinary skills we have found 48 courses (124.5 credit hours) in 21 universities. Only nine of them were must courses. Others are either not specified or described as optional courses. In the context of practice experience, all of the universities that we have analyzed had at least one course except the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (24). In total we have found 85 (283.5 credit hours) such courses. Thirty-seven of them were classified as must courses. In the category of communication skills, we could not find any course in 16 universities. We have found 17 (54.5 total credit hours) courses from 10 universities. Five of these courses were must courses. In the category of continuing education we have found 13 courses (36.5 credit hours) in 8 universities. Two of them were must courses. In the remaining of 18 universities, we could not find any course in this category. 6. Recommendations In order to improve the SEE curriculum we should review the SE programs of the universities that have already adopted some of these dimensions into their curriculums. The mean (average) of courses under professionalism and communication skills categories is 1 and 1.7, respectively (table 2). This shows that at least one course of communication skills and

10 358 A. Mishra et al. one of professionalism should be part of the SEE curriculum. The courses mentioned in the curriculum of these universities can be taken as a model for offering such courses. For the continuing education, universities are offering as a mean around 1.6 courses (table 2). Therefore, there should be at least one such course in the curriculum. Additionally, students should be encouraged to do at least one certification program during their study. Regarding interdisciplinary skills, universities are offering as a mean around two courses (table 2). These courses are offered by several departments of different universities. Accordingly, as an elective, students should take at least two such courses which are offered by the other departments of the university. Universities are offering as a mean around three practice courses (table 2). Therefore, at least three such courses should be part of the SEE curriculum. The instructors role in these courses should be facilitating students to discover new platforms, technologies, software development environments, specific methods and techniques. The main objectives of these courses should be to: practice on SE issues, observe the implementations of what they have learned, make research on new ideas, platforms and methods, learn new software development platforms and technologies, and communicate and present their ideas and work. 7. Conclusion In this study we have performed an extensive literature survey regarding the concerns of SEE programs. According to this survey, we have observed some dimensions which emphasized significant components required for rapidly evolving SE programs. Finally, we studied some major universities undergraduate SE programs according to these dimensions. We observed that many courses in each criterion have been offered by several universities. This finding indicates that the importance of these dimensions have already been acknowledged by some major universities and accordingly implemented in their SE curriculum. However, we could not find any appropriate balance among these dimensions. For example, in Auckland University (2) we have found eight different courses (9 credit hours) in the category of practice experience. In the same university we could find only one course (2 credits) offered in the interdisciplinary skills and no courses in continuing learning and communication skills. We strongly believe that each of these categories is significant in SEE, and therefore there should be guidelines to provide balance among the offered courses in each category. Moreover, distribution of courses in terms of the proposed dimensions, there is a lot of variation among universities. For example, in the University of Wisconsin-Platteville (20) we found four communication skills courses (11 credit hours), but we could not find any such course in the 16 other universities. Similarly, in the Australian National University (3) three courses (15 credit hours) are related to skills on continuing education dimension, whereas there are no such courses in the other 18 universities. It might be possible because of some constraints in terms of infrastructure availability, for example lack of staff and collaboration with other departments within the university. As can be observed from table 3, software project is an integral part of curriculum in almost all universities and universities are stressing the importance of practice experience as first preference among all proposed dimensions in the curriculum. The second is the interdisciplinary skills and the third is communication skills. Very few universities are motivating students towards skills on continuing education. In our opinion it seems that curriculum designers

11 Software engineering education 359 want to keep this option in graduate programs in SE instead of undergraduate courses in SE, so that students can appreciate a better way after having a good general background in computing and allied fields. However, we believe that skills on continuing education are also important for undergraduate programs. Surprisingly, in the case of professionalism we could only find one course, which is offered by Auburn University (01). In fact, these proposed dimensions may apply to any engineering discipline. For this reason it is possible to implement these dimensions into the curriculum of these programs as part of some core courses (by partially addressing these dimensions in other courses). But in the case of SE, the importance of these dimensions is more critical as SE technology is evolving more rapidly in comparison to other engineering branches. We believe that, in SEE these dimensions should be addressed explicitly by specific courses designed for these objectives. There should also be an appropriate balance for providing courses in each dimension. This balance should also cover the amount of must and optional courses in these dimensions as well as the credit hours. Among the universities that we have studied, in the curriculums of the Australian National University (3), the University of Ottawa (17) and the University of Wisconsin-Platteville (20), we have found at least one course in each dimension. This shows us that it is possible to create a curriculum addressing these dimensions in the right proportion. Further studies should include more universities and graduate programs of SE to evaluate these dimensions. Additionally, some studies to provide guidelines regarding the balance of these dimensions need to be undertaken and should be included in the guidelines of SEE. Another interesting study related to jobs placement versus proposed dimensions in universities curriculum may also be done. Professionalism in SE can be a part of future studies. Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge Professor Claes Wohlin, Professor and Pro Vice Chancellor, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden for their insightful comments and appreciate all Chair/Coordinator/Faculty members of Software Engineering/Computer Engineering departments of selected universities for providing valuable feedback and help in the validation process. We would also like to thank the referees for constructive comments and Elzie Cartwright, Communicative English Department of Atilim University, for nicely editing the manuscript. References Bagert, D.J., Hilburn, T.B., Hislop, G. Lutz, M., McCracken, M. and Mengel, S Guidelines for software engineering education version 1.0. Technical report CMU/SEI-99-TR-032, Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Bagert, D.J. and Mengel, S.A., Developing and using a web-based project process throughout the software engineering curriculum. J. Syst. Softw., 2005, 74, Beckman, K., Coulter, N., Khajenouri, S. and Mead, N., Collaborations: closing the industry academy gap. IEEE Softw., 1997, 14(6), Blake, M.B., A student-enacted simulation approach to software engineering education. IEEE Trans. Educ., 2003, 46(1), Boehm, B. and Basili, V.R., Gaining intellectual control of software development. IEEE Comp., 2000, 33(5) May, Budgen, D. and Tomaykoi, J.E., The SEI curriculum modules and their influence: Nor Gibbs legacy to software engineering education. J. Syst. Softw., 2005, 75, Cheston, G.A. and Tremblay, J., Integrating software engineering in introductory computing courses. IEEE Softw., 2002, 19(5) Dart, P., Johnston, L., Schmidt, C. and Sonenberg, L., Developing an accredited software engineering program. IEEE Softw., 1997, 14(6),

12 360 A. Mishra et al. Evans, D.L. and Goodnick, S.M., ECE curriculum in 2013 and beyond: vision for a metropolitan public research university. IEEE Trans. Educ., 2003, 46(4), Favela, J. and Pena-Mora, F., An experience in collaborative software engineering education. IEEE Software, 2001, 18(2), Ford, G.A., Progress Report on Undergraduate Software Engineering Education. CMU/SEI-94-TR-11. Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Heil, M.R., Preparing technical communications for future workplaces: a model that integrates teaming, professional communication skills, and a software development process. In Proceeding of ACM SIGDOC, 1999, New Orleans, Luisiana: pp Hilburn, T.B. and Bagert, D.J., Asoftware engineering curriculum. In ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, November 10 13, 1999, San Juan Puerto Rico, 12a, 4 8. Hilburn, T.B. and Humphrey, W.S., The impending changes in software education. IEEE Softw., 2002, 19(5), Hilburn, T.B., Hislop, G., Bagert, D.J., Lutz, M., Mengel, S. and McCracken, M., Guidelines for the development of software engineering education. J. Syst. Softw., 1999, 2 3, It Cortex, Failure rate statistics over IT projects failure rate, Available online at: Kichenham, B., Budgen, D., Bereton, P. and, Woodall, P., An investigation of software engineering curricula. J. Syst. Softw., 2005, 74, Lethbridge, T.C., What knowledge is important to a software professional? IEEE Comp., 2000a 33(5), Lethbridge, T.C., Priorities for the education and training of software engineers. J. Syst. Softw., 2000b, 53(1), McConnell, S. and Leonard, T., Professional software engineering: fact or fiction? IEEE Softw., 1999, 16(6), Mills, J.E. and Treagust, D.F., Engineering education is problem-based or project-based learning the answer? Australas. J. Engng Educ., 2003 [Online]. Available at: Moore, M.M., Software engineering education. IEEE Softw., 2002, 19(5), 103. Parnas, D.L., Software engineering programs are not computer science programs. IEEE Softw., 1999, 16(6), Pokfulam, R., Software engineering professionalism: is the end of constraints and conflicts in sight? Proceedings of the 26th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference, IEEE, Pour, G., Griss, M.L. and Lutz, M., The push to make software engineering respectable. Computer, 2000, 33(5), Rosca, D., Multidisciplinary and active/collaborative approaches in teaching requirements engineering. Eur. J. Engng Educ., 2005, 30, Saiedian, H., Software engineering education and training for the next millennium. J. Syst. Softw., 1999, 49, Saiedian, H., Bagert, D.J. and Mead, N.R., Software engineering programs: dispelling the myths and misconceptions. IEEE Softw., 2002, 19(5), SEEK, Software Engineering 2004, Curriculum Guides for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Software Engineering. IEEE Computer Society, August, 2004 [Online]. Available: Standish Group, Chaos (application project failure and success), January 1995 (The Standish Group International). Available online at: SWEBOK, Guide to Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK). IEEE Computer Society, 2004 [Online]. Available at: Tales, V.M., Olivera, C. Reviewing the curriculum of software engineering undergraduate courses to incorporate communication and interpersonal skills teaching, In Proceedings of CSEE&T 03, March 2003, Madrid, IEEE Computer Society, pp The Strait Times, NUS beats top US varsities to rank No. 18. The Straits Times, 6 November 2004, p. 3. Wohlin, C. and Regnell, B., Strategies for industrial relevance in software engineering education. J. Syst. Softw., 1999, 49, About the authors Alok Mishra is Assistant Professor of Computer Engineering at Atilim University, Ankara, Turkey. He had his PhD in Computer Science (Software Engineering) besides dual Masters in Computer Science and Applications and Human Resource Management. His areas of interest and research are software engineering, information system, information and knowledge management and object-oriented analysis and design. Extensive experience of distance education related to computers and management courses. He has published articles, book chapters and book reviews related to software engineering and information system in refereed journals, books and conferences including International Journal of Information Management, Government Information Quarterly, Behaviour and Information Technology, Public Personnel Management, European Journal of Engineering Education, International Journal of Information Technology and Management.

13 Software engineering education 361 Nergiz E. Cagiltay, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Computer Engineering Department at Atilim University. She earned a doctorate in Computer Education & Instructional Technologies and Master of Computer Engineering Degree from the Middle East Technical University (METU). Her current research interests are in the areas of instructional systems, distance education, and engineering education. Ozkan Kilic has BSc in Computer Engineering, B.Sc. in Computer Education and Instructional Technologies, M.Sc. in Cognitive Science from Middle East Technical University (METU). He is currently an instructor in the Department of Computer Engineering at Atilim University and a PhD student in Cognitive Science at METU.

14