2,440 research outputs found

    Involving External Stakeholders in Project Courses

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    Problem: The involvement of external stakeholders in capstone projects and project courses is desirable due to its potential positive effects on the students. Capstone projects particularly profit from the inclusion of an industrial partner to make the project relevant and help students acquire professional skills. In addition, an increasing push towards education that is aligned with industry and incorporates industrial partners can be observed. However, the involvement of external stakeholders in teaching moments can create friction and could, in the worst case, lead to frustration of all involved parties. Contribution: We developed a model that allows analysing the involvement of external stakeholders in university courses both in a retrospective fashion, to gain insights from past course instances, and in a constructive fashion, to plan the involvement of external stakeholders. Key Concepts: The conceptual model and the accompanying guideline guide the teachers in their analysis of stakeholder involvement. The model is comprised of several activities (define, execute, and evaluate the collaboration). The guideline provides questions that the teachers should answer for each of these activities. In the constructive use, the model allows teachers to define an action plan based on an analysis of potential stakeholders and the pedagogical objectives. In the retrospective use, the model allows teachers to identify issues that appeared during the project and their underlying causes. Drawing from ideas of the reflective practitioner, the model contains an emphasis on reflection and interpretation of the observations made by the teacher and other groups involved in the courses. Key Lessons: Applying the model retrospectively to a total of eight courses shows that it is possible to reveal hitherto implicit risks and assumptions and to gain a better insight into the interaction...Comment: Abstract shortened since arxiv.org limits length of abstracts. See paper/pdf for full abstract. Paper is forthcoming, accepted August 2017. Arxiv version 2 corrects misspelled author nam

    The Hatchery: An Agile and Effective Curricular Innovation for Transforming Undergraduate Education

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    The Computer Science Professionals Hatchery utilizes strong partnerships with industry and a vertically integrated curriculum structure, embedding principles of ethics and social justice and diversity, to create a nurturing, software company environment for students that also provides tools to allow them to take on the challenges of real-life company environment. The goal is to produce graduates who are well-rounded, who have a shorter pathway to full productivity after graduation, who can be leaders, and who can operate as agents of positive change in the companies where they work

    Opiskelijoiden valmistaminen työelÀmÀÀn yliopiston sisÀisen ohjelmisto-startupin avulla

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    Tertiary education aims to prepare computer science students for the working life. While much of the technical principles are covered in lower-level courses, team-based capstone projects are a common way to provide students hands-on experience and teach soft skills. Although such courses help students to gain some of the relevant skills, it is difficult to simulate in a course context what work in a professional software engineering team really is about. Our goal is to understand ways tertiary education institutions prepare students for the working life in software engineering. Firstly, we do this by focusing on the mechanisms that software engineering capstones use to simulate work-life. A literature review of 85 primary studies was conducted for this overview. Secondly, we present a more novel way of teaching industry-relevant skills in an university-lead internal software startup. A case study of such a startup, Software Development Academy (SDA), is presented, along with the experiences of both students and faculty involved in it. Finally, we look into how these approaches might differ. Results indicate that capstone courses differ greatly in ways they are organized. Most often students are divided in teams of 4–6 and get assigned with software projects that the teams then develop from an idea to a robust proof-of-concept. In contrast, students employed in the SDA develop production-level software in exchange for a salary for university clients. Students regarded SDA as a highly relevant and fairly irreplaceable educational experience. Working with production-quality software and having a wide range of responsibilities was perceived integral in giving a thorough skill set for the future. In conclusion, capstones and the internal startup both aim to prepare students for the work-life in software engineering. Capstones do it by simulating professional software engineering in a one-semester experience in a course environment. The internal startup adds a touch of realism to this by being actual work in a relatively safe university context

    A TDD approach to introducing students to embedded programming

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    Experiential Learning in the Technology Disciplines February 2020

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    Learning-by-doing has long been a tradition in the technology disciplines. It is the hands-on work, combined with student reflection, feedback and assessment, that reinforces theory into practice. Over the past 40 years, experiential learning (EL) in higher education has grown beyond in-class assignments to include internships, cooperative education, team-based learning, project-based learning, community engagement, service learning, international and study-away experiences, capstone projects and research opportunities. This paper provides an overview of experiential education theory and practice in the undergraduate technology disciplines, and presents examples of how experiential learning practices have evolved over time at a medium-sized institution in the Northeast USA. In addition, this paper offers instructors theoretical strategies to improve the hands-on work that is likely already present in their courses

    (MU-CTL-01-12) Towards Model Driven Game Engineering in SimSYS: Requirements for the Agile Software Development Process Game

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    Software Engineering (SE) and Systems Engineering (Sys) are knowledge intensive, specialized, rapidly changing disciplines; their educational infrastructure faces significant challenges including the need to rapidly, widely, and cost effectively introduce new or revised course material; encourage the broad participation of students; address changing student motivations and attitudes; support undergraduate, graduate and lifelong learning; and incorporate the skills needed by industry. Games have a reputation for being fun and engaging; more importantly immersive, requiring deep thinking and complex problem solving. We believe educational games are essential in the next generation of e-learning tools. An extensible, freely available, engaging, problem-based game platform that provides students with an interactive simulated experience closely resembling the activities performed in a (real) industry development project would transform the SE/Sys education infrastructure. Our goal is to extend the state-of-the-art research in SE/Sys education by investigating a game development platform (GDP) from an interdisciplinary perspective (education, game research, and software/systems engineering). A meta-model has been proposed to provide a rigourous foundation that integrates the three disciplines. The GDP is intended to support the semi-automated development of collections of scripted games and their execution, where each game embodies a specific set of learning objectives. The games are scripted using a template based approach. The templates integrate three approaches: use cases; storyboards; and state machines (timed, concurrent, hierarchical state machines). The specification templates capture the structure of the game (Game, Acts, Scenes, Screens, Challenges), storyline, characters (player, non-player, external), graphics, music/sound effects, rules, and so on. The instantiated templates are (manually) transformed into XML game scripts that can be loaded into the SimSYS Game Play Engine. As a game is played, the game play events are logged; they are analyzed to automatically assess a player’s accomplishments and automatically adapt the game play script. Currently, we are manually defining a collection of games. The games are being used to ensure the GDP is flexible and reliable (i.e., the prototype can load and correctly run a variety of game scripts), the ontology is comprehensive, and the templates assist in defining well-organized, modular game scripts. In this report, we present the initial part of an Agile Software Development Process game (Act I, Scenes 1 and 2) that embodies learning objectives related to SE fundamentals (requirements, architecture, testing, process); planning with Gantt charts; working with budgets; and selecting a team for an agile development project. A student player is rewarded in the game by getting hired, scoring points, or getting promoted to lead a project. The game has a variety of settings including a classroom, job fair, and a work environment with meeting rooms, cubicles, and a water cooler station. The main non-player characters include a teacher, boss, and an evil peer. In the future, semi-automated support for creating new game scripts will be explored using a wizard interface. The templates will be formally defined, supporting automated transformation into XML game scripts that can be loaded into the SimSYS Game Engine. We also plan to explore transforming the requirements into a notation that can be imported into a commercial tool that supports Statechart simulation

    Teaching agile methodologies in a project management course

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    [EN] The increasingly dynamic, competitive and volatile business environment that characterizes today’s marketplace demands for rapid delivery of high-quality outcomes, aligning development with customer needs and company goals. Agile methodologies have gained widespread popularity due to their easy implementation and adaptability to different industrial contexts. Although these methodologies originally emerged in the software and computer science field, they have been rapidly imported to other disciplines such as management and business. This paper describes an activity developed in a Project Management course during the academic year 2016/17. The activity is designed with the objective of not only teaching students agile methodologies (and scrum in particular), but also to allow them understand the basis of such methodologies by implementing a class project. The activity details as well as students’ perceptions are analyzed and discussed. The feedback collected indicates that students positively valued the activity and that they believe that through this activity they have been able to learn the fundamentals of agile methodologies.Berbegal-Mirabent, J.; Gil-DomĂ©nech, D.; Berbegal-Mirabent, N. (2017). Teaching agile methodologies in a project management course. En Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Higher Education Advances. Editorial Universitat PolitĂšcnica de ValĂšncia. 312-320. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD17.2017.5181OCS31232

    ARCHITECTURE FOR A CBM+ AND PHM CENTRIC DIGITAL TWIN FOR WARFARE SYSTEMS

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    The Department of the Navy’s continued progression from time-based maintenance into condition-based maintenance plus (CBM+) shows the importance of increasing operational availability (Ao) across fleet weapon systems. This capstone uses the concept of digital efficiency from a digital twin (DT) combined with a three-dimensional (3D) direct metal laser melting printer as the physical host on board a surface vessel. The DT provides an agnostic conduit for combining model-based systems engineering with a digital analysis for real-time prognostic health monitoring while improving predictive maintenance. With the DT at the forefront of prioritized research and development, the 3D printer combines the value of additive manufacturing with complex systems in dynamic shipboard environments. To demonstrate that the DT possesses parallel abilities for improving both the physical host’s Ao and end-goal mission, this capstone develops a DT architecture and a high-level model. The model focuses on specific printer components (deionized [DI] water level, DI water conductivity, air filters, and laser motor drive system) to demonstrate the DT’s inherent effectiveness towards CBM+. To embody the system of systems analysis for printer suitability and performance, more components should be evaluated and combined with the ship’s environment data. Additionally, this capstone recommends the use of DTs as a nexus into more complex weapon systems while using a deeper level of design of experiment.Outstanding ThesisCivilian, Department of the NavyCommander, United States NavyCivilian, Department of the NavyCivilian, Department of the NavyCivilian, Department of the NavyCivilian, Department of the NavyCivilian, Department of the NavyCivilian, Department of the NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

    Benchmark Portfolio for SOFT 261: Software Engineering IV

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    This benchmark portfolio documents the course objectives, teaching strategies, and assessments for the inaugural offering of SOFT 261: Software Engineering IV at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). This is the final course in the core sequence of software engineering courses taken by students in the new undergraduate program in software engineering at UNL. These courses teach fundamental computer science concepts in the broader context of engineering software. As an ACE (Achievement-Centered Education) 2 course, the instructional material in SOFT 261 is focused on teaching visual communications skills in the context of applying software engineering processes to a real-world software project. This portfolio describes the course objectives and how this course fits into the broader context of software engineering education at UNL. It also describes the instructional strategies used to teach visual communications embedded in a software engineering course and the assessments used to evaluate student learning. This portfolio also analyzes student learning to assess the effectiveness of the teaching strategies and course materials. Finally, this portfolio reflects on the intellectual challenges of designing and teaching a visual communications course specifically for software engineering majors that incorporates team-based, hands-on learning working with and communicating with software developers on a large open-source project
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