Enhancing the CS Curriculum with with Aspect-Oriented Software Development (AOSD) and Early Experience

Aspect-oriented software development (AOSD) is evolving as an important step beyond existing software development approaches such as object-oriented development. An aspect is a module that captures a crosscutting concern, behavior that cuts across different units of abstraction in a software application; expressed as a module, such behavior can be enabled and disabled transparently and non-invasively, without changing the application code itself. Increasing industry demand for expertise in AOSD gives rise to the pedagogical challenge of covering this methodology and its foundations in the computer science curriculum. We present our curricular initiative to incorporate a novel course in AOSD in the undergraduate computer science curriculum at the intermediate level. We also discuss recent and planned efforts to integrate coverage of AOSD into existing courses

Combining low-code programming and SDL-based modeling with snap! in the industry 4.0 context

© 2021 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.One of the main challenges to implement Industry 4.0 technologies within the industrial fabric is the lack of suitable concrete models and tools that demonstrate the potential benefits of embracing the digital transformation process. To overcome this challenge, over the past years, various Industry 4.0 automation and robotics providers have presented solutions based on visual block programming languages, which follow an emerging low-code approach to reduce the entry barriers of digital technologies. However, block-based low-code tools typically lack the formality introduced by specification languages, limiting their ability to model the industrial processes formally. Taking this into account, in this article, we present the combination of specification languages and visual block programming languages to enable industrial users to test and/or build their own Digital Twin models at a suitable abstraction level and with low entry barriers. In particular, we combine SDL and Snap! to create SDL4Snap!, an opensource and web-based tool that facilitates the implementation and validation of Digital Twin prototypes. Overall, the resulting tool has the potential to reduce the entry barrier to Digital Twins in small and medium enterprises, which are part of the late majority and laggard groups regarding the adoption of digital technologies in the context of Industry 4.0.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

UML as a foundation to technology

The UML is becoming the recognized standard for object-oriented modeling. The incorporation of this standard into the curriculum of Information Technology academia appears to be a natural progression. How a course can be implemented and in what force is the primary focus for this thesis. In addition to the academic advantages and necessities of the UML as a foundation course

Interoperability Between ELearning Systems

Online assessments are an integral part of eLearning systems that enhance both distance and continuous education. Although over two-hundred and fifty eLearning applications exist, most educational institutions are trapped with a particular vendor primarily due to lack of in test-question sharing features. This paper highlights the evolution of eLearning systems whilst detailing the two most prominent objective test question standards, namely, QML and QTI. An analysis conducted amongst software houses which are involved in the development of eLearning systems confirms the fact that most applications make use of proprietary formats and clearly shows a lack of import and export options amongst other features

Identifying Employer Needs from Accounting Information Systems Programs

As the need for new hires with accounting and information technology knowledge increases, a new major in accounting information systems (AIS) has emerged. This new AIS degree is a hybrid of accounting concepts and common business subjects combined with key information technology issues. Employers were presented with 56 core content areas found in the curriculum for the AIS major and asked to rate the importance of each. We present the results of the survey along with company demographics. Conclusions are then drawn to determine if the employers are hiring new employees with the necessary knowledge and skills needed to fill these employment trends

Course Development for a College Java Programming Class

This project documents the development of college-level curriculum for an Object Oriented Programming with Java course. The curriculum includes a set of lessons that students work through interactively. The lessons teach the fundamentals of object orientation. A goal of the project is to have students work with the same problem example throughout the entire set of lessons. Most texts on object orientation use several abstract examples which are used in a chapter or two of the text and are often not fully implemented. Each lesson of the project\u27s curriculum presents an iteration of an evolving shape drawing application. Each lesson walks the student through the design and development of a new fully implemented version. The shape drawing application\u27s highly visual nature allows the students to relate the technical concepts to concepts they already understand

A Competence-Based Course Authoring Concept for Learning Platforms with Legacy Assignment Tools

This paper is concerned with several of the most important aspects of Competence-Based Learning (CBL): course authoring, assignments, and categorization of learning content. The latter is part of the so-called Bologna Process (BP) and can effectively be supported by integrating knowledge resources like, e.g., standardized skill and competence taxonomies into the target implementation approach, aiming at making effective use of an open integration architecture while fostering the interoperability of hybrid knowledge-based e-learning solutions. Modern scenarios ask for interoperable software solutions to seamlessly integrate existing e-learning infrastructures and legacy tools with innovative technologies while being cognitively efficient to handle. In this way, prospective users are enabled to use them without learning overheads. At the same time, methods of Learning Design (LD) in combination with CBL are getting more and more important for production and maintenance of easy to facilitate solutions. We present our approach of developing a competence-based course-authoring and assignment support software. It is bridging the gaps between contemporary Learning Management Systems (LMS) and established legacy learning infrastructures by embedding existing resources via Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI). Furthermore, the underlying conceptual architecture for this integration approach will be explained. In addition, a competence management structure based on knowledge technologies supporting standardized skill and competence taxonomies will be introduced. The overall goal is to develop a software solution which will not only flawlessly merge into a legacy platform and several other learning environments, but also remain intuitively usable. As a proof of concept, the so-called platform independent conceptual architecture model will be validated by a concrete use case scenario

Cognitive Effectiveness of Visual Instructional Design Languages

The introduction of learning technologies into education is making the design of courses and instructional materials an increasingly complex task. Instructional design languages are identified as conceptual tools for achieving more standardized and, at the same time, more creative design solutions, as well as enhancing communication and transparency in the design process. In this article we discuss differences in cognitive aspects of three visual instructional design languages (E²ML, PoEML, coUML), based on user evaluation. Cognitive aspects are of relevance for learning a design language, creating models with it, and understanding models created using it. The findings should enable language constructors to improve the usability of visual instructional design languages in the future. The paper concludes with directions with regard to how future research on visual instructional design languages could strengthen their value and enhance their actual use by educators and designers by synthesizing existing efforts into a unified modeling approach for VIDLs