Introducing Problem-Based Learning in a Joint Masters Degree: Offshoring Information Technologies

International audienceA young offshore software industry has grown up in Morocco. The University of Brest has set up a network of major software companies and Moroccan universities, providing two mobility schemes towards France. Both schemes include a final internship on the French side of global companies, with pre-employment on the Moroccan side - a successful internship being the key that opens the door to recruitment. Student heterogeneity, and student reluctance to move towards a professional attitude are important barriers to employability. Hence, we redesigned a significant proportion of our technical courses to use a problem-based learning (PBL) approach. The PBL approach is illustrated through drawing parallels with the production of a TV series. Three aspects of the approach are presented: (i) set-up of the studio in which sessions are run, i.e. a real software project, its work products and its software development environment; (ii) pre-production tasks including the screenwriting of problem-based learning scenarios and the procurement of input artefacts; and (iii) acting, i.e. students' interpretation of characters (roles) and teacher direction

Improving Requirements Elicitation By Leveraging the Discipline of Screenwriting

As the field of Engineering has expanded, researchers and practitioners have shown increasing interest in the role of high quality Requirements Engineering (RE) in the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and its impact in determining project success. Traditionally, the literature has been dominated by an effort to establish a wider acceptance of the scenario based approach. New ideas, however, are emerging within the past decade which shows researchers presenting various ways that narrative storytelling might be applied to the scenario based approach. This project contributes to the latest wave of literature that looks at narrative and the scenario based approach to requirements. It examines how screenwriting techniques complementary to the Cooperative Requirements Engineering With Scenarios (CREWS) framework could create advantages when building essential scenarios for requirements elicitation. It shows how screenwriting can be a critical solution technology used in the requirements task of elicitation. These findings verify B. Norden\u27s (2007) previously unproven claim that screenwriting techniques can be used in a Requirements Engineering process. This study, for the first time, compiles the work of the two leading screenwriting authorities R. McKee (1997) and S. Field (2005), showing that there is a coherent screenwriting process. Using the well established CREWS framework, the results show that screenwriting methods are a viable way to generate elicitation scenarios

The Cost of Problem-Based Learning: An Example in Information Systems Engineering

International audienceHigh-quality education helps in finding a job - but student skills heterogeneity and student reluctance to move towards a professional attitude are important barriers to employability. We re-engineered some of the technical courses of a Masters in software development using a Problem-Based Learning (PBL) approach. Although initial results are encouraging, the cost of using PBL must be taken into account. Two aspects are particularly expensive: (i) set-up of the software development practicum, a mid-sized information system and its environment; (ii) screenwriting of problem-based learning scenarios, including procurement of input artefacts

‘IMPLICIT CREATION’ – NON-PROGRAMMER CONCEPTUAL MODELS FOR AUTHORING IN INTERACTIVE DIGITAL STORYTELLING

Interactive Digital Storytelling (IDS) constitutes a research field that emerged from several areas of art, creation and computer science. It inquires technologies and possible artefacts that allow ‘highly-interactive’ experiences of digital worlds with compelling stories. However, the situation for story creators approaching ‘highly-interactive’ storytelling is complex. There is a gap between the available technology, which requires programming and prior knowledge in Artificial Intelligence, and established models of storytelling, which are too linear to have the potential to be highly interactive. This thesis reports on research that lays the ground for bridging this gap, leading to novel creation philosophies in future work. A design research process has been pursued, which centred on the suggestion of conceptual models, explaining a) process structures of interdisciplinary development, b) interactive story structures including the user of the interactive story system, and c) the positioning of human authors within semi-automated creative processes. By means of ‘implicit creation’, storytelling and modelling of simulated worlds are reconciled. The conceptual models are informed by exhaustive literature review in established neighbouring disciplines. These are a) creative principles in different storytelling domains, such as screenwriting, video game writing, role playing and improvisational theatre, b) narratological studies of story grammars and structures, and c) principles of designing interactive systems, in the areas of basic HCI design and models, discourse analysis in conversational systems, as well as game- and simulation design. In a case study of artefact building, the initial models have been put into practice, evaluated and extended. These artefacts are a) a conceived authoring tool (‘Scenejo’) for the creation of digital conversational stories, and b) the development of a serious game (‘The Killer Phrase Game’) as an application development. The study demonstrates how starting out from linear storytelling, iterative steps of ‘implicit creation’ can lead to more variability and interactivity in the designed interactive story. In the concrete case, the steps included abstraction of dialogues into conditional actions, and creating a dynamic world model of the conversation. This process and artefact can be used as a model illustrating non-programmer approaches to ‘implicit creation’ in a learning process. Research demonstrates that the field of Interactive Digital Storytelling still has to be further advanced until general creative principles can be fully established, which is a long-term endeavour, dependent upon environmental factors. It also requires further technological developments. The gap is not yet closed, but it can be better explained. The research results build groundwork for education of prospective authors. Concluding the thesis, IDS-specific creative principles have been proposed for evaluation in future work

2002-2004 Course Catalog

2002-2004 Course Catalo

2017-2018 Course Catalog

2017-2018 Course Catalo