Designing a Serious Game: Teaching Developers to Embed Privacy into Software Systems

Software applications continue to challenge user privacy when users interact with them. Privacy practices (e.g. Data Minimisation (DM), Privacy by Design (PbD) or General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)) and related "privacy engineering" methodologies exist and provide clear instructions for developers to implement privacy into software systems they develop that preserve user privacy. However, those practices and methodologies are not yet a common practice in the software development community. There has been no previous research focused on developing "educational" interventions such as serious games to enhance software developers' coding behaviour. Therefore, this research proposes a game design framework as an educational tool for software developers to improve (secure) coding behaviour, so they can develop privacy-preserving software applications that people can use. The elements of the proposed framework were incorporated into a gaming application scenario that enhances the software developers' coding behaviour through their motivation. The proposed work not only enables the development of privacy-preserving software systems but also helping the software development community to put privacy guidelines and engineering methodologies into practice.Comment:

Possibilities and Challenges of Using Educational Cheminformatics for STEM Education : A SWOT Analysis of a Molecular Visualization Engineering Project

This perspective paper analyses the possibilities and challenges of using cheminformatics as a context for STEM education. The objective is to produce theoretical insights through a SWOT analysis of an authentic educational cheminformatics project where future chemistry teachers engineered a physical 3D model using cheminformatics software and a 3D printer. In this article, engineering is considered as the connective STEM component binding technology (cheminformatics software and databases), science (molecular visualizations), and mathematics (graph theory) together in a pedagogically meaningful whole. The main conclusion of the analysis is that cheminformatics offers great possibilities for STEM education. It is a solution-centered research field that produces concrete artifacts such as visualizations, software, and databases. This is well-suited to STEM education, enabling an engineering-based approach that ensures students’ active and creative roles. The main challenge is a high content knowledge demand, derived from the multidisciplinary nature of cheminformatics. This challenge can be solved via training and collaborative learning environment design. Although the work with educational cheminformatics is still in its infancy, it seems a highly promising context for supporting chemistry learning via STEM education.Peer reviewe

From software engineering to courseware engineering

Proceedings of: 2016 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), 10-13 April 2016, Abu Dhabi, United Arab EmiratesThe appearance of MOOCs has contributed to the use of educational technology in new contexts. As a consequence, many teachers face the challenge of creating educational content (courseware) to be offered in MOOCs. Although some best practices exist, it is true that most of the content is being developed without much thought about adequacy, reusability, maintainability, composability, etc. The main thesis at this paper is that we are facing a "courseware crisis" in the same way as there was a "software crisis" 50 years ago, and that the way out is to identify good engineering discipline to aid in the development of courseware. We need Courseware Engineering in the same way as at those times we needed Software Engineering. Therefore, the challenge is now to define and develop fundamentals, tools, and methods of Courseware Engineering, as an analogy to the fundamentals, tools, and methods that were developed in Software Engineering.The eMadrid Excellence Network is being funded by the Madrid Regional Government (Comunidad de Madrid) with grant No. S2013/ICE-2715. This work also received partial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness Project RESET (TIN2014-53199-C3-1-R) and from the European Erasmus+ projects MOOC-Maker (561533-EPP-1-2015-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP) and SHEILA (562080-EPP-1-2015-BE-EPPKA3-PI-FORWARD). The first author would like to acknowledge fruitful discussions with Martin Wirsing and his group from LMU München during his research stay at this university with a scholarship from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport

An Experience of Game-Based Learning in Web Applications Development Courses

Preparing graduates for working in the software engineering industry is challenging and requires effective learning frameworks and methodologies. More specifically, the challenge of teaching programming languages and paradigms is a very complex task that needs innovative educational tools. This paper presents a game-based educational tool named eLiza, developed and used to support the teaching and learning of programming languages and paradigms related to the development of web applications. eLiza was initially developed as a Moodle-based web application because Moodle is the educational eLearning platform used at the University of Valladolid, but as the use of mobile devices is constantly increasing, Android and iOS versions were created later in order to facilitate the access of the students to the games. This paper describes the main elements and the mechanics in playing eLiza. And it also describes an experience of its use in two engineering courses related to web programming applications development, offered to students in two different engineering study programs at the University of Valladolid, during the academic years 2017-2018 and 2018-2019. The great majority of the students, more than 75%, considered that the use of the eLiza game-based educational tool was positive to improve the teaching and learning process of the topics covered by the courses

Design Thinking in Middle School Classroom

Engineering design is an iterative process that supports the solution of problems by applying scientific knowledge to make informed decisions. Assessing different levels of expertise in experimentation is a difficult task since these are not usually visible as part of a student’s final design solution. The purpose of this research is to investigate and characterize students’ experimentation strategies while working on a design challenge. This research explores the various aspects of engineering design behaviors in middle school students. Questionnaires, observations, CAD software logs and focus group methodology are employed for qualitative and quantitative data collection. R scripts models are used to visualize and characterize patterns within educational data and validate them using statistical techniques. This study reveals interesting aspects of design thinking processes in students, provides recommendations and opens the discussion to engineering educators and researchers who are interested in understanding and assessing students’ experimentation strategies in engineering design

Open TURNS: An industrial software for uncertainty quantification in simulation

The needs to assess robust performances for complex systems and to answer tighter regulatory processes (security, safety, environmental control, and health impacts, etc.) have led to the emergence of a new industrial simulation challenge: to take uncertainties into account when dealing with complex numerical simulation frameworks. Therefore, a generic methodology has emerged from the joint effort of several industrial companies and academic institutions. EDF R&D, Airbus Group and Phimeca Engineering started a collaboration at the beginning of 2005, joined by IMACS in 2014, for the development of an Open Source software platform dedicated to uncertainty propagation by probabilistic methods, named OpenTURNS for Open source Treatment of Uncertainty, Risk 'N Statistics. OpenTURNS addresses the specific industrial challenges attached to uncertainties, which are transparency, genericity, modularity and multi-accessibility. This paper focuses on OpenTURNS and presents its main features: openTURNS is an open source software under the LGPL license, that presents itself as a C++ library and a Python TUI, and which works under Linux and Windows environment. All the methodological tools are described in the different sections of this paper: uncertainty quantification, uncertainty propagation, sensitivity analysis and metamodeling. A section also explains the generic wrappers way to link openTURNS to any external code. The paper illustrates as much as possible the methodological tools on an educational example that simulates the height of a river and compares it to the height of a dyke that protects industrial facilities. At last, it gives an overview of the main developments planned for the next few years

A flexible CubeSat education platform combining software development and hardware engineering

While many secondary schools offer courses or extracurricular activities that focus on satellite engineering, e.g. CanSats or the assembly of ground stations, these projects usually stay close to ground. With SpaceTeamSat1, the TU Wien Space Team wants to enhance this approach and tackle the challenge to perform various experiments in space, enabling students to participate in a space mission that actually orbits our planet. Therefore, our goal is to develop a 1U CubeSat platform, which allows students at secondary schools to access a set of different sensors connected to a Raspberry Pi. Consequently, students can write their own software experiments in Python and exploit the possibilities of sensors in space. In this context, participation happens at different stages: For one, students are getting in contact with Python, which also allows an easy step into software engineering paradigms. Moreover, our team will pose some challenges, such as re-doing an earlier satellite mission and giving impressions about how CubeSats can be used, e.g. to combat climate change. To complete these challenges, the CubeSat is equipped with various sensors such as temperature sensors, gyrometers, magnetometers, as well as two cameras. Moreover, the participating students also have the possibility to design their own experiments independently to leave room for creativity. Further enhancing this educational mission, participating students are also invited to work on hardware topics. This is mainly aimed at engineering schools, which are encouraged to assemble Raspberry Pi HATs which contain the actual mission sensors, as well as a SatNOGS ground station, which also enables students to get an insight on satellite communication. It needs to be considered that the educational mission follows a modular setup since the combination of all individual tasks is not realizable within a single school year. Thus, schools are also able to individually select appropriate tasks. In the past we were already collaborating with the European Space Education Resource Office as we are acting as launch provider of CanSats for ESERO’s Austrian CanSat competition. In this sense, STS1 shall be an extension to the space educational program in Austria. Based on that, we believe that the STS1 mission has a high potential to bring something that is currently out of reach for most people, outer space, closer to a demographic with a lot of talent and enthusiasm for engineering and potential future engineer

Entrepreneurship and pedagogical innovation in the classroom through a Scrum-based educational methodology: a practical learning experience in an undergraduate course in Spain

[EN] Entrepreneurship at school represents a major challenge of today¿s education at different educational levels. Seemingly more conceived for studies at older ages, several contributions have identified its benefits not only in later grades, but also as early as primary school. However, turn this specific objective into reality is not an easy task, as motivating students and making them learn in this field require appropriate tools and methodologies. The literature on entrepreneurship promotion in education has provided a wealth of tools that have brought this knowledge to the youngest students. However, much work remains to be done as student engagement is often difficult to achieve and labour market requirements are constantly evolving. This work attempts to contribute to this topic by explaining the practical learning experience achieved in the subject ¿Fundamentals of Business Administration¿ in the bachelor¿s degree in Informatics Engineering at Universitat Politècnica de València in Spain through the application a SCRUM based educational methodology. SCRUM is a well-known Agile framework, traditionally used in managing software development. It is designed for teams who break their work into actions that can be completed within fixed duration cycles called ¿sprints¿. Each sprint has a main topic and a challenge attached to it. Nevertheless, in this practical experiment, the SCRUM basic fundamentals, initially conceived for the area of software development, are used for its application in the different stages of the product/business design process. More concretely, we apply an educational framework called SCRUM Educational Experience (SEE, 2022), to a group of 57 students of the aforementioned course with the aim of managing the whole process that leads them from scratch to develop a business idea and put it into practice in the market. After the application of the methodology, the results obtained have been very positive as the students have felt motivated throughout the course, the final results of the product/company have been more suitable for the market and the final grades have improved compared to previous courses.Tomas Miquel, JV.; Fota, A.; Rodriguez-Máñez, P.; Gajownik, A. (2022). Entrepreneurship and pedagogical innovation in the classroom through a Scrum-based educational methodology: a practical learning experience in an undergraduate course in Spain. ICERI Proceedings. 2446-2454. https://doi.org/10.21125/iceri.2022.06152446245

Remote laboratories in teaching and learning – issues impinging on widespread adoption in science and engineering education

This paper discusses the major issues that impinge on the widespread adoption of remote controlled laboratories in science and engineering education. This discussion largely emerges from the work of the PEARL project and is illustrated with examples and evaluation data from the project. Firstly the rationale for wanting to offer students remote experiments is outlined. The paper deliberately avoids discussion of technical implementation issues of remote experiments but instead focuses on issues that impinge on the specification and design of such facilities. This includes pedagogic, usability and accessibility issues. It compares remote experiments to software simulations. It also considers remote experiments in the wider context for educational institutions and outlines issues that will affect their decisions as to whether to adopt this approach. In conclusion it argues that there are significant challenges to be met if remote laboratories are to achieve a widespread presence in education but expresses the hope that this delineation of the issues is a contribution towards meeting these challenges