Computing Curriculum-Software Engineering: Its Impacts on Professional Software Engineering Education

The computing curriculum-software engineering (CCSE) volume and its impacts on professional software engineering education are discussed. The CCSE is an excellent cucciculum document that defines the body of knowledge for undergraduate software engineering students. It is perfectly legitimate for CCSE to recommend software engineers to adhere to the guideline in the Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice, that 'software engineers must commit themselves to making software engineering a beneficial and respected profession'. The CCSE Final Report proves to be an excellent and comprehensive curriculum document specifying a body of knowledge for software engineerrs.published_or_final_versionThe 28th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference Proceedings, Hong Kong, China, 28-30 September 2004, v. 1, p. 176-17

‘Follow the Moon’ Development: Writing a Systematic Literature Review on Global Software Engineering Education

This presentation reflects on method and practice in Computer Science Education Research, through introducing the process of conducting a Systematic Literature Review. While Systematic Literature Reviews are an established research method within the Software Engineering discipline, they are a relatively unfamiliar research approach within Computer Science Education. Yet research disciplines can be strengthened by borrowing and adapting methods from other fields. I reflect on the rationale and underlying philosophy behind Systematic Reviews, and the implications for conducting a rigorous study and the quality of the resulting outputs. This chronicle of the journey of an ITiCSE working group, outlines the process we adopted and reflects on the methodological and logistical challenges we had to overcome in producing a review titled Challenges and Recommendations for the Design and Conduct of Global Software Engineering Courses. I conclude by discussing how systematic literature reviews can be adapted to an undergraduate teaching setting

The ethical understanding of entry level engineering and computer science students

Ethics is considered an essential aspect of tertiary computer science and engineering education and forms a core part of professional accreditation for degree providers. The authors have been unable to locate a study in New Zealand on computer science and engineering students’ ethical beliefs, making this study an important exploration in this field. This study investigates the incoming first-year cohort’s beliefs and understanding of ethical issues across three areas: students, future employees and members of society. We conducted the study over two consecutive years to investigate cohort beliefs. For most questions, the students provided high ethical responses, except in the areas of “software piracy and copyright” and “misuse of computer resources”. In one year a small but significant number of female students indicated very low agreement that plagiarism is unethical. This research identified the importance of gaining an insight into student ethical beliefs as cohorts can differ in opinions. The findings challenge the common practice of teaching the same material over multiple years with the recommendation that teaching is adapted to address differences in students’ ethical beliefs

Curriculum innovations through advancement of MEMS/NEMS and wearable devices technologies

State of the art technologies using both micro- and nano-electromechanical systems (MEMS and NEMS) and wearable and Internet of Things (IoT) devices have impacted our daily lives in applications including wearable devices and sensor technology as applied to renewable energies and health sciences, among others. Several examples are device implants, optical devices, micro and nanomachining, embedded systems and integrated nano sensor systems. The recent Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and Mechanical Engineering (ME) curricula lacked inclusion of these elements within their programs. Close scrutiny to the need of local industry from engineering graduates has emphasized the motivation to develop these materials into the engineering curricula. Within the ECE curriculum, a new senior course was developed to cover MEMS/NEMS devices as well as wearable and IoT devices with Bluetooth and wireless features. The MEMS/NEMS module of the new course integrates software CAD tools and hardware implementations. It is a project-based course where students learn software for the device process, then fabricate the device in the school laboratories. The wearable and IoT devices module introduces the students to Wearable and Internet of Things systems. It covers sensors and sensor fusion, embedded processors, tools for wearable and IoT applications, and design using Bluetooth and wireless IoT systems. The new course development objectives are hands-on practice, and preparation of senior students for industrial and research careers. In addition, an introductory MEMS topic section is added in the sophomore level electrical engineering course offered to mechanical engineering students. It introduces MEMS devices employed as energy conversion devices. Based on our recent feedback, the students have favorably accepted this MEMS addition to the course. This paper details the software and hardware development elements of the new course. It also presents the assessment data for students' satisfaction for both the electrical and computer engineering (ECE), and mechanical engineering (ME) students. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2017

Navigating The Leading Edge: A Prototype Curriculum for Software Systems Management

This article presents a meaningful and advantageous new direction for information technology education, embodying principles for systematically optimizing the functioning of the business. Our curriculum was built on the thesis that every aspect of software systems management can be understood and described as a component of four universal, highly correlated behaviors: abstraction, product creation, product verification and validation, and process optimization. Given this, our model curriculum was structured to provide the maximum exposure to current best practice in six thematic areas, which taken together as an integrated set, makes-up the attributes that differentiate us from the other computer disciplines: Abstraction: understanding and description of the problem space Design: models for framing artifact to meet criteria 3, 4, 5, and 6 Process Engineering: application of large models such as IEEE 12207 Organizational Control Systems: SQA and configuration management Evaluation with Measurement: with an emphasis on testing and metrics Construction: professional programming languages with emphasis on reusability Our teaching strategy approaches this as a hierarchy of similar activities. In every course we require the student to define and implement all three interfaces and be able to clearly communicate this as a logically consistent model before working out the details of the solution. The focus of all understanding is top-down from the information interface. Our curriculum centers on the application of software engineering standards (such as those promulgated by IEEE) and the software process improvement, or quality standards (such as those promulgated by SEI and ISO) under the assumption that this embodies the common body of knowledge and state of best practice in software production and management. The practical realization of this is an integration of the large subject areas of: software engineering (methods, models and criteria), process and product quality management (software quality assurance and metrics), software project management (work decomposition, planning, sizing and estimating), and software configuration management. Reconciliation of project and configuration management is accomplished by cross-referencing the problems, tools, notations and solutions (through explicit identification, authorization and validation procedures). As a side agenda, we have also stressed the need for re-engineering the vast number of software products currently on the shelves. This model plus germane simulated real-world experience introduces all of the relevant principles to the student within the (currently understood) framework. It allows them to develop and internalize their own comprehensive understanding and formulate a personal model of the disciplinary body of knowledge

Didactical resources for sustainability

In this paper we discuss the use of computer simulations for sustainable systems. Specifically, we propose laboratory practices for Automatic Control subjects where the plants are sustainable systems. The interest is the simulation of this kind of systems to forecast their behaviour in order to control and actuate over them. In this paper, the use of a didactic material for laboratory practices is explained. This pedagogical resource is published in a web (http://model.upc.edu) where the student can find the practice statements, the explanations and the software to develop sustainable models in form of laboratory practices for the subjects related with simulation and modelling in different engineering degrees, because we have the belief that undergraduate students must receive an Education for Sustainability independently of their career without learning the basic and specifically concepts of the own subject.Postprint (published version