Gil Taran

Using Games in Software Engineering Education to Teach Risk Management

An innovative board game was developed at Carnegie Mellon Universitys Master in Software Engineering Program to teach risk management concepts. Piloted in two separate courses dealing with software project risk management, the goal of the game was to enhance practical learning and decision making through simulating a software development project. This activity was then compared to others used in the class, specifically lectures and case discussions, to assess its effectiveness in meeting learning objectives. The results clearly demonstrate the advantages of using a game method in teaching software engineering concepts. Findings will discuss how the game compares to other teaching activities in the classroom in terms of conveying relevant information, help in concept understanding and learning enjoyment.

Explicit Risk Management in Agile Processes

This paper explores the implicit nature of risk management in agile processes. It discusses why current techniques for managing risks in agile processes are not sufficient and how the processes can benefit from more explicit techniques. This is supported by the authors’ experience with an industry project that was managed using Scrum. Initially, risks in the project were managed implicitly as is typical with agile processes, but more explicit techniques were adopted as the project progressed. The paper will discuss these techniques, mechanisms for incorporating them into agile processes, and lessons learned.

Software Engineering Education in Russia: A Comparative Study of People, Process and Technology a Four Year Perspective

The Master of Software Engineering Program at Carnegie Mellon University initiated in 2003 a software engineering education lecture series in Russia to introduce enduring principles and industry best practices for software development and software project management. Through a system of multi-day corporate/public workshops and a methodology for training local trainers to re-teach the material, the seminars have been successfully attended by practicing engineers from all over Russia, the Ukraine and Belarus. Our experiences of interacting with the Russian software industry provides an in-depth look at how software practitioners and executives in Russia approach issues of dealing with people, process and technology, and how the industry has changed from an educational perspective over the past four years since we had started.

Exporting Studio: Critical Issues to Successfully Adopt the Software Studio Concept

In 1989 the professional masters of software engineering (MSE) program at Carnegie Mellon initiated a new approach to graduate level software projects: the software development studio. In 2002 the studio concept was first exported under a cooperative program to teach software engineering at an international partner university. However, CMU quickly determined that student projects, at this partner, lacked progress compared to their CMU counterparts. This paper will focus on the critical lessons that were learned from this ldquoexportrdquo that not only has helped this partnership but also others that are just starting.

Continuing Challenges in Selecting Industry Projects for Academic Credit: Points to Consider and Pitfalls to Avoid

Many academic programs use industrial projects within their teaching curriculum. These provide an exposure to real customers, challenging problems currently faced by industry and the opportunity to interact with working professionals in a situation driven by quality, schedules, and users. Selecting projects that fit todaypsilas academic environment, is a constant challenge. This paper presents how at Carnegie Mellon we have refined our project selection criteria to provide a better fit between our needs and those of our industrial partners. Criteria, issues to consider and pitfalls to avoid in the project selection process will be discussed.

Software Engineering Leadership: A Student Initiative to Promote Change Agents in Industry

Most academic programs in software engineering teach the topic of leadership through lectures intertwined across the curriculum or through project components where students are expected to lead various team efforts. Unfortunately teaching leadership in such a way does not seem to provide the right amount of practical skills and abilities to allow students to assume leadership positions in industry after graduation. A student led, faculty backed leadership initiative at Carnegie Mellon’s Master of Software Engineering Program (MSE) was created to overcome these challenges by providing the environment, the opportunity and the challenges that will in turn challenge students to acquire the necessary skills. This paper is a reflection on this initiative and its usefulness for students, faculty and industry alike.

Improving Distance Mentoring: Challenges and How to Deal with them in Global Development Project Courses

In an attempt to provide real-world industrial experience, an increasing number of academic programs are broadening their portfolio to include global development projects. In these projects, the customer, the team or even the faculty are in different locations than those of their students creating a set of real world experiences and educational challenges. Various project elements such as asynchronous communications, remote assessment, and required knowledge transfer make effective learning challenging and problematic. To understand how to help faculty members overcome some of these challenges, faculty at Carnegie Mellon have studied recent and past projects specifically where clients, and/or faculty advisors were not co-located with their students. This paper presents some of their findings, provides recommendations and explains where specific attention is required for project and learning success.

Using Rich Multimedia Case Studies: Developing a Scalable Authoring Platform for Academia and Industry

The use of case studies in teaching software engineering has been steadily growing in recent years. Rich opportunities exist in both academia and industry to capture project data and turn it into learning opportunities. Unfortunately, no easy-to-use tool exists to help authors with the task of transforming un-edited material into an assembled, pre-packaged case. A recent project at Carnegie Mellon University aims to overcome much of this challenge by developing an authoring platform for case studies. Its goal is to provide academics and industry professionals alike with a framework and tool set to create various types of multimedia case studies with enhanced user interaction and decision making capabilities. These cases may then appeal to a large diverse audience and in turn, by leveraging the internet as a distribution mechanism, help increase the reach of educational content globally.

Multimedia Case Studies in Software Engineering: A Look at MDM CAP: A Case Authoring Platform for Education and Training

Multimedia Case Studies in Software Engineering: A Look at MDM CAP: A Case Authoring Platform for Education and Training Gil Taran Carnegie Mellon University gtaran@cs.cmu.edu Vasudeva Varma, Kirti Garg IIIT Hyderabad vv@iiit.ac.in, kirti@research.iiit.ac.in Session Description Case studies are a powerful teaching technique and an effective way to learn about how to make decisions on software projects and how to analyze and learn from real life scenarios. Multimedia cases provide an even more captivating way for learners to use the case study approach through an engaging interactive experience that enhances learning and makes it more enjoyable. A recent project at Carnegie Mellon University developed an authoring platform for case studies. Its goal was to provide academics and industry professionals alike with a framework and tool set to create various types of multimedia case studies with enhanced user interaction and decision making capabilities. IIIT Hyderabad has been using case studies as learning and teaching tools for SE education. Action research at IIIT Hyderabad has confirmed the effectiveness of case studies for teaching SE. In this session educators and trainers will be exposed to creating multimedia cases using the MDM-CAP tool developed for that purpose. Participants will be able to choose between creating a sequential case or a “choose your own adventure” case where decisions have to be made by learners in every step of the way. Session Objectives Participants will: • Understand how to use case studies, in various formats (sequential and adventure) in the classroom for teaching software engineering. • Create case studies using the MDM CAP authoring tool and then see how it would look to a student using the viewer platform 22nd Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training

A Training Process for Faculty Members in Collaborative Degree Programs: Design, Implementation and Feedback

Collaborative degree programs in software engineering are becoming more common as universities try to expand their offering globally and leverage their knowledge and expertise.Faculty training program intended to help academics learn how to teach courses from collaborating institutions is a complicated undertaking considering the need to pass along course material, the ‘spirit’ of how the courses are taught and the quality standards to which they must adhere. Carnegie Mellon University developed a training process for teaching faculty members in its joint software engineering programs in India, Korea and Portugal. The process, its implementation and the feedback of using it with our overseas partners will be explored and described in detail.