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A Two-Course Sequence of Real Projects for Real Customers

Published: 08 March 2017 Publication History

Abstract

Since 2012, over 1,100 students at our institution have participated in software engineering courses in which they had the opportunity to partake in "real projects for real customers." Unlike typical one-semester courses or yearlong capstones, our approach is unique in that we offer a two-course sequence in which one group of students develops the initial implementation in the first course and different students maintain and improve the code in the second. This paper presents our experiences in teaching these courses and serves as a blueprint for other educators who wish to create similar interventions for their students over a two-course sequence. In addition to describing our motivation and the structure of the courses, we discuss how we address issues of scale by using students as Project Managers and the benefits of doing so. We also present empirical evidence that the projects help students feel more confident working in groups, using the agile development process, and working with a real-world customer.

References

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Cited By

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  • (2024)Enhancing Student Engagement in Large-Scale Capstone Courses: An Experience ReportProceedings of the 2024 on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3649217.3653580(722-728)Online publication date: 3-Jul-2024
  • (2022)Database Service-learning Projects: Addressing Community Needs While Measuring and Meeting Computer Science Learning Outcomes2022 10th International Conference on Information and Education Technology (ICIET)10.1109/ICIET55102.2022.9779002(239-243)Online publication date: 9-Apr-2022
  • (2022)Assessing individual contributions to software engineering projects: a replication studyComputer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2022.207154332:3(335-354)Online publication date: 17-May-2022
  • Show More Cited By

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cover image ACM Conferences
SIGCSE '17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
March 2017
838 pages
ISBN:9781450346986
DOI:10.1145/3017680
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 08 March 2017

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  1. real-world clients
  2. real-world projects
  3. software engineering

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SIGCSE '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 105 of 348 submissions, 30%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 1,595 of 4,542 submissions, 35%

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Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Enhancing Student Engagement in Large-Scale Capstone Courses: An Experience ReportProceedings of the 2024 on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3649217.3653580(722-728)Online publication date: 3-Jul-2024
  • (2022)Database Service-learning Projects: Addressing Community Needs While Measuring and Meeting Computer Science Learning Outcomes2022 10th International Conference on Information and Education Technology (ICIET)10.1109/ICIET55102.2022.9779002(239-243)Online publication date: 9-Apr-2022
  • (2022)Assessing individual contributions to software engineering projects: a replication studyComputer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2022.207154332:3(335-354)Online publication date: 17-May-2022
  • (2021)Teaching Embedded Systems by Constructing an Escape RoomProceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/3408877.3432485(1103-1109)Online publication date: 3-Mar-2021
  • (2021)Evaluating Commit, Issue and Product Quality in Team Software Development ProjectsProceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/3408877.3432362(108-114)Online publication date: 3-Mar-2021
  • (2020)Google tech exchangeJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/3417699.341770635:10(46-52)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2020
  • (2020)Smartwatch-Centered Design and Development in Mobile Computing Classes2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE44824.2020.9274280(1-7)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2020
  • (2019)Redesigning a Software Development Course as a Preparation for a CapstoneProceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/3287324.3287498(153-159)Online publication date: 22-Feb-2019
  • (2019)Applying a Traditional Software Development Process to Drive Projects in Higher Education2019 45th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA)10.1109/SEAA.2019.00054(309-316)Online publication date: Aug-2019
  • (2018)Capstones and Large Projects in Computing EducationACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/322988218:2(1-4)Online publication date: 11-Jul-2018
  • Show More Cited By

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