DoIT: dynamic curriculum organisation by innovation through technology

ABSTRACT

This paper describes our innovative web based system, DoIT. DoIT is an acronym for Dynamic Curriculum Organisation by Innovation through Technology. IEEE-CS and ACM have been working on developing a comprehensive body of knowledge on software engineering (SWEBOK) [1]. Carnegie-Mellon Software Engineering Institute [CMU/SEI-99-TR-032] has produced a document that presents some guidelines for using the SWEBOK to support effective curriculum design. Our DoIT project has used the SWEBOK classification to map the core units in our current BSE curriculum against the SWEBOK knowledge key areas. In many engineering disciplines, the accreditation of university curricula and the licensing and certification of practicing professionals are taken very seriously. These are seen as critical to ensure upgrading of course content and structure where warranted to achieve improvements in the level of professional practice. Recognition of the core body of knowledge in a discipline is crucial to the development and accreditation of university curricula. DoIT system has been engineered in a systematic and disciplined manner and allows our Bachelor of Software Engineering students at Monash University to view the key areas of software engineering body of knowledge (SWEBOK) that they learn in their core subjects of study as they progress through our course. The main objective of the system is to provide an Internet facility for the students to learn about what they have learnt in their subjects in terms of SWEBOK objectives. The main inputs to DoIT are the SWEBOK key areas, our BSE core subjects mapped to SWEBOK and BSE student information extracted from Monash' student ORACLE database at the beginning of each new semester of our BSE course. Our BSE students are able to interact with the DoIT system to retrieve a personalized competency profile (PCP) at the completion of each semester of study. The contents visualized through the web site DoIT evolves as the students move through the course and works with up to date information about students. The web-based system, DoIT can be viewed at http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~doit/. The learning outcomes from DoIT can be considered from three perspectives [2]. It is about:

• Students' learning about what they have learnt in terms of course content shown as knowledge areas covered in SWEBOK objectives.
• Lecturing staff and curriculum designers able to track the curriculum and see how the various topics relate together, and ascertain if there are any overlaps and gaps in knowledge.
• The educational institution able to see the organisational knowledge assets in terms of graduate capabilities from our course.

REFERENCES

• 1: Dupuis, R. et al. A Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge: A Straw Man Version. {CMU-SEI-99-TR032} Los Alamitos, California: IEEE Computer Society, Sept. 1998
• 2: Ramakrishnan, S and Cambrell, A. An In-forming Web-based Environment for a Bachelor of Software Engineering Degree -- DoIT, Informing Science & IT Education Joint Conference (InSITE), Cork, Ireland, June 19--21, 2002

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux

Additional Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
          Subjects: Computer science education; Accreditation; Information systems education; Curriculum