Teaching Practical Software Engineering and Global Software Engineering: Case Study and Recommendations

In this paper we present the innovative methods and experiences from several years of teaching practical software (SW) engineering at the Computer Science Departments of San Francisco State University (SFSU), USA in conjunction with the University of Applied Sciences, Fulda University, Germany. The key objectives and desired outcomes of our course were to train future SW developers, technical leads and managers in practical SW engineering practices, including global SW engineering, where team members work in different locations. Our key approach was to combine and synchronize class teaching about SW engineering methods and processes with actual SW development work in a setting designed to simulate a small SW company. Students were divided in "local" groups of 4-6 members, each forming a small SW "company" in charge of developing a complete working WWW application as a final class project. Several groups of students at SFSU were "virtually" paired with groups of students at Fulda University, whom they never met face to face, to form "global" groups, thus simulating global SW engineering in a realistic setting. Students developed their final projects incorporating five well-defined milestones typical for SW development lifecycle. All student groups (including global ones) produced impressive final project applications and gave very positive feedback on this class