Contextual Requirements Experiences within the Software Enterprise

This paper describes a pedagogical process applied to requirements engineering education in the Software Enterprise, a multi-year software engineering project-based course sequence at Arizona State University. The Software Enterprise emphasizes contextual and accelerated learning through a modular, iterative pedagogical pattern. One course within the Enterprise is specifically dedicated to requirements engineering, with an emphasis on elicitation and quality. This paper presents the Enterprise pedagogical model, describes its application in the requirements engineering course, and discusses how these concepts differ from the other courses within the Enterprise. An example of Enterprise pedagogy in a requirements engineering module is given. Finally, conclusions are drawn regarding the suitability of this approach versus more classically-oriented software engineering courses.