CODILA: A Collaborative and Distributed Learning Activity applied to software engineering courses in Latin American Universities

Software engineering education has been recognized as an important challenge in computer science undergraduate programs. Instruction in such area requires not only to deliver theoretical knowledge, but also to perform practical experiences that allow students to assimilate and apply such knowledge. This paper introduces a computer-supported Collaborative and Distributed Learning Activity (CODILA) that has been used to allow undergraduate students to acquire not only particular knowledge on software engineering, but also specific competencies or skills to collaborate in a distributed development team. The article also presents two experiences in which CODILA was applied. Such experiences involved students and instructors from five Latin American Universities. The obtained results were satisfactory and indicate this collaborative learning activity could be appropriate to address the instructional process in other disciplines.