Group projects in software engineering degrees

A significant difficulty with the teaching of software engineering is providing an appropriate environment in which students can practice their software engineering skills. Considerable educational benefit can be gained by the students addressing real problems of a scale which requires team working and direct input from industry. The paper describes some experiences on the B. Eng and M. Eng courses at UMIST. The foci of the courses are towards the manufacturing industries rather than business and commerce, and this flavours the nature of the project work undertaken. The software engineering course is comparatively young, but is very closely aligned with a much more established degree in microelectronic systems engineering. This also has a significant software engineering component, and students on the two degrees collaborate on project work, drawing on the respective skills of each stream.<>