Developing case modules for teaching software engineering and computer science concepts

Although many software engineering (SE) and computer science (CS) texts use case studies to explain the different concepts, these case studies tend to focus on a specific subject such as object oriented design and implementation or requirements analysis and specification. In addition, these case studies usually lack instructor guidelines on how to use the material in teaching these concepts. The Digital Home Case Study addresses these issues by providing a complete set of artifacts associated with software development, and an extensive set of case study exercises for teaching different topics in software engineering and computer science, as well as guidance for instructors on how to use these case modules. In this paper, we motivate the use of the case study approach in teaching SE and CS concepts. We provide a description of the Digital Home case study and the associated artifacts and case modules. We also report on our use of the developed material.