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Durham Software Engineering Group Projects

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... tools, such as BSCW, Blackboard, various design tools, SCM systems, etc. ... BSCW: http://bscw.gmd.de. Blackboard: http://www.blackboard.com ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Durham Software Engineering Group Projects


1
Durham Software Engineering Group Projects
  • Cornelia Boldyreff
  • Department of Computer Science
  • University of Durham

2
Content
  • SEG (Software Engineering Group projects)
  • Structure of projects, process model and
    deliverables, overall philosophy of SEG
  • Introduction of groupware support
  • BSCW
  • Blackboard
  • Reflections challenges, observations, conclusions

3
Software Engineering Group (SEG) projects at
Durham
  • Development of software through the phases of the
    software lifecycle provides practical
    application of theory covered in SE lectures
  • 15 week duration
  • Approx. 100 students in small groups (5 to 7)
  • One tutor/customer/consultant per group
  • Strict deadlines for group deliverables (written
    in prescribed formats) at each phase.

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5
SEG philosophy
  • Industrial-like conditions - hard deadlines,
    groups treated as companies, staff act as
    customer, weekly timesheets, department
    provides bookable offices in SE Lab, CS, Ltd.
    company standards based on IEEE standards,
    project support environment and tools
  • Common project across all groups with associated
    practicals on common aspects - cost estimation,
    risk analysis, group organisation, project
    planning, configuration management, traceability,
    and introducing and providing groupware to
    support group work
  • The project is technically challenging, but the
    emphasis on SEG is broader than the technical
    development of deliverables.
  • Group working and project management are
    emphasized.

6
Support for SEG
  • Dedicated SEG collaborative working laboratory
    with office areas
  • Creation of a virtual environment for student
    group work SEGWorld based on BSCW (Basic
    Support for Cooperative Work)
  • On-line SE notes (web-based, now on Blackboard)
    and examples of previous years work available
  • Staff tutors and student project managers (a
    recent innovation).

7
BSCW supporting SEG
  • Central repository for work artifacts (including
    SE individual tasks)
  • Simple work-flow mechanism
  • Awareness of other members activities (historical
    trail)
  • Functionality to support some SE activities
    (document creation/editing/versioning)
  • Practical experience of using groupware

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11
BSCW Successes
  • Provides a simple work-flow mechanism
  • An awareness of group activities for both members
    and staff has proved very useful
  • Students have gained valuable experience using
    groupware can appreciate the design challenges
    in such systems
  • Additional functionality through dev. of CGI
    scripts for on-line marking
  • Introduction of CSCW module in curriculum
    covering CSCW applied to SE

12
BSCW Adoption Issues
  • Initial student motivation poor due to - lack of
    experience?
  • Poor response times of server students
    preferred to use their SEG Unix filespace as
    workspace
  • Security issues resulted in students not being
    able to access SEGWorld from outside the
    University
  • Short-term maintenance requires support - both
    administrative and technical this was
    partially resolved
  • Long-term evolution requires committed management
    and sufficient resources - new server purchased
    and response time improved., but support has been
    problematic.

13
Blackboard
  • University has supported campus wide use of
    Blackboard (Durham University Online or DUO)
  • DUO is an integrated learning environment
    offering not only facilities to structure
    learning content (web-pages, lecture notes, CAL
    applications, audio, video clips), but also
    provide student management, communication and
    assessment tools, and a range of other useful
    functions
  • SEG partially moved from BSCW to DUO.

14
SEGs using DUO. What happened?
  • Excellent one stop shop ITS, Library, Modules
  • Has features to support some group interaction
    e.g. file exchange, but no configuration
    management
  • SE students hardly used DUO WWW and Unix group
    file space preferred
  • Inflexible in supporting submission of
    deliverables
  • BSCW is generic groupware designed specifically
    to support groups. DUO is generic groupware
    designed to do many functions with group support
    being minor NEITHER are designed specifically
    for SE activities
  • Where do we go from here ..? Maybe an Open
    Source /Collaborative Software Development
    system, e.g. GENESIS!

15
Challenges
  • Staff continuity and training role of SPM
    students (student project managers with SE staff
    tutors) might address this
  • Retaining and developing industrial sponsorship
    and achieving more extensive industrial input to
    projects
  • Maintaining the high quality of and suitability
    of projects for SEG year on year
  • Accommodating foreseen and unforeseen impacts of
    changes to SE module and other modules
  • Obtaining sustained funding for SEG project
    administration and support for infrastructure
    (hardware and software, offices)

16
Observations
  • SEG provides students with practically valuable
    experience of software engineering.
  • For many students, this is the most popular part
    of their second year studies.
  • Students (and staff!) gain experience of various
    supporting tools, such as BSCW, Blackboard,
    various design tools, SCM systems, etc.
  • For many students, this is their first experience
    of group working and their largest system
    development project to date.

17
Conclusions
  • Definitely worthwhile over all
  • SPI linked to CMM, Team Software Process and
    Personal SP
  • Like SPI, continuous process improvement is
    always possible
  • Benefits outweigh drawbacks
  • Obvious benefits for students and industry, but
    also benefits for staff and department
  • Still learning plenty of challenges

18
Further information
  • SEG and JTAP publications
  • http//www.dur.ac.uk/sarah.drummond/papers
  • BSCW http//bscw.gmd.de
  • Blackboard http//www.blackboard.com
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