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Undergraduate Software Engineering Programs in the United States

(in 2003)

Mark A. ArdisRose-Hulman Institute of Technology

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Acknowledgements

• Most of this presentation was originally given at FIE 2003 with Don Bagert

http://fie.engrng.pitt.edu/fie2003/papers/1294.pdf

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Profile of SE Degree Programs

EngineeringCollege

School ofSciences

School ofComputing

Other

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3 22

18 of 21 programs in 2002-3

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Departments

CS ECE JointCS/ECE

SE CollegeLevel

5

3

1

3

6

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Curriculum Content

• Computer Science– All required:

• Intro CS sequence• Organization/assembly languages

– About half required:• Operating Systems• Concepts of Programming Languages• Database Systems• Networks

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Curriculum Content - 2

• Software Engineering– Average of six courses per program– All required capstone experience– More than half have 1-2 SE intro courses– Most required SE architecture or design– Less than half had Project Management,

Quality Assurance, Requirements– One-third had ethics, HCI, formal methods

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Curriculum Content - 3

• Mathematics– All required calculus– Almost all require discrete math and

probability/statistics– About half require differential equations, linear

algebra

– In general, requirements were similar to CS

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Curriculum Content - 4

• Traditional Engineering– Very little besides digital logic– Circuits, engineering economics each

required by three programs

• Other Courses– General education requirements– Software engineering application domain area

• Some specify one area, others provide a choice

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SE Curriculum Models

• SEI Report on Graduate Software Engineering Education, CMU/SEI-89-TR-21.

• Guidelines for Software Engineering Education, CMU/SEI-99-TR-032.

• Software Engineering Education Knowledge (SEEK) chapter of Computing Curriculum - Software Engineering, December 2002, http://sites.computer.org/ccse/

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Undergraduate vs Graduate

• Overview SE course• No Proj. Mgmt. course

• No Overview SE course• Proj. Mgmt. course

• Similar coverage of SE material• Similar capstone project experience

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SEEK

• Knowledge Areas (10)– Units (~4 per Knowledge Area)

• Topics (~6 per Unit)

• Essential or Desired or Optional• Bloom's taxonomy for Essential topics

DES.str.4 Aspect oriented design DEVO.ac.6 Refactoring E k

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SEEK Knowledge Areas

1. Computing Essentials2. Math and Engin.

Fundamentals3. Professional Practice4. Modeling & Analysis5. Software Design

6. Verification & Validation

7. Software Evolution8. Software Process9. Software Quality10. Software Mgmt.

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Example Knowledge Units

DES Software DesignDES.con Design ConceptsDES.str Design StrategiesDES.ar Architectural DesignDES.hci Human Computer Interface DesignDES.dd Detailed DesignDES.ste Design Support Tools and Evaluation

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ExampleTopics

DES Software DesignDES.str Design Strategies

DES.str.1 Function-oriented design a(c) EDES.str.2 Object-oriented design c(a) EDES.str.3 Data-structure centered design DDES.str.4 Aspect oriented design O

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SEEK Coverage

• Good coverage overall– None of the Essential topics at Application

level are missing– None of the Management or Professional

topics missing from more than 1 program• Evolution topics are least covered

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Analysis

• SE similar to CS in overall requirements• Most SE programs have "Intro to SE"

(similar to CS, unlike other engineering disciplines)

• Capstone experience is similar to other engineering disciplines