IT Spiral: Higher Education for IT Specialists

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IT SpiralHigher Education for IT Specialists

• Mike Barker
• 20 November 2006

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IT Spiral

• IT Specialist Program Initiative for
  Reality-based Advanced Learning
• 2006-2009 (Four Year Project)
• 9 Universities, 4 Companies

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Member Universities

• ???? Osaka University
• ?????? Osaka Institute of Technology
• ???? Kyoto University
• ?????? Kochi University of Technology
• ???? Kobe University
• ????????????? NAIST
• ?????? Hyogo University
• ????? Ritsumeikan University
• ????? Wakayama University

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Member Companies

• Hitachi
• Hitachi System and Service
• NTT Data
• OGIS-RI Osaka Gas Information System-Research
  Institute

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The Idea of IT Spiral

• Purpose to cultivate talented practitioners
  capable of world-class activity over the
  middle-term for software development
• This requires a systematic education in software
  engineering
• Not just it is possible to do this and this is
  how to use this tool. Instead, why does this work
  well and are there other ways to do this?
• Cultivating talent that is always thinking about
  ways to do things!

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Elements in Cultivating Such Talent

• Involve top educators, researchers, and industry
  leaders
• Focus on top-quality students
• Develop curriculum suited to purpose

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Promotion of three areas

• Advanced software engineering subjects
• Practical software development subjects
• Basic software engineering subjects

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Schedule

• 2006
• Make Courseware (advanced software engineering
  subjects)
• Start development of teaching materials
• External Assessment Committee
• 2007
• First Stage Lectures (all universities start
  basic and advanced software engineering subjects)
• Begin practical software development subjects at
  Nakanoshima center
• Put the project materials into use
• External Assessment Committee
• 2008
• Second Stage Lectures (basic, advanced, and
  practical)
• Trial of practical software development subjects
  by teachers
• Mid-project evaluation
• External assessment committee
• 2009
• Third stage lectures (basic, advanced, and
  practical)
• Development of practical software development
  subjects in each graduate school
• External assessment committee
• Final meeting for announcing results

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Some initial topics

• Outline of agile concepts
• Project and risk management with agile
  development
• Process modeling and agile development
• English writing and presentations in software
  engineering

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Summary

• IT Spiral How can we educate Japanese software
  engineering students effectively for the future?
• Curriculum development, including lectures,
  tests, projects, assignments, and other materials
• Designed for use by various universities and
  faculty