Undergraduate Software Engineering Programs in the United States (in 2003)

1
Undergraduate Software Engineering Programs in
the United States(in 2003)

• Mark A. Ardis
• Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

2
Acknowledgements

• Most of this presentation was originally given at
  FIE 2003 with Don Bagert
• http//fie.engrng.pitt.edu/fie2003/papers/1294.pd
  f

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Profile of SE Degree Programs
11
18 of 21 programs in 2002-3
3
2
2
EngineeringCollege
School ofSciences
School ofComputing
Other
4
Departments
6
5
3
3
1
ECE
CS
JointCS/ECE
SE
CollegeLevel
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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 D
• EVO.ac.6 Refactoring E k

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SEEK Knowledge Areas

• Computing Essentials
• Math and Engin. Fundamentals
• Professional Practice
• Modeling Analysis
• Software Design

1. Verification Validation
2. Software Evolution
3. Software Process
4. Software Quality
5. Software Mgmt.

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Example Knowledge Units

• DES Software Design
• DES.con Design Concepts
• DES.str Design Strategies
• DES.ar Architectural Design
• DES.hci Human Computer Interface Design
• DES.dd Detailed Design
• DES.ste Design Support Tools and Evaluation

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ExampleTopics

• DES Software Design
• DES.str Design Strategies
• DES.str.1 Function-oriented design a(c) E
• DES.str.2 Object-oriented design c(a) E
• DES.str.3 Data-structure centered design D
• DES.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