Browsing by Subject "Software engineering education"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6

Open Access
Aligning software engineering education with industrial needs: a meta-analysis
(Elsevier, 2019) Garousi, V.; Giray, G.; Tüzün, Eray; Catal, C.; Felderer, M.
Context: According to various reports, many software engineering (SE) graduates often face difficulties when beginning their careers, which is mainly due to misalignment of the skills learned in university education with what is needed in the software industry. Objective: Our objective is to perform a meta-analysis to aggregate the results of the studies published in this area to provide a consolidated view on how to align SE education with industry needs, to identify the most important skills and also existing knowledge gaps. Method: To synthesize the body of knowledge, we performed a systematic literature review (SLR), in which we systematically selected a pool of 35 studies and then conducted a meta-analysis using data extracted from those studies. Results: Via a meta-analysis and using data from 13 countries and over 4,000 data points, highlights of the SLR include: (1) software requirements, design, and testing are the most important skills; and (2) the greatest knowledge gaps are in configuration management, SE models and methods, SE process, design (and architecture), as well as in testing. Conclusion: This paper provides implications for both educators and hiring managers by listing the most important SE skills and the knowledge gaps in the industry
Open Access
Are computer science and engineering graduates ready for the software industry? Experiences from an industrial student training program
(ACM, 2018) Tuzun, Eray; Erdogmus, H.; Ozbilgin, I. G.
It has been 50 years since the term "software engineering" was coined in 1968 at a NATO conference. The field should be relatively mature by now, with most established universities covering core software engineering topics in their Computer Science programs and others offering specialized degrees. However, still many practitioners lament a lack of skills in new software engineering hires. With the growing demand for software engineers from the industry, this apparent gap becomes more and more pronounced. One corporate strategy to address this gap is for the industry to develop supplementary training programs before the hiring process, which could also help companies screen viable candidates. In this paper, we report on our experiences and lessons learned in conducting a summer school program aimed at screening new graduates, introducing them to core skills relevant to the organization and industry, and assessing their attitudes toward mastering those skills before the hiring process begins. Our experience suggests that such initiatives can be mutually beneficial for new hires and companies alike. We support this insight with pre- A nd post-training data collected from the participants during the first edition of the summer school and a follow-up questionnaire conducted after a year with the participants, 50% of whom were hired by the company shortly after the summer school.
Open Access
Creation of a serious game for teaching code review: An experience report
(IEEE, 2020-10) Ardıç, Barış; Yurdakul, İrem; Tüzün, Eray
Code review, a manual inspection of source code by developers other than the author, is a frequently used practice for improving code quality in the software development life-cycle. Employing a tool-based review of code changes has become the norm for a wide variety of open source and industrial systems. Despite its widespread usage and importance, software development practices such as code review are often not addressed in typical Software Engineering education. To address this knowledge gap, we propose to use a serious game approach for teaching code review practices. In this study, we define our learning objectives and design a code review serious game along with its companion quizzes. Then we conduct a small preliminary experiment in order to procure feedback. Using the results of the experiment and participant interviews, we improve our game prototype for integration into a software engineering course while optimizing the initial experiment for student's benefit. We document the process, lessons learned and the future directions of the game. The results we gather indicate that the game is ready to be used in a software engineering course setting.
Open Access
CRSG: a serious game for teaching code review
(Association for Computing Machinery, 2020-11) Ünlü, Kaan; Ardıç, Barış; Tüzün, Eray
The application of code review in a development environment is essential, but this skill is not taught very often in an educational context despite its wide usage. To streamline the teaching process of code review, we propose a browser based "Code Review Serious Game" (CRSG) with high accessibility, progressive level difficulty and an evolvable foundation for prospective improvements or changes. The application is built as a serious game to reinforce the learning experience of its users by immersing them in its story and theme, helping them learn while having fun. The effectiveness of the game components are measured with a case study of 132 students of 2 software engineering courses. The promising result of this case study suggests CRSG can indeed be used effectively to teach code review. The demo video for the game can be accessed at https://youtu.be/FLnr3p4bhOg, and CRSG itself at: https://github.com/barisardic/crsg.
Open Access
Serious game approach to introduce the code review practice
(2021-09) Ardıç, Barış
Code Review is an accepted and widely utilized software engineering practice that focuses on improving code via manual inspections. However, this practice is not addressed adequately in a typical software engineering curriculum. We aim to help address the code review practice knowledge gap between the software engineering curricula and the industry with a serious game approach. We determine our learning objectives around introducing the code review process. In order to realize these objectives, we design, build and test a serious game. We then proceed with a three-step case study with 280 students. We evaluate the results by comparing the students' knowledge and con dence regarding code review before and after the case study, as well as by statistically evaluating how well they did both in the code review quizzes and the game levels themselves. Our analysis indicates that, students have a positive approach regarding playing the serious game while the statistical results show that students improve their knowledge by playing the game. We conclude that our code review serious game had a positive impact on the students and is helpful for introducing the code review process. The game and materials for the case studies are made available online for educators.
Open Access
Understanding the knowledge gaps of software engineers: an empirical analysis based on SWEBOK
(Association for Computing Machinery, 2019) Garousi, V.; Giray, G.; Tüzün, Eray
Context: Knowledge level and productivity of the software engineering (SE) workforce are the subject of regular discussions among practitioners, educators, and researchers. There have been many efforts to measure and improve the knowledge gap between SE education and industrial needs. Objective: Although the existing efforts for aligning SE education and industrial needs have provided valuable insights, there is a need for analyzing the SE topics in a more “fine-grained” manner; i.e., knowing that SE university graduates should know more about requirements engineering is important, but it is more valuable to know the exact topics of requirements engineering that are most important in the industry. Method: We achieve the above objective by assessing the knowledge gaps of software engineers by designing and executing an opinion survey on levels of knowledge learned in universities versus skills needed in industry. We designed the survey by using the SE knowledge areas (KAs) from the latest version of the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK v3), which classifies the SE knowledge into 12 KAs, which are themselves broken down into 67 subareas (sub-KAs) in total. Our analysis is based on (opinion) data gathered from 129 practitioners, who are mostly based in Turkey. Results: Based on our findings, we recommend that educators should include more materials on software maintenance, software configuration management, and testing in their SE curriculum. Based on the literature as well as the current trends in industry, we provide actionable suggestions to improve SE curriculum to decrease the knowledge gap.