Educational Software Product: Investigating the Need for a New Software Methodology

Abstract

Developing software needs art in addition to the scientific knowledge. Graduation project is a compulsory course requires the students to develop a software product. Students are using the traditional software development methodologies typically designed for software oriented for business (business software), therefore it is not suitable for software developed to fulfill requirements of academic subject (educational software). These two types of software are different in many perspectives. In educational software, the purpose is to satisfy pedagogical and educational purpose. This sharp variance caused many difficulties such as loss of time, cost and quality commitment and missing the correct guidance that helps the students later in the industry. In this paper, we are targeting to identify, clarify, explore, and highlight the variances between educational and business software. To achieve this target, a comparison based on software life cycle and project knowledge areas has been prepared between educational and business software. The results that have been extracted from the comparisons proved the difficulties of using tradition methodologies to develop educational software. Finally, recommendations to develop especial methodology for educational software have been stated.