Experience in Software Development Project Course

Abstract

Abstract This paper describes an experience in delivering sofware development project course at Informatic Engineering Undergraduate Program in ITB. The objective is to propose a learning process model in Software Engineering course. This model can be an alternative in learning process that can improve the student's knowledge and skills in software development practices. According to the study program curriculum, an ability in development of small to medium scale software is one of several learning outcomes that must be achieved by our graduate. To achieve this learning outcome, we give practical experience in applying one method to develop a medium scale software through software development project course. This course is conducted in the form of a ‘real’ software development project. The students are allocated into several groups to give an opportunity to work in team. One medium software development project is assigned to each group. Since each project is part of a larger project, completion of this medium scale software development project will produce a large scale software system. Using the iterative and incremental approach known as the Unified Process, each group conducted a full software development life cycle: defining a software requirement specification, requirement analysis, design modeling, coding, and testing. Evaluation of this course in several semesters showed that the project-based courses can improve the students understanding about software engineering. The Unified Process is considered to be an appropriate method for this software development project. Despite of the several obstacles that were still encountered, this course model can still be improved to achieve the ultimate goal of this course.