Software Engineering Research and Practice - Implications for Education

Abstract

The design of software engineering courses and programs presents a number of particularly difficult educational problems, arising from two properties of modern software engineering. First, software engineering is a large field concerned with the construction of large information systems - the quantity and diversity of its subject matter and the scale of the problems it addresses create their own educational problems. Second, there is a large, and apparently growing, gap between software engineering research and the general run of software engineering practice. These, and related software engineering education problems, are examined in the light of experience with software engineering courses and programs. Recommendations are made about material that should have priority for inclusion in SE curricula. Approaches to solving the very real problems of scale in practical work are discussed. Conclusions are also drawn about the particular roles which software engineering research and practice should play in influencing the content and emphasis of software engineering curricula.