Teaching Web Programming Using the MEAN Stack

Abstract

Web programming is a mandatory course in the syllabus of any BSc degree in Informatics Engineering. But, nowadays, designing and teaching an up-to-date web programming course is a very demanding challenge due to the fast technological advances that imposes a continuous update of the concepts, techniques, and tools. Nowadays, from a professional perspective, web development is starting to converge on merging front-end and back-end development. This requires new skills for web developers, traditionally separated into two groups (front-end and back-end), that are still not accompanied by academia web programming courses. This future trend motivates us for designing a higher education course that combines Web design and server-side programming skills in a unified full-stack of Web technologies to develop modern web applications. The paper intends to present and discuss a new higher education course for a curricular unit in Web programming of a degree in Informatics in the European higher education system. The course is aligned with the new trends, providing students with fundamentals and basic skills in the development of Web applications, using the full-stack approach to Web development supported by the MEAN stack architecture.