Free and open source software development of IT systems (original) (raw)
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Training Software Engineers Using Open-Source Software: The Professors' Perspective
2017 IEEE 30th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEE&T)
Traditional Software Engineering (SE) courses often prioritize methodologies and concepts in small, controlled environments: naive projects used as a proof of concept instead of full-fledged real software systems. Although this strategy has clear benefits, it does not place enough care in training students to face complex, non-trivial legacy software projects. To bridge this gap, novel SE courses are leveraging the rich variety of open-source software (OSS) projects to illustrate how these methodologies and concepts are applied to existing, non-trivial software systems. To better understand the benefits, challenges, and opportunities of this transition, in this paper, we interview seven SE professors that changed their academic setting to aspire students to comprehend, maintain, and evolve OSS systems as part of their SE course. We found that there are different ways to make use of OSS projects in SE courses in terms of project choice, assessment, and learning goals. Moreover, we evidence clear benefits of this approach, including improving students' social and technical skills, and helping students enhancing their resume. Also, we observed that this strategy comes with costs: the activity demands effort and time from the professor and the barrier for one getting involved with and, therefore, placing a meaningful contribution, in an OSS community is often high. Index Terms-Open-source software; Teaching Software Engineering; Open-Source Contributions; • RQ1. What makes a good OSS project for training SE students?
Engaging Students in Open Source: Establishing FOSS Development at a University
Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2019
Open source is widely used for educational purposes in higher education around the world. While many educators use open source resources for teaching, there seems to be few contributions to such projects of students as part of their university courses. In this work we present our experience on establishing open source development from student contributors as part of their university curriculum. Since 2010 more than 300 students from Graz University of Technology have been involved in the presented Catrobat project and have gained knowledge about agile software development as well as several related domains, e.g., project management, marketing, or graphical design. In this paper we provide detailed insights into the project's organization and evaluate in a study how students feel in this setting. As we conclude, bringing open source to university courses is an effective practical approach based on social learning and provides benefits for students and researchers.
Panel — Teaching students to participate in Open Source Software projects
2010
This panel will present several experiences in involving students in Open Source Software (OSS) projects from the perspectives of both the instructor and a member of the OSS community. OSS is growing rapidly and gaining market share in both industry (e.g., Linux and Mozilla) as well as academia (e.g, Moodle, Greenfoot, and Drupal). OSS projects have a culture built on volunteer participation to support software development. Computing degree programs desire to involve students in large-scale software projects to provide students with real-world experience and an understanding of the issues found in large, complex software projects. Involving computing students in OSS projects serves both the OSS community by providing development resources for the project while also serving the academic community by providing access to large software projects in which students can gain experience. However, the marriage of student and OSS project presents some challenges including identification of approachable OSS projects, creation of appropriate educational infrastructure, evaluation and grading, and more. Panelists will address the factors that contribute to student success in an OSS project.
Utilizing Open Source Software in Teaching Practice- based Software Engineering Courses
2016 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 2016
— Software engineering courses face the challenge of covering all the stages of analysis, development, maintenance, and support while addressing practical issues such as dealing with large codebase. Free and open source software (FOSS) and more specifically humanitarian free and open source software (HFOSS) have been used by many educators to bring many add-ons to computer science education such as innovation and motivation. In addition, FOSS/HFOSS could give a better understanding of real world projects to students. In this work, we are looking at some activities developed for teaching upper division undergraduate and graduate software engineering courses using open source software projects and analyze the impacts of using this approach on students.
Implementing FOSS principles into student Systems Development Projects
Student Systems development projects have been around in order to help students get an understanding of the theory they learn in the classroom. The way that these projects have been done has always followed the traditional way of creating software through case studies. This paper aims to ask the question as to why the open source approach has not been used and should students not rather use the open source approach and also work on real world projects and not just once of case study projects that have been created in most students’ systems development projects.
International Journal of Modeling and Optimization, 2011
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is not only seen by computer science departments as an optional free and low cost technology to support their IT infrastructure and administrative duties, but also as a methodology to improve pedagogy and provide opportunities for students to learn. As a result, many teachers are turning to FOSS projects and communities as effective tools to teach computer science courses and give their students significant real-world experience. However, few teaching and learning models exist that can help computer science teachers provide guidance and mentorship for their students' involvement in FOSS projects. In order to address this gap in computer science education, this paper presents a teaching and learning model that was evaluated using a series of pilot studies conducted with software engineering students. Experiences and lessons learnt from the pilot studies shows one possible way teachers can guide students' involvement in FOSS projects and how this approach can be integrated into a formally structured curriculum.
Free and open source software in computing education
2011
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) exemplifies the merit and successes of open content, understood broadly as creative work that explicitly allows sharing and further changes by anyone, whether an individual or organization. Although the benefits of improving computing education with open source practices are largely acknowledged, transforming teaching to create effective learning environments has many challenges. The panelists will bring different perspectives on teaching strategies and curricular content they have used in their classrooms. These perspectives will exemplify key issues with FOSS-based education and FOSSbased IT systems. The developer and user communities established around FOSS-based IT systems are of particular interest to the IT discipline because of its focus on user centeredness and advocacy for advancing professional practices in authentic environments.
Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-based Learning, 2010
A semester-long ethnography study was carried out to investigate project-based learning in a graduate software engineering course through the implementation of an Open-Source Software Development (OSSD) learning environment, which featured authentic projects, learning community, cognitive apprenticeship, and technology affordances. The study revealed that while the OSSD learning environment motivated students to engage in real-world projects, tensions arose between the the innovative learning environment and the students' self-processes-their perceptions, expectations, beliefs, goals, and values. Most importantly, this study demonstrated key interplays between project authenticity and learner characteristics, which resulted in different identity representations and different perceptions among students, which in turn affected students' goal orientations, motivation to work on projects, commitment to team collaboration, attitudes toward expert coaching and feedback, and the use of collaborative technologies.
How to involve students in FOSS projects
2011
Software projects are frequently used to provide software engineering students with an understanding of the complexities of real-world software development. Free and Open Source Software projects provide a unique opportunity for student learning as projects are open and accessible and students are able to interact with an established professional community. However, many faculty members have little or no experience participating in an open source software project. In addition, faculty members may be reluctant to approach student learning within such a project due to concerns over time requirements, learning curve, the unpredictability of working with a "live" community, and more. This paper provides guidance to instructors desiring to involve students in open source projects.
An open source software culture in the undergraduate computer science curriculum
ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 2007
Open source software has made inroads into mainstream computing where it was once the territory of software altruists, and the open source culture of technological collegiality and accountability may benefit education as well as industry. This paper describes the Recourse project, which seeks to transform the computer science undergraduate curriculum through teaching methods based on open source principles, values, ethics, and tools. Recourse differs from similar projects by bringing the open source culture into the curriculum comprehensively, systematically, and institutionally. The current state of the project is described, and initial results from a pilot exercise are presented. (1)