Course Structure
This textbook was authored for the CIS 642/643 - Software Engineering Project I&II course at Kansas State University. This front matter is specific to that course. If you are not enrolled in the course, please disregard this section.
This course is primarily a project-based experiential course, where you will learn about software engineering through engaging in the practices of software development. You will be working in small teams of 3-5 students to develop open-source software to meet the needs of a customer assigned to your team. These customers are primarily drawn from the research, extension, and education communities of Kansas State University, and the software you develop for them may potentially impact the lives of many people.
In addition to the software you will develop, we also have several additional components to the course, including a brief introduction to many common practices of software engineering and the opportunity to meet and speak with alumni actively engaged in industry, to learn about the software engineering practices used in their companies.
It is important to realize that this course is actually spread across two semesters: The first half is CIS 642 - Software Engineering Project I taught in the Fall Semester, and the second half is CIS 643 - Software Engineering Project II taught in the Spring. You will continue your development efforts on your project across both semesters. If this does not fit into your plans, you should instead look at the other capstone course offered by the department, CIS 598 - Computer Science Project.
As a three-credit, senior-level course, you should be expecting to spend nine hours a week outside of class time working on this course. This much time is necessary to make adequate progress on your project.
Lectures, Activities, and Quizzes
The first few weeks of CIS 642 focus on learning both the history and processes of software engineering. In covering this material, we will have a series of lectures, followed by discussions and activities implementing these processes during the normal class period. These will lead into some group homework activities you’ll be responsible for as well. Once we shift to the group projects, you’ll be responsible for employing the practices, so you should endeavor to develop a strong understanding of them.
Software Engineering Projects
However, the bulk of the course will focus on building a software solution to support the needs of your customer. We will engage in an Agile development process based on the SCRUM methodology, which consists of iteratively developing software in two-week sprints. Before each sprint, you will meet with your customer and negotiate what are the most important aspects to focus on, and over the two weeks you will develop those features into your software, along with documentation and testing. At the end of the two weeks, you will present your prototype to your customer to solicit feedback, and begin planning your next sprint.
Weekly Check-ins
Each week your team will have a brief check-in meeting with the instructor to report your progress and discuss any issues you have encountered. This is also an opportunity to solicit advice or address any questions you might have about your project. These meetings will be held during the class period, and you are required to attend.
Customer Reviews
Your customers will review your progress, communication skills, respectfulness, and professionalism periodically through the semester. You will be provided with feedback so that you can learn and improve your efforts in this area. This is the practical soft skills that many software developers lack, and which your future employers keep telling us students need to better develop. Hence, you should see this as an opportunity to develop a suite of very necessary, but often overlooked skills. Doing so will make you a far better job candidate, and can provide you with some powerful lived experiences to draw upon in job interviews.
Peer Reviews
Additionally, you will be asked to review each of your team members each of your peers on 1) their participation in group discussion, 2) helping keep the team focused and on-task, 3) contribution of useful ideas, 4) quality of work done, and 5) quantity of work done. These results will be anonymized and shared back with you so that you can strive to improve yourself as a team member. Also, team members who are not “doing their share” of the work will find that they are penalized based on the scores they receive from their team. Remember that there are almost no opportunities to be a “solo” developer left in the world of software development - you need to develop strong teamwork skills if you want to succeed as a programmer in the modern world.
Presentations
You will also be charged with presenting your work to a broader audience - in the form of final presentations at the end of each course, as well as presenting to the general public at Open House in the Spring for CIS 643. You will be evaluated for your presentation skills for the various audiences involved (technically sophisticated peers at the end-of-semester and general audiences at Open House).