Case Study-Based Educational Tools for Teaching a Software V&V Course at the Undergraduate Level

Abstract

Abstract:One of the critical problems facing software industry today is the lack of appreciation of the full benefits that can be derived from Software Verification and Validation (V&V) and an associated problem of shortage of adequately trained V&V practitioners. To address this situation, software V&V course curriculum is being improved at author's institution via a NSF-funded project. The basic objectives of this project are to improve software education to make it well aligned with academic research as well as industry best practices. In addition, it is aimed that the course material could also be used to enhance on-the-job professional training in SW industry settings, thereby helping to increase the pool of professionals with contemporary V&V knowledge and skills.The new course curriculum enhancement described in this paper is guided by academic research and industry best practices that focus on four specific V&V focus areas: requirements engineering, reviews, configuration management, and testing. Among many educational tools that are being developed to achieve project objectives, the work related to the development of case studies is described here. Historically, case studies have been as educational tools in business, law and medicine but not so much in software engineering. The hypothesis is that case studies would be effective educational tools to introduce real-world professional practices into the classroom which would help the students in identifying and solving problems, and develop a perspective on knowledge application. In this paper we describe a set of V&V related casestudies that we have drawn from industry experiences and developed them as pedagogical tools. These case-studies cover several important topics in S/W V&V domain such as software testing, legal issues in software, software consumer protection, and requirements from the customers' perspectives. We will also report on the results of initial implementation of case studies related to software testing in the classroom.

Teachers’ Evaluation of the Usability of a Self-Assessment Tool for Mobile Learning Integration in the Classroom

“…To evaluate the usability of a teacher self-assessment tool, different methods can be used, such as surveys, interviews, and direct observation [30,31]. Furthermore, usability can also be assessed by applying usability standards such as ISO 9241 and the usability assessment methodology [26].…”

“…Set goals: defining clear goals and targets for the tool and ensuring that they align with learning goals and curriculum [30,31]. • Test early and often: test the tool early and frequently to identify usability problems and make improvements throughout the development process [26][27][28][29][30].…”

“…Consider accessibility: ensure that the tool is accessible to all students, including those with disabilities or those without access to technology [27,30,31].…”

Using Cybersecurity Body of Knowledge (CyBOK) Case Studies to Enhance Student Learning

“…Application areas of case studies in software engineering include, for example, efforts to increase student motivation for theoretical concepts in requirements engineering [19] or software engineering [31], validation and verification activities [32], and also cyber security engineering [33]. Case studies have a thoroughly positive influence on learning outcomes as 1 A detailed overview over all case studies is available here: https://www.cybok.org/media/downloads/Overview_of _CyBOK_Case_Studies.pdf concepts are more easily adopted [31], yet occasionally at the expense of an (often unfounded) anxiety over students' final grades [34].…”

Measuring Broader Impact of NSF-funded Project on Software Engineering Education

“…The focus groups and the workshops brought people from different institutions and corporations to work closely together. As a result PIs have published multiple conference papers [10,19,20,21,22,23] , and journal papers [24,25,26,27,28,29] with academic partners. In addition the PIs are working on projects of mutual interest with the academia and industry.…”