Construction of a Software Development Model for Managing Final Year Projects in Information Technology Programmes

Abstract

The final year project (FYP) is considered a capstone course in information technology (IT) programmes and involves the development of a software product. Currently, students are using the traditional software development life cycle approach to manage their FYPs. However, this approach can cause many difficulties. This paper proposes an alternative software development model for managing the FYP in an IT and IT-related degree programmes of study. First, a benchmarking exercise was undertaken to compare the software developed for business purposes with that developed for educational purposes, which took into account the ten project management knowledge areas. The result of this exercise indicated that the differences that exist between business and educational software necessitate the development of a new software development model that is specifically tailored to the development of educational software. Therefore, capability maturity model integration (CMMI) was modified to generate a new version of CMMI – named educational CMMI – which could be used to evaluate educational software projects and detailed mathematical descriptions of the proposed model were composed. As conclusions, the proposed model was then assessed by students’ results and by questionnaire feedback, the results of which showed that the proposed model was both useful and applicable for its intended target users and context.

An Integrated Design-Based Learning Management Model to Promote Thai Undergraduate Computational Thinking Skills and Programming Proficiency

“…The fourth and final CTS element we identified with great frequency was the use of clearly defined steps in a problem's resolution or thought of in another way, the input and output. Thus, we labeled this component as the 'algorithm design' [3], [6], [10], [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32].…”

“…The participatory action research (PAR) process. The PAR process resulted in the acquisition of learning that enabled undergraduate student participants to develop CTS and programming proficiency following the research methodologies based on various concepts [10], [13], [14], [47], [48].…”

“…Therefore, the development of problem-solving and programming should provide guidelines for teaching and learning that are appropriate for the learners who are the owners of the problems. As each student has different learning behaviors, the instructor must be competent in various subjects using learning management tools to reinforce and increase the desired learning behaviors [10].…”

“…Another easily recognized and often used research methodology that is suitable for solving research problems is participatory action research (PAR), whose fundamental focus is engaging both students and instructors at the identification of problems and joint problem resolution [10], [13], [14].…”

Learning Behaviors and Cognitive Participation in Online-Offline Hybrid Learning Environment

“…The rapid development of online technology and information technology has brought certain changes to the learning environment, learning contents, and learning methods in the field of education [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Hybrid learning, which is in line with the national strategy of information-based education, can promote the autonomous learning ability, cooperative learning ability, and personalized development of students [7][8][9][10][11].…”