Knowledge transfer is a key function in software development. Software tool development is an important skills in the software engineering. However, generic teaching courses are hard to evaluate the integrated development skills from undergraduate students. This paper proposed a continuous collaboration model (CCM) and a view-based semi-automatic tool, OpenNeeds, develop and run as an Eclipse plug-in to proceed the functional requirements' analysis. These selected methods and tools include programming languages, markup language, information exchange standards, modeling language, model-view-controller (MVC) software framework, virtual machine handling, interface development environment, version control platform, knowledge management, software documentation, and software unit tests. The MVC tool can simply manipulate several requirement-related graphical components, such as mind view and use case view. The lateral thinking approach is adapted in grid view to assist in analyzing other potential requirements from the original ones. Subsequently, the source codes of this tool are opened and can be distributed via the Eclipse Public License from the OpenFoundry and Github repositories. There are three professors who come from two distinct colleges to share their learning experiences. Meanwhile, 26 and 27 college students attend this team in the first and second year, respectively. Professors can truly understand the fortes of the individual attendee through the attending performance and promote his/her merits in the future tasks. Further, their industrial practices and related outcomes might disclose that the proposed CCM is feasible and trustable in college environment, especially for the software development activities in the software engineering field. ß 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 24:131-143, 2016; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/cae;