Abstract-An ITiCSE 2015 conference working group report has recently delivered a comprehensive systematic review of the literature addressing the challenges and solutions in teaching global software engineering courses. In this panel session, a group of authors of that report will review the findings, and present their own views on teaching such courses, the pros and cons and their own motivations and experiences, together with strategies that have proven effective. We argue that these courses are critical for preparing students for practice as software engineers in today's global settings, but they are certainly not for the faint-hearted. After the review and presentation of position statements by panelists there will be a question and answer session with the audience and a discussion elaborating on the next frontiers in research and practice for global software engineering education.
Keywords-GlobalSoftware Engineering Education; Distributed teams; Authentic learning.
I. OVERVIEWPreparing Software Engineering students for the realities of current Software Engineering (SE) practice is challenging. This is especially so, when that practice increasingly involves globally distributed teams forced to surmount the challenges posed by the many forms of global distance (temporal, geographic, cultural -including institutional and linguistic aspects). Addressing this new reality in the classroom presents its own challenges that go beyond the global distance problems encountered in SE and include issues such as institutional collaboration, student skill differences, classroom management difficulties and other complications. This panel brings together six participants who have participated in a Working Group at the ITiCSE 2015 conference, which has resulted in a major report on Global Software Engineering Education (GSE-Ed) [1], titled:
Challenges and Recommendations for the Design and Conduct of Global Software Engineering Courses: A Systematic Review.The Working Group Report is accompanied by a supporting protocol available online [2]. The challenges of GSE-Ed can be categorized as the working group report has demonstrated, yet, at the same time, experiences tend to be unique based on the characteristics of the participating institutions, the background of students and faculty participants, and the areas of SE addressed. As a result, the challenges of GSE-Ed are best presented from a variety of perspectives, which this panel will provide. The panellists will share their own experiences in teaching software engineering courses and in globalisation initiatives, and provide their personal perspectives on the challenges and solutions in providing such courses. These insights will be backed up by the findings from the panel members' report, as a recent and major review of the literature, that will be summarised for participants. After discussions with the audience, the panel will conclude by identifying emerging topics and recommendations for future developments in Global Software Engineering Courses.