Teaching ISO/IEC 12207 software lifecycle processes: A serious game approach

Abstract

Serious games involve applying game design techniques to tasks of a serious nature. In particular, serious games can be used as informative tools and can be embedded in formal education. Although there are some studies related to the application of serious games for the software development process, there is no serious game that teaches the fundamentals of the ISO/IEC 12207:1995 Systems and software engineering-Software life cycle processes, which is an international standard for software lifecycle processes that aims to be 'the' standard that defines all the tasks required for developing and maintaining software. "Floors" is a serious game that proposes an interactive learning experience to introduce ISO/IEC 12207:1995 by creating different floors of a virtual environment where various processes of the standard are discussed and implemented. Inherently, it follows an iterative process based on interactive technical dialogues in a 3D computer simulated office. The tool is designed to assess the novice engineering practitioners knowledge and provide preliminary training for ISO/IEC 12207:1995 processes. By playing such a game, participants are able to learn about the details of this standard. The present study provides a framework for the exploration of research data obtained from computer engineering students. Results suggest that there is a significant difference between the knowledge gained among the students who have played Floors and those who have only participated in paper-based learning sessions. Our findings indicate that participants who played Floors tend to have greater knowledge of the ISO/IEC 12207:1995 standard, and as a result, we recommend the use of serious games that seem to be superior to traditional paper based approach.

Overcoming Public Speaking Anxiety of Software Engineers Using Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy

“…There are many studies in different working areas such as increasing firemen's spatial navigation skills [9] and developing the skills of the medical residents [10,11] that benefit from the applications of VR. Finally, it has been demonstrated that a serious game is beneficial to train novice software engineers about ISO/IEC 12207:1995 [12] which has also confirmed the effectiveness of a virtual simulation environment.…”

Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement

“…Given these various acknowledgements, and the added rich variety of individual roles in software engineering [34], steps to improve process communication and process feedback/improvement (such as is enabled by our AR proposal) are considered to offer innovative mechanisms to assist in addressing the challenging software process space. We suggest that many software developers may have an intrinsic interest in VR and AR type activities, and in the past have demonstrated the power of VR in terms of improving process-learning outcomes [35], and in assisting developers in presentation related training [36]. In this sense, the AR based research that we present herein can be considered to be a natural and important progression of our earlier work in this space [37].…”

A multivocal literature review on serious games for software process standards education

“…• ProDec is a simulation-based SG to teach and motivate software developers in learning and practicing the principles of software project management, as well as supporting the comprehension and knowledge acquisition of project management lifecycle processes and activities, in a risk-free environment (Calderón & Ruiz, 2016) (Calderón, Ruiz, & O'Connor, 2017). • Floors is a SG that proposes an interactive learning experience to introduce ISO/IEC 12207:1995 by creating different floors of a virtual environment where various processes of the standard are discussed and implemented (Aydan, Yilmaz, Clarke, & O'Connor, 2017). • Go for it!…”