Threading DevOps Practices through a University Software Engineering Programme

Abstract

In preparing students for a future career as software engineers, in addition to learning the fundamentals of Computer Science, we want them to develop a set of practical skills and professional ways of working. Current industry trends are towards the adoption of a DevOps culture, where software engineers are responsible not only for the design and development of software systems, but also for their deployment and operation in production. In this paper, we describe how we have introduced students to DevOps practices early in their degree programme, and then woven their use through many different projects as an underpinning thread. Rather than being taught in isolation, these professional practical skills are practised repeatedly through the degree, in different contexts, to the point where they almost become second nature. We describe concretely the structure of our introductory DevOps Lab exercise and how it is assessed, explain how DevOps skills are applied in later projects, and report on our experience so far of teaching these techniques in this manner.

Software Engineering Education in the DevOps Era: Experiences and Recommendations

“…Demchenko et al [Demchenko et al 2019] proposed a "DevOps Software Engineering Body of Knowledge" and described their implementation in a course at the University of Amsterdam. Chatley and Procaccini [Chatley and Procaccini 2020] describe how they introduced students to DevOps practices early in their degree program, and then wove their use through many different projects.…”