CS2013-final-report

such system are assigned to the core and those that are concerned with other qualities and tradeoffs
between them are assigned to the elective material.
In general, students can best learn to apply much of the material defined in the Sofware
Engineering KA by participating in a project. Such projects should require students to work on a
team to develop a software system through as much of its lifecycle as is possible. Much of
software engineering is devoted to effective communication among team members and
stakeholders. Utilizing project teams, projects can be sufficiently challenging to require students
to use effective software engineering techniques and to develop and practice their
communication skills. While organizing and running effective projects within the academic
framework can be challenging, the best way to learn to apply software engineering theory and
knowledge is in the practical environment of a project. The minimum hours specified for some
knowledge units in this document may appear insufficient to accomplish associated applicationlevel
learning outcomes. It should be understood that these outcomes are to be achieved through
project experience that may even occur later in the curriculum than when the topics within the
knowledge unit are introduced.
Further, there is increasing evidence that students learn to apply software engineering principles
more effectively through an iterative approach, where students have the opportunity to work
through a development cycle, assess their work, and then apply the knowledge gained through
their assessment to another development cycle. Agile and iterative lifecycle models inherently
afford such opportunities.
Software lifecycle terminology in this document is based on that used in earlier sources, such as
the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK) and the ACM/IEEE-CS Software
Engineering 2004 Curriculum Guidelines (SE2004). While some terms were originally defined
in the context of plan-driven development processes, they are treated here as generic, and thus
equally applicable to agile processes.
Note: The SDF/Development Methods knowledge unit includes 9 Core-Tier1 hours that
constitute an introduction to certain aspects of software engineering. The knowledge units,
topics and core hour specifications in this Software Engineering Knowledge Area must be
understood as assuming previous exposure to the material described in SDF/Development
Methods.
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