A Technical History of the SEI

Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training
The Challenge: A Forum for Software Engineering Education Advances and
Collaboration
Although software engineering education had emerged in a variety of programs, including the
Wang Institute, IBM Software Engineering Institute, Seattle University, and Texas Christian University,
there was little effort towards establishing a consistent curriculum. Not only was there no
curriculum, there was no established mechanism for exchanging information about advances related
to the course content, the courses themselves, or the teaching experiences, and no standard
way to encourage professional collaboration. If the SEI was to successfully “influence software
engineering curricula development throughout the education community” (SEI Charter 1984), it
needed to lead the establishment of such a mechanism.
A Solution: The Premier Conference on Software Engineering Education
In 1986, the SEI conducted an invitation-only workshop on software engineering education
[Gibbs 1987]. One of the outgrowths of this workshop was the first Conference on Software Engineering
Education (CSEE), which took place in 1987 [Fairley 1989]. The conference was sponsored
by the SEI with refereed papers and published proceedings by Springer Verlag. The major
conference roles, including the chair and many of the program committee members, were SEI
staff members. Along with the conference, a faculty development workshop was conducted to introduce
new SEI curriculum modules and educational materials. In effect, the conference was established
by the SEI to answer a need in the community, but it was largely run by SEI staff [Mead
2009]. One bold move in the early days of the conference series was to move the conference out
of Pittsburgh and away from the SEI. After many years in Pittsburgh, the first venture to another
location was the 1992 conference in San Diego. This particular conference, the 6th CSEE, was
chaired by an SEI staff member and boasted an attendance of more than 200.
In the early 1990s, the CSEE also became the catalyst for an e-newsletter, the Forum for the Advancement
of Software Engineering Education (FASE). Over the years, it provided informal information
to software engineering educators on a periodic basis. It continues to provide announcements
and articles to its audience, which is worldwide. The WGSEET was also an outgrowth of
the conference. The working group met twice yearly between 1995 and 2000, producing a number
of education reports and other artifacts [Mead 2009].
The conference transitioned from an SEI conference to an IEEE conference in 1996. This was a
substantial step, as it involved replacing the events planning staff at the SEI with volunteers and
securing IEEE sponsorship. It also meant that the conference would ultimately have to function as
an independent financial entity, without support from the SEI. The SEI Education Program director
was the first steering committee chair. She recruited steering committee members and developed
the first formal charter for the conference. Several steering committee chairs have subsequently
been appointed. Since this transition, the proceedings have been published by IEEE, and
the conference chairs have been volunteers outside the SEI. With more community involvement,
the program committee became much more diverse.
CMU/SEI-2016-SR-027 | SOFTWARE ENGINEERING INSTITUTE | CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY 80
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