A Technical History of the SEI

courses use video, animation, graphics, tests, and recorded lectures to bring SEI instructional content
to learners across the globe.
More recently, the SEI has been producing podcasts and webinars. The SEI website provides free
access to the SEI Podcast Series, a collection of recordings of SEI experts discussing their research
and field experience. The SEI Webinar Series provides a public forum for the latest research,
best practices, and cutting-edge solutions developed at the SEI. These webinars feature
SEI researchers discussing their work in a flexible format. Customers can view a webinar in real
time and then participate in the live question and answer session that follows each presentation.
Customers can also view webinar recordings later as streaming video. The SEI periodically hosts
virtual events that offer to the public a series of interactive, live lectures by SEI experts. Webinars
and virtual events regularly draw an audience of hundreds of learners interested in the latest developments
of SEI research.
The SEI is keeping pace with learning trends with m-learning—mobile learning on the go—ensuring
that online training resources are available on the learner’s workstation, laptops, and tablets.
The Consequence: Software Engineering Is Adopted as a Discipline
There can be little doubt that software engineering would have become an accepted academic discipline
had the SEI not undertaken the video studio. However, it is equally clear that the SEI was
in large part responsible for accelerating the process. That a university with Carnegie Mellon’s
stature in computing undertook to offer a master’s degree in software engineering, based on the
model curriculum, and made videotapes of those courses available contributed significantly to
early adoption by other colleges and universities. Certainly there are university programs that
evolved independent of SEI influence, but the fact that the SEI model curriculum was endorsed by
the IEEE and ACM demonstrates that the SEI’s influence was a significant factor.
To maintain this positive influence on the maturation of software engineering, the SEI continues
to evolve the channels of disseminating educational material to an ever-broadening audience.
From early videotapes to the current eLearning portal, the SEI reaches a global audience.
The SEI Contribution
The SEI role was to accelerate the transition of material from industrial experience to the academic
community. The idea of a video studio had already been demonstrated at other universities
and in industry for other types of courses. The subject matter had already been tested in the academic
community at the Wang Institute [Ardis 1987]. However, because of the SEI’s position in a
respected university, incorporating those ideas into a framework that made it accessible to other
colleges and universities convinced faculty elsewhere that material could be taught effectively and
had a sufficient academic foundation. This success led to a successful adoption of internet-enabled
learning that continues to benefit a broad audience.
References
[Ardis 1987] Ardis, Mark. “The Evolution of Wang Institute’s Master of Software Engineering
Program.” IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 13, 11 (November 1987): 1149-1155.
CMU/SEI-2016-SR-027 | SOFTWARE ENGINEERING INSTITUTE | CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY 90
Distribution Statement A: Approved for Public Release; Distribution is Unlimited