Global Software Engineering Capstone Projects

TitleGlobal Software Engineering Capstone Projects
Faculty/College/UnitApplied Science
StatusCompleted
Duration1 Year
Initiation04/01/2005
Completion03/31/2006
Project Summary

For engineering students, a capstone project is a five to ten credit course in fourth year that gives some closure to their studies, allowing them to bring together many of the techniques they have learned, in developing under supervision a practical application, often related to some industrial need or faculty research.

This TLEF project will develop a strategy, resources and techniques to run global software engineering capstone projects, for engineering students in the Computer engineering program (software engineering option), in cooperation with other higher-education institutions around the world. The project will bring computer engineering students from different institutions together in a "real world" supplier/acquirer relationship. Through these projects, which may be initiated by industry, the students will develop the skills that will allow them to compete and excel in the increasingly global professional workplace. Each team of four students will play both the role of acquirer and supplier for two different software projects, with two different teams located at other universities, in other countries, other time zones, and maybe other cultures and languages.

To support this, UBC will take the lead in setting up a consortium of software engineering departments of major universities and engineering schools around the world and will serve as the source for instructions, guidelines, and templates for running such global capstone projects, and will act as a clearinghouse to match triplets of student development teams. Projects will be run using a pre-defined software development method (such as UPEDU), and be supported by an internet-based collaboration tool (such as Groove). This initiative would reconfigure and enhance, the current UBC courses: EECE443: Software Project Management, EECE496: Engineering Project, and EECE419: Software Engineering Project, around this central capstone project. It may then extended to other disciplines.

The project will also provide a research opportunity for studying the impact of culture on software development. It will also be an opportunity for our faculty to gain experience that will help them to deal collaboratively and remotely with the new engineering programs at the UBC Campus in the Okanagan.

Funding Details
Year 1: Project YearYear 1
Year 1: Funding Year2005/2006
Year 1: Project TypeSmall TLEF
Year 1: Principal InvestigatorPhilippe Kruchten
Year 1: Funded Amount28,085
Year 1: Team Members

Philippe Kruchten, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science
Pierre-N. Robillard, Professor, École Polytechnique de Montréal
Jim Sibley, Centre for Instructional Support, Faculty of Applied Science
Richard Rosenberg, Computer Science, Faculty of Science
Mackie Chase, Centre for Intercultural Communication, Faculty of Applied Science