Forum for Advancing Software engineering Education Volume 6 Number 15 July 11, 1996 Contents: Industry/University Collaboration: A Case Study CFP: Frontiers in Education CFP: OOPSLA Workshop on teaching OO to Freshmen SIGCSE 97 Call For Referees CFP: 3rd Int'l Conference On Cleanroom SE Practices (IC-CSEP) CFP: Sixth IFIP TC13 Conference On Human-Computer Interaction CFP: 8th Conference on Software Engineering Environments ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pete Knoke Subject: Industry/University Collaboration: A Case Study INDUSTRY/UNIVERSITY COLLABORATION: FINDING PEOPLE AT THE RIGHT LEVEL INTRODUCTION At the recent SEI Software Engineering Education Working Group meeting in Daytona Beach [SEEWG96], the group considered the issue of "Culture Change - Industry/University Collaboration". After a brief discussion, the working group team considering this issue concluded that industry/university collaboration was a good thing. Thereafter, it considered ways to make it happen more or better. It was assumed the initiator of this collaboration would be the university (or alternative education/training provider ). Several questions arose, one of which was: How can the person in the university (or other education/training providing organization) find the right person in industry to initiate the collaboration (i.e., internship ,or joint project, or training course, or on-site university course approval, etc.) The question is very broad and difficult to answer. A short answer is: it depends (on the nature of the collaboration sought, the particular university/industry pair, the locations of the pair, the individuals involved, etc.) However, a best case for the question is easy to define. For example, suppose that a Nobel Prize winning professor in a university seeks collaboration with a local multi-billion dollar company for which the CEO is a life-long friend of the professor, and for which the professor's expertise is of fundamental importance to the success and profitability of that company. For this case, the university professor simply contacts the company CEO. A worst case is equally easy to define. A good approach to answering the broader question might be to compile a collection of narrow scope case studies with associated answers, and attempt to generalize from this. In that spirit, I hereby submit a narrow scope case study which could be a useful element in such a collection. The case involves an academic course, a university, a city , and the industries in that city. These elements are briefly discussed below, and then an answer to the "right person" question is provided in that narrowed context. COURSE The course is called CS402, Senior Project and Professional Practice. In it Computer Science seniors do software development projects for local industry [KNO91]. It has been running with success for the last 16 years. The projects are real projects done for real customers in a realistic environment. Teams of 4-5 students do software developments from proposal through sell-off in 14 weeks, and the real customer is a major determinant of the team's grade. Software development costs are tracked because student project leaders keep track of time cards for team members and themselves. More than 40 such projects have been completed, with a high success rate (greater than 90% overall, with no failures in recent years). This course needs industry/university collaboration because it requires a continuing supply of good-quality real projects with their associated real customers. UNIVERSITY The university is the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). It is a land, sea and space grant university with about 9400 students, 9% of them graduate students. Its Computer Science program was started in 1980 and CSAB-accredited in 1991. It has about 100 undergraduate (BS CS) students and 20 graduate (MS CS) students. Of the latter, more than half are in a Software Engineering track which was started in late 1993. CS students have access to a wide range of computing resources, including a Cray Y-MP and a T3D located at the campus-based Arctic Region Supercomputing Center. FAIRBANKS Fairbanks is located in Interior Alaska, about 350 miles north of Anchorage Alaska and about 150 miles south of the Arctic Circle. There are roads linking Fairbanks to points south, but for most practical purposes Fairbanks is the end of the road for those traveling north by car. Fairbanks is Alaska's second largest city, founded in 1902. An estimated 15% of the Fairbanks area population is military. In recent years Fairbanks has experienced a small boom in summer tourism. The city of Fairbanks proper has a population of about 34,000 people, while the greater Fairbanks area has a population of about 75,000. INDUSTRY According to the Alaska Almanac [SMI95], overall Alaska employment by industry in 1994 was: SECTOR % - ------------------------------------------------------- 1) Government (Military, DOI, FAA,etc.) 27 2) Services & Misc (including tourism, etc.) 22 3) Trade (e.g.,retail) 21 4) Transportation/Communications/Utilities 10 5) Manufacturing 6 6) Finance/Insurance/Real Estate 5 7) Construction 5 8) Mining (including oil % gas) 4 9) Agriculture/Forestry/Fishing/Other 1 FINDING THE RIGHT PERSON - ------------------------ In summary UAF is a small university located in Fairbanks, Alaska, a small, remote, northern city. Eighty percent of the Fairbanks local industry consists of government, services, trade, and transportation/ communications/utilities activities. UAF seeks industry/university collaboration in order to provide real projects and real customers for the CS402 course, which is offered every Spring semester. The original question, restated for this narrower context, is: How can the UAF CS402 instructor find the right person(s) in Fairbanks local industry for CS402 "real" projects ? As was mentioned, CS402 has been offered annually for the last 16 years. In early years, the right person was normally found by the course instructor with a few telephone calls. This worked quite well, and was a natural approach for a small community where "everybody knows everybody". However, in recent years the right person(s) have been found mostly with the aid of a media-based approach, which evolved as follows: 1) One Spring in the early 90's, the instructor decided to try for some good public relations for UAF by collaborating with the UAF Public Information Officer in the development of a Press Release. The exact first release has been forgotten, but it reported something like "A UAF student team has developed a scheduling program for the North Pole Police Department. The students were... The Chief of Police said... etc,etc." This UAF Press Release was sent to the local newspaper (the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner), which was happy to print the article as a piece of good local news (UAF and Fairbanks community help each other, win-win situation, etc.). 2) The following January, the instructor decided to try a similar mechanism to generate a new set of possible projects. This entailed a Press Release stating that UAF was seeking proposals for medium sized software development projects to be done without charge by student teams. This Press Release was in effect a simplified Request For Proposals (RFP). The person named as the UAF contact was the CS402 instructor. 3) Steps 1 and 2 have been repeated each year subsequently. This media-based approach to be very successful in generating a fresh new set of candidate real projects for CS402 each year. In fact, it is almost too successful, because in recent years many more proposals are submitted than can be accepted. This leads to the compulsory use of scarce class time for proposal screening, and the need to disappoint quite a few proposal hopefuls. The media-based approach was used recently for the Spring 96 projects, and a strange new thing happened. The Press Release (RFP) was sent out as usual to the Fairbanks newspaper, which printed it as a public service announcement in the back of the local section. However, it was also picked up by the local TV station (which did a 10 minute segment on the projects, interviews with the instructor, interviews with satisfied customers, etc), and the local radio station. All this happened over the space of two days. Within three days, 24 project proposals were in hand as described below. CS402 CANDIDATE PROJECTS 23 JAN 96 SPRING 1996 # NAME | ORGAN | DESCRIPTION OF SW APPLICATION - -------------------------|------------|--------------------------------- 1 LON KELLY ** | BLM | reservation system for BLM cabins 2 NETTIE LABELLE-HAMER | FAHA | ice scheduling for hockey league 3 PAMELA BUMSTED | FNA | design computer resource center 4 RUTH BAR SHALOM | HOLMED | invent prg for holistic medicine 5 MICHAEL ABELS | IAB | scheduler for IAB resources 6 TOM MCGRANE | KUAC | TV program scheduling-1 7 GREG RUFF | KUAC | TV program scheduling-2 8 TERRY REICHART | LOVE,INC | match needs w. comm resources 9 TOM DE PETER | NSFIRE | add inv tracker to present system 10 CINDY LINTEEN | PIONEERHME | pioneer home mgmnt system 11 SCOTT ALLEN | SE | truck mgmnt application 12 BRUCE LEE | SE | dog mushing management 13 ELMER LEZENKO | SE | investment management software 14 ROBERT FOX | SE | real estate application 15 RUTH THOMPSON | SE | creamer field management 16 KEN PHILIP | SE | mapping application for Mac 17 DONNA SCOTT | TANCH | employment serv for natives 18 DANA KENT | TANCH | serv for natives (food stmps) 19 BRENDA WILCOX ** | UAFALUM | Mac-based alumni db system 20 GORDON JARRELL ** | UAFMUS | integ sys for museum collections 21 DEBRA DAMRON ** | UAFPR | match std home addr w.lcl papers 22 EILEEN ARMSTRONG | USIBELLI | sourdough cabins sched system 23 SCOTT BELL | USKH | contact difficulties 24 JOBE CHAKUCHIN | YUKCH | analyze biological data - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTES: ** = SELECTED Four of the 24 projects were selected and executed to the satisfaction of their customers. The other 20 applicants were sent gentle rejections. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS - ----------------------- The question of "how to find the right person" for industry/university collaboration is too broad to admit an easy answer. One approach to answering the broad question is to collect a number of answers from narrow-scope case studies, and attempt to generalize. One such case study is reported here, in which the desired area of collaboration is joint software development projects to be done by student teams. For this case, a media-based approach has been used sucessfuly to "find the right persons". Although this approach works well for a small university in a small remote city, it might not work well in other environments. REFERENCES - ---------- [SEEWG96] Proceedings of the Working Group on Software Engineering Education, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, Florida, 25-26 April 96 [KN091] "Medium Size Project Model: Variations on a Theme", P.Knoke, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 536, J. Tomayko (Ed), 1991 SEI Conference on Software Engineering Education [SMI95] "The Alaska Almanac: Facts About Alaska", 19th Edition, C. Smith (ed), Alaska Northwest Books, Seattle, Washington 1995. EDITOR'S NOTE: Many thanks to Pete Knoke for writing up this case study. We would very much like to publish additional case studies of collaborations. Please forward your experiences with industry/university collaborations to Kathy Beckman, FASE Co-Editor, at: sdmce@access.digex.net. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: lwerth@cs.utexas.edu (Laurie Werth) Subject: CFP: Frontiers in Education FASE readers: We have one panel arranged on SE education, but would welcome papers or other panel etc. as described above. Please respond to me with submission ideas. Laurie Werth Dept of Computer Sciences The University of Texas at Austin Taylor 2.124 Austin, TX 78712 lwerth@cs.utexas.edu --- Forwarded mail from Stephen Seidman For 25 years, the annual Frontiers in Education (FIE) conferences have provided a forum for presenting research in engineering education. These conferences were originally cosponsored by the IEEE Education Society and the the Educational Research and Methods Division of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE-ERM). In 1994, the IEEE Computer Society became a cosponsor of the FIE conferences, with the hope that they could provide a similar forum for presenting important educational issues and research results in computer science and engineering. The FIE program committee consists of three co-chairs, one from each of the sponsoring societies. I am the Computer Society co-chair for FIE '97, which will be held November 5-8, 1997, in Pittsburgh. I would like the computer science and engineering portion of the FIE '97 program to consist of a number of topical sessions, workshops, and panels. Topics under consideration include: - the core curriculum in computer science breadth-based curricular approaches nontraditional approaches to the first course object-oriented introductory curricula - software engineering education (both graduate and undergraduate) - information systems education - distance education - ethics in the curriculum - accreditation issues - international issues - evaluation and outcomes asssessment - computer science and engineering at minority institutions Sincerely, Stephen B. Seidman Department of Computer Science Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523 (phone) 970-491-5862 (fax) 970-491-2466 (email) seidman@cs.colostate.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: lwerth@cs.utexas.edu (Laurie Werth) Subject: CFP: OOPSLA Workshop on teaching OO to Freshmen CALL FOR PARTICIPATION -- Teaching and Learning Object Design in the First Academic Year OOPSLA 96 Workshop, Sunday 6-Oct-96, San Jose California, USA This workshop will involve presentations and intensive collaborative sessions to investigate methodologies, tools, philosophies, case studies, and assessment techniques that effectively support teaching and learning object design in the first academic year. Our goal is to investigate experience and ideas related to effective early teaching and learning of object design. We hope to determine useful guidelines for educators that better prepare students for future courses and industry. If you are interested in submitting a position paper, please go to http://www.comp.vuw.ac.nz/Research/design1/call.html where you'll find: o The Call for Participation. o The Suggested Position Paper Outline. o The Original Workshop Proposal. and a link to the OOPSLA 96 homepage. If you have questions, contact: Rick Mercer -or- Robert Biddle Penn State Berks Victoria University Engineering and Computer Science Computer Science Tulpehocken Road PO Box 600 Reading, PA 19610-6009 Wellington USA New Zealand 610-320-4845 +64 4 471-5328 rhm1@psuvm.psu.edu robert@comp.vuw.ac.nz ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Carl Erickson Subject: SIGCSE 97 Call For Referees The quality of papers at SIGCSE `97 depends on the willingness of SIGCSE members and others to serve as referees. Referees receive at most three papers for review. Papers will be sent shortly after the September 4 submission deadline. Referee reports must be RECEIVED no later than October 10, 1996. Please complete this form and return it by August 1, 1996, to indicate your interest and ability in serving as a referee for SIGCSE `97. You may reply directly to this mail, or see below for fax and postal addresses. (Some of you have already sent information, but please oblige us with a response anyway - thanks.) Carl Erickson or Bruce Klein, Program Co-chairs, SIGCSE `97 Computer Science and Information Systems Department Grand Valley State University Allendale, MI 49401 fax 616.895.2106 - -------------- cut here -------------------- Name________________________________________________ Position____________________________________________ Address_____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ Phone _________________ Fax _________________ E-mail___________________________ Check subject areas you are competent to referee: ___Algorithms ___Artificial Intelligence ___Computer Science Education Research ___CS1 and 2 ___Computer Supported Cooperative Work ___Curriculum Issues ___Data Communications and Networks ___Data Structures ___Database Systems and Management ___Distance Education ___Ethical and Social Issues in Computing ___Formal Methods & Theory ___Gender Issues ___Graphics and Visualization ___Information Systems ___Instructional Software ___Laboratory Environments ___Multimedia ___Non-majors Courses ___Object-oriented Technology ___Operating Systems ___Parallel and Distributed Computing ___Programming Languages ___Security ___Software Engineering ___User Interfaces ___Web technology ___Other - specify______________________________________ Thank you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Deck Subject: CFP: 3rd Int'l Conference On Cleanroom SE Practices (IC-CSEP) Conference Theme: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice: Experiences, Practices, Innovations, and Case Studies in the Use of Cleanroom Concepts and Principles. Conference Focus: To facilitate the use of Cleanroom theory and concepts in practice. The conference provides an opportunity for researchers and practitioners to interact with one another, share ideas and experiences, and pursue common goals in software development. Deadlines for Paper Submission or Panel Proposal -- July 15, 1996. For Further Information Contact: General Chair: Shirley Becker 3rd IC-CSEP Q-Labs, Inc. USA, College Park Professional Center, Suite 305, 4511 Knox Rd, College Park, MD 20740 phone:(301)864-1177 fax(301)864-0980 email: sbe@q-labs.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Donald Day Subject: CFP: Sixth IFIP TC13 Conference On Human-Computer Interaction INTERACT97: SIXTH IFIP TC13 CONFERENCE ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION Darling Harbour Convention Centre, Sydney, Australia 14 - 18 July, 1997 THEME: DISCOVERING NEW WORLDS OF HCI Hosted by the Australian Computer Society Incorporating OZCHI, the Australian Annual CHISIG Conference and APCHI, the annual Asia-Pacific Conference on HCI CALL FOR PARTICIPATION SUBMISSION DEADLINE DATES: 15th November, 1996 (or postmarked 1 November) >>> Papers, Panels, Tutorials 17th January, 1997 (or postmarked 6th January) >>> Workshops, Posters, Doctoral Consortium, >>> Laboratory & Organisational Overviews, >>> New Technologies, Videos, Interactive Experience To obtain full information: FILL IN THE FORM at the end of this announcement and SEND THE FORM to INTERACT97 Conference Office at email: interact97@acs.org.au Keep up to date by visiting the INTERACT97 Web pages at: http://www.acs.org.au/interact97 AIMS INTERACT97 brings together HCI researchers and practitioners in all fields and disciplines, from diverse cultures and backgrounds, who are interested in the interactions between people and computers; to share state-of-the-art HCI knowledge and research advances in an international atmosphere; and to gain fresh perspectives on the problems and opportunities of creating more usable technology, systems and environments. CONFERENCE TOPICS Contributions which advance the theory or practice of any aspect of HCI are welcomed. The review policy is to support diversity and focus on international issues. Discussions that link between or expand the following topics are particularly encouraged: Applications: including groupwork and groupware (CSCW, CSCL); consumer products; offices; education; libraries; medicine; process control; knowledge based systems; the arts and media; people with special needs Theoretical Issues: task and user modelling; psychology of design; learning and performance; interaction models Interfaces, Tools and Architectures: World Wide Web; multimedia; communications, hypertext; hypermedia; portable user interfaces; design environments; UIMS; new or emerging technologies Development Issues: formal methods; Scandinavian approaches; notations; requirements and task analysis; prototyping; user participation; participatory design; programmer aids; metrics; dialogue design; graphics; standards and guidelines; work practices; implementation and management issues; social and political issues ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernt Kullbach Subject: CFP: 8th Conference on Software Engineering Environments Cottbus, Germany, 8-9 April 1997 SEE'97 is the eighth in a series of major conference held on Software Engineering Environments - the premier professional meeting in a European location to review, discuss, debate and learn about the most recent practice and research results in the field. The goal of the conference is to bring together experts on software engineering environments. Papers should contain new and significant results pertaining to this topic. Papers that point out new directions are particularly welcome. Tool presentations and demonstrations by authors are explicitly solicited. Submission deadline: October, 10th 1996 Detailled information about the conference is available from http://www-sst.informatik.tu-cottbus.de/~wwwsst/SEE97/ or contact Prof. Dr. Juergen Ebert Institut fuer Softwaretechnik Universitaet Koblenz-Landau Rheinau 1 D-56075 Koblenz Tel. ++49-261-9119-412 Fax. ++49-261-9119-499 email ebert@informatik.uni-koblenz.de E------------------------------------------------------------------- FASE Volume 6 Number 15 Send newsletter articles to one of the editors, preferably by category: Articles pertinent to corporate and government training to Kathy Beckman, sdmce@access.digex.net; Academic education, and all other categories to fase@cs-server.d.umn.edu, or to Keith Pierce, kpierce@d.umn.edu. Send requests for information or to add or delete a subscription to fase-request@cs-server.d.umn.edu with one of the words HELP, SUBSCRIBE, or UNSUBSCRIBE in the SUBJECT line. Send problem reports, returned mail, or other correspondence about this newsletter to kpierce@d.umn.edu You can retrieve back issues by anonymous FTP from from ricis.cl.uh.edu or through WWW at URL http://ricis.cl.uh.edu/FASE/ Keith Pierce -- Academic/Misc Editor and ListMaster University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, MN 55812-2496 USA Phone: 218- 726-7194 Fax: 218-726-6360 Email: kpierce@d.umn.edu Kathy Beckman -- Corporate/Government Editor Computer Data Systems One Curie Ct., Rockville MD 20850 USA Phone: 301-921-7027 Fax: 301-921-1004 Email: sdmce@access.digex.net David Eichmann -- FASE Archivist University of Houston - Clear Lake Box 113, 2700 Bay Area Blvd., Houston, TX 77058 USA Web: http://ricis.cl.uh.edu/eichmann/ Phone: 713-283-3875 Fax: 713-283-3810 Email: eichmann@rbse.jsc.nasa.gov or eichmann@cl.uh.edu Laurie Werth -- Advisory Committee Taylor Hall 2.124 University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712 USA Phone: 512-471-9535 Fax: 512-471-8885 Email: lwerth@cs.utexas.edu Nancy Mead -- Advisory Committee Software Engineering Institute 5000 Forbes Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA Phone: 412-268-5756 Fax: 412-268-5758 Email: nrm@sei.cmu.edu