First and Fourth Year Design-build Team Projects: a Comparison

The new Software Engineering degree program has been designed as a collaborative effort between the School of Electrical and Information Engineering and the School of IT at the University of Sydney. The design of the new curriculum is based on the ACS, ACM and IEEE curriculum recommendations and the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK), as well as the results of a detailed industry review. Close attention was paid to Computing Curriculum 2001 (CC2001) and to Software Engineering 2004 (SE2004). The CDIO framework was used to ensure the new program incorporates the full set of knowledge, skills and attitudes that students should possess as they graduate from university. As part of this exercise, team projects are being introduced to all years of study, from first through to fourth year. This paper compares team based student design-build projects taken by students in the first and fourth years of study. The objective is to determine what changes there are, if any, in the students’ approach to their projects in terms of the CDIO principles. The students’ approach is assessed for conception, information gathering and analysis, experimentation (where necessary), design process, implementation, testing and presentation. The results indicate a broad improvement in approach. The paper will present results in each of the above areas and make some recommendations concerning the imparting of CDIO skills.