COSC 310 Software Engineering

Fall (Winter Term 1) 2006 - University of British Columbia Okanagan

Overview

The Software Engineering course in Fall 2006 was an interesting course. It represented a brand new course for me that is outside my area. It was also my second course at UBC Okanagan offered in the same semester as COSC 304 (database). Although I am proud of how it turned out and my instructor rating was very good (4.75 out of 5), this course was a learning experience. The material itself was presented well, but the content of the course felt at too high a level for the students to appreciate the importance of software engineering. When combined with 2 hours of lab and a project this course was quite demanding. It was even more so for students also registered in COSC 304 despite my efforts to stagger deadlines. In future offerings the labs will be used as assignment times and the project scaled back. Finally, some issues related to how UBC Okanagan assigns grades to marks were discovered that effected how the final grades for the students were assigned. Student performance was good, but the marks are too high due to this grade scaling issue. The course was small (14 students), but that is typical for UBC Okanagan at this time. About 80% of the students were also registered in COSC 304. The course involved homework and programming assignments, one midterm exam, a final exam, and a major project.

The project turned out very well. The project was to implement an archive analysis and tracking system for the NEXRAD archive. This was a good project because the system was pre-existing, already in use at Iowa, and the students did not have great access to the client. Although it took a while to get going, the students learned UML and produced a usable system that may go into production. Groups started out small in the specification phase (2), doubled in the design phase (4), doubled again (7), and by the end, everyone was working on a single version.

The class was at an awful time of 8:30-9:30 a.m. Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays in Science 236 with a 2 hour lab on Wednesdays from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. The poor time contributed to weaker attendance.

On-line Resources

• Syllabus

Student Performance

Of the 14 registered students who started the course, all passed the course for a 100% pass rate. The average GPA was 3.69 or above an A- (without grading issue average GPA would have be 3.23). Charts showing the mark breakdown are below.

Comments

This was a solid class despite the early meeting time. A major issue was the workload.

Strengths of the Course

• "Many different software methodologies were taught in equal depth, and the course did not focus on a specific process."
  


• "Everything."
  


• "Very well organized ; Useful course package ; Class participation ; Some sort of real-world experience"
  

Weakness of the Course

• "The course was intended to prepare us for the project course 319. It turned out that this course was a project course itself. The workload was therefore beyond reasonable."
  


• "Watching slides this early in the morning can really put a person to sleep."
  

Most Enjoyable Part of the Course

• "You treated students with respect and students could talk with you openly."
  


• "Ramon's organization/teaching style. Some "engineering experience"."
  


• "Working on NEXRAD project and learning new programming languages."