A Computer Engineering Curriculum Model for Teaching Software Development to Bridge the Gap between Academia and Industry

Abstract

Software development has been traditionally taught in universities starting with programming, then analysis and design phases of software engineering, and ending up with software management processes. However, this bottom-up approach (from the specific to the general software view) is precisely the opposite of the typical accepted software development processes and life cycles found in the professional field. With the aim to bridge this gap between academia and industry, a multidisciplinary team of eleven lecturers of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya participated in a long-term research study with the aim to propose a new engineering curriculum model in the scope of software development. This paper reports on this study and demonstrates the correct adaptation of the proposed curriculum model to the design of the Bachelor in Computing Engineering within the European Higher Education Area whilst revealing in general a positive impact in the actual implementation of the innovative software development curriculum in our university in terms of academic performance and satisfaction.