Distributed Virtual Courses to Teach Global Software Engineering: Lessons Learned and Best Practices

ABSTRACTComputer science students need to learn a wide variety of skills to succeed in their future careers. In addition to technical skills like programming, information science, and statistics, the globalization of the software industry requires graduates to learn non-technical skills as well, such as distributed project management and intercultural communication to collaborate on large, international software development projects. A series of distributed, virtual courses to teach global software engineering have been conducted between the Ritsumeikan University in Japan and the University of Applied Sciences Nuremberg in Germany. Cross-site student teams collaborated virtually to develop solutions to a real-world software engineering project. A combination of project-based learning, collaborative learning, and context-based learning is discussed. Experiences from both sides are explored. Lessons learned and best practices from these and other collaborative teaching experiences are presented.