Software Development Practicum

The Software Development Practicum provides an opportunity for students to apply the knowledge and skills gained in other courses as they synthesize a solution to a significant, realistic, and practical problem. Students work to analyze a problem, develop a software concept, plan a software development effort, define requirements, and implement a solution. Students will work closely with program faculty and, where possible, reviewers from industry to apply advanced software engineering techniques to a disciplined development of a realistic product and evaluate the results. Student teams are encouraged to use open source software engineering tools and software components to the extent possible.

Software development artifacts created as part of the Practicum will become part of the student's professional portfolio. Contents of the portfolio include such products as the concept definition, cost estimate, project plan and schedule, formal requirements specification, test plan, software quality assurance plan, software architecture, software design, implementation artifacts, test results, and metrics collected. The portfolio contents provide examples of the student's professional capabilities.