Core Software Engineering Subjects: A Case Study ('86 - '94)

The “software crisis” was first acknowledged in the mid 1960s. Some would claim that the software crisis is still with us. A recent issue of Scientific American ran a story on the currently infamous software disaster at the new Denver international airport [1]. Software engineering has been heralded as the needed discipline that can improve software development to meet the needs of modern software requirements. This paper will look at the key subject at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) that introduces students to software engineering. This subject will be compared to current model curricula. The success of this subject will be evaluated and a corollary drawn to the usefulness of the model curricula. Then this paper will look at software engineering project work at QUT and consider what are appropriate compromises to make to run a successful group project in a single semester.