Industry/university collaborations: different perspectives heighten mutual opportunities

Universities and industry organizations have traditionally maintained informal ways of working together, including student internships, faculty exchanges, and industry capstone projects to complete a degree program. A more recent phenomenon is the formal collaboration between a university (or group of universities) and an industry organization (or group of organizations). The purpose is to meet the critical software engineering education and training needs of adult learners through joint ventures such as graduate programs (degree and certificate) and professional development activities (customized classes, seminars , forums, and conferences). In September 1995, the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) began tracking this phenomenon in its annual Directory of Industry and University Collaborations with a Focus on Software Engineering Education and Training [1]. There are now 23 directory entries, representing collaborations formed in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Several of these pioneer efforts are now six to 10 years old. There is some previously published literature on the topic. Special Issue on Software Engineering Education and Training contained the article, " Industry/University Collaboration: Closing the Gap Between Industry and Academia, " which described a model for collaborations and featured a close look at three of these efforts [3]. However, industry/university collaborations for software engineering education and training remain a mystery to many in academia and industry. Commonly asked questions are practical queries such as the following: • Why collaborate? What are the benefits? • How would we start, and then operate, a collaboration? • What makes a collaboration successful? In other words, what makes an industry/university collaboration " tick " ? The SEI Working Group on Software Engineering Education and Training contacted collaboration practitioners to help answer these practical questions [see sidebar on p. 15]. This paper provides some preliminary answers. It is offered as a service to the software engineering education and training community to assist anyone interested in forming a new collaboration or improving an existing collaboration. In December 1997, the SEI Working Group surveyed both academic and industry representatives of the 23 collaborations documented in the 1997 Directory, as well as collaborations from Auburn University and Lockheed Martin Corp. The 25-question survey requested: 1. Demographic information. 2. Information on collaboration goals and measures. 3. Overall collaboration process information. 4. Individual collaboration activities and results. 5. Lessons learned. Fourteen responded. Participating universities and their industry partners are listed below: From the respondents, the Working Group selected the following for follow-up phone interviews: In …