=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2531/paper08
|storemode=property
|title=Teaching Requirements Engineering with Industry Case Examples
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2531/paper08.pdf
|volume=Vol-2531
|authors=Marian Daun,Bastian Tenbergen
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/seuh/DaunT20
}}
==Teaching Requirements Engineering with Industry Case Examples==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2531/paper08.pdf
Teaching Requirements Engineering
with Industry Case Examples
Marian Daun Bastian Tenbergen
paluno - The Ruhr Institute for Software Technology Department of Computer Science
University of Duisburg-Essen State University of New York
Essen, Germany Oswego, USA
marian.daun@paluno.uni-due.de bastian.tenbergen@oswego.edu
Abstract—Project-based learning has proven useful in software in reduced industry involvement over several repetitions of
engineering education to increase student engagement and learn- the same course. Another approach is the use of non-profit
ing performance. In this paper, we illustrate our experiences organization as stakeholders (e.g., [10]), as the recruitment
from applying industry projects in graduate and undergraduate
requirements engineering courses in Germany and in the United of real stakeholders is difficult to achieve. Similarly, in some
States. We furthermore discuss our experiences in light of approaches instructors imitate real stakeholders to counteract
differences between graduate and undergraduate students as well difficulties in achieving commitment of real stakeholders [11].
as between the educational systems. Results show that our course
design is well received in both countries in terms of learning C. Contribution and Outline
outcomes, student motivation, teamwork, attention to detail, and
We propose the use of industry case examples as a more
performance in the exam.
Index Terms—Requirements Engineering Education, Industry reliable source of industry knowledge and experience to be
Projects, Case Examples, Project Based Learning introduced in the course. In this paper, we report our findings
from applying the course setup in three different courses.
I. I NTRODUCTION Therefore, Section II briefly introduces the course design
In this talk, we report our experiences from using a course and the industry case examples used. Section III reports
design relying on industry case examples to teach requirements experiences gained from the application of the course design
engineering (RE). The course design combines problem- and in the different settings. Section IV concludes the paper.
project-based learning with industry orientation and has been II. C OURSE D ESIGN AND I NDUSTRY C ASE E XAMPLES
subjected to three different courses: a Master-level require-
ments engineering course at the University of Duisburg-Essen To foster student motivation and engagement, we designed
[1], a Bachelor-level requirements engineering course at the the courses to intensively employ realistic industrial case
University of Duisburg-Essen [2], and a Bachelor-level safety examples in combination with project-orientation. The case
requirements engineering course at the State University of examples were created in close cooperation with industry
New York at Oswego. [3]. partners in a large-scale national research project. Case exam-
ples describe typical embedded systems from safety-critical
A. Motivation domains such as automotive or avionics, which are rich with
Graduates of University-level software engineering pro- requirements. The case examples, have been simplified to be
grams are often hired straight out of college into industry. understandable by non-experts and to protect our partners’
As industry representatives often feel that university graduates intellectual property.
require additional training before they can be useful in a The key aim of the new course design was to foster the
company (cf. [4]), there is a need for universities to make use following learning outcomes: students shall improve method
of more artifact-, project-, and problem-centered educational competence, problem-solving skills, and industrial applicabil-
approaches [5]. Therein, students are encouraged to engage in ity; gain awareness of industrially relevant engineering chal-
and structure their own knowledge discovery process, which lenges; while at the same time foster an in-depth understanding
has substantial benefits for knowledge retention [6]. of RE theory.
Resulting in the following major course items:
B. Related Work • A traditional lecture introducing theoretical concepts.
Proposed approaches for industry-oriented higher education Students were encouraged to interject questions whenever
commonly feature case example-oriented instruction like in they arose, including questions about their case example.
problem-based and project-based learning. (e.g., [7]). Other • A tutorial session focusing on case study milestones. A
approaches aim at bringing industrial experiences into the tutorial group was divided into teams, each provided with
classroom [8] or use real stakeholders within the classroom a case example. The teams were tasked with creating
[9]. Doing so, however, is not always feasible and often results one specification for the case system over the course of
S. Krusche, S. Wagner (Hrsg.): SEUH 2020 49
Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
the semester. Several incremental milestones had to be be created by all team members equally. However, the reality
submitted for review and critique, re-submissions were is that often, students segregate their work and only work
accepted as often as necessary. Final as well as initial on parts of the assignment, which is hardly traceable by the
milestones were extensively discussed in plenum. instructor. In case of the US course, students were far more
• In addition, voluntary assignment sheets were provided concerned with unequal contributions to project milestones.
and discussed. Yet, in our experience, after a few weeks in the US course,
this behavior changed in almost all teams towards a truly
III. A PPLICATION E XPERIENCES cooperative environment, where students sought collaboration
In this section, we briefly report the experiences made in the and discussions about the case study. Much akin to the
three different settings. We particularly, emphasize differences observations we made in the German courses, where students
made between the courses. were less concerned with unequal amounts of work rather than
with evolving on the case study.
A. German Master-level Course
IV. C ONCLUSIONS
Experiences in the graduate course include the following
(see [1] for a detailed discussion): In the course, we observed In this paper, we have reported on our experiences on the
lively classroom discussions with a strong focus on theory. use of realistic, industry-typical case examples in requirements
Contrary to previous installments, classroom discussions fo- engineering courses. We applied the course design in three
cused on content-centric topics instead of simple technical different requirements engineering courses held in Germany
questions regarding the assignments. For example, students and the United States. Our experiences show that although
engaged in discussions on how to use different notation country-specific differences in grading, student population,
alternatives and how to avoid ambiguity. This was aligned degree programs exist, the course design emphasizing the use
with more active student involvement as well as student of industry case examples was applicable in graduate and
participation in general. We also noticed a high degree of undergraduate courses, as well as in Germany and the United
voluntary work and an increased intrinsic effort in student States. In all settings, the course design was very well received
solutions. and led to improved exam results.
R EFERENCES
B. German Bachelor-level Course
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