In Requirements Engineering (RE) Education, aligning students' requirements engineering skills with industry demands is one of the primary aims for educators. RE curricula vary between higher education institutes, but how they differ is difficult to describe. This paper proposes a novel mapping scheme to determine students' specification skills and, consequently, their industry readiness. This paper describes and motivates the scheme based on established bodies of knowledge in requirements engineering, syllabi for education and certification, and requirements specification standards. A preliminary validation of the scheme is provided by applying it to results produced by students of two RE courses taught at two universities of applied sciences, with the respective lecturer reviewing the accuracy and precision of its application. This paper describes the scheme and its development, outlines the preliminary validation process, and discusses its potential use for mapping RE education practices.
The significance of preparing students for industry becomes evident in the requirement
specification skills discourse [
In RE education, there is a scarcity of schemes for benchmarking. There are syllabi, such as
[
This paper aims to narrow this gap by proposing an evidence-based scheme for mapping students' demonstrated specification skills. While specification skills are only a subset of the requirement engineering practices being taught, they can be evaluated based on concrete results that are created by the students.
In software engineering, requirements specification documents are created to document the
results of RE activities. These documents contain software requirements and supplementary
details such as a vision, solution concept, reference documents, context, acceptance criteria, and
glossaries [
The primary goal of this work is to promote comparability between higher education institutions. We do so here by assessing the specification skills of RE students. To achieve this, we propose a mapping scheme for application across higher education RE courses. The scheme focuses on mapping specification skills of students because it showcases their proficiency in generating distinct requirements-related artefacts and applying techniques suitable for various aspects of requirement specifications. We believe these specifications demonstrate that students possess a robust understanding of RE, comprehend the interconnections between different RE artefacts, and are capable of performing specific specification techniques, rendering them 'industry-ready.'
Addressing this gap involves a comprehensive examination encompassing Bodies of
Knowledge, model curricula, syllabi, and standards for identifying relevant RE specification
practices and requirements specification document templates. Our methodological approach is
based on the systematic mapping process outlined by Petersen et al. [
We selected our knowledge sources based on REE literature recommendations [
The foundation of our mapping scheme was derived from Fricker et al.'s specification section
[
Fig. 1 shows the developed mapping scheme. It is designed to comprehensively address various aspects of Requirements Engineering (RE) specifications, offering versatility in its applications. A key feature is its ability to capture specification variations, encompassing not only the count of specific elements but also their percentage representation to illustrate different class sizes of students.
The intended use of our mapping scheme is versatile and can serve multiple purposes: 1) For Characterization of a Single Specification: Educators can employ the scheme to comprehensively characterise and understand the nuances of individual students' specification artifacts or entire specification documents. 2) For Characterization of Demonstrated Learning Outcomes: The mapping scheme can be applied to assess and articulate the demonstrated learning outcomes of a course in RE. 3) For Comparison Between Courses or Institutes: Educators should be able to compare the demonstrated learning outcomes between different courses or institutes of higher education, providing valuable insights for curriculum development and improvement.
Our mapping scheme underwent validation in two RE modules at different universities of applied sciences offering bachelor's degree courses. Course A focuses on fundamental RE practices such as requirements elicitation, analysis, validation, and management in software development projects. It covers terminology, vision development, business analysis, prototype workshops, and reviews of requirements specifications. Students explore requirements specification languages and templates like Shall-, User Story-, and Use Case templates. Learning objectives include understanding RE concepts, creating visions and requirements for software systems, and quantifying quality requirements. The course emphasises developing release plans within staged and agile software development lifecycles and includes group projects for practical application. Course B is aligned with the syllabus of IREB CPRE FL and should prepare students to pass the certification. Agile methods are excluded as they are part of a subsequent course.
Evaluating students' assignments reveals differences and commonalities. Most students use Use Case Diagrams and Specifications, with familiarity with activity and class diagrams. Functional and quality requirements are present and expressed through various methods. While elements like vision and goals are recognised, other document structures, except for the product backlog, were not recognised clearly.
Lecturer A agreed with the mapping scheme's assessment, recognising its reflection of taught requirements specification techniques and student choices. However, Lecturer A suggested enhancing the scheme's sensitivity to detect more techniques in student documents by establishing more explicit links between scheme categories and providing precise detection guidelines for stakeholder descriptions.
Regarding the assessment of Course B, Lecturer B noted that students were assigned three specific tasks: 1.) writing functional and non-functional requirements; 2.) modeling a use case diagram and writing a use case specification for one of the use cases of the diagram; 3.) modeling an activity diagram and class diagram based on a description) instead of creating a coherent requirement specification document, as for Course A. This resulted in a limited view and detected coverage of specification skills and the demonstrated variety.
Our work builds upon established knowledge frameworks to develop a mapping scheme to assess students' specification skills in REE. Leveraging these frameworks, we aimed to create a universal tool for mapping individual specification artefacts, thereby enabling the benchmarking of courses or institutes by comparing students' specification skills demonstrated in course assignments. The practical application of our mapping scheme uncovered its effectiveness in characterising specification documents. However, it also revealed limitations, particularly in supporting additional artefacts like implemented functional prototypes. Challenges persisted in identifying specific templates, especially phrase-based and documenttemplate-based approaches. The flexibility and adaptability of students' expression of requirements were evident, but the nuanced task of differentiating between templates necessitated further consideration. One potential threat to the validity of our evaluation was the reliance on our works for testing the mapping scheme, introducing the risk of bias. To mitigate this, further validations on a diverse set of works are imperative to ensure the independence and generalizability of the mapping scheme.
Our mapping scheme primarily reflects students' performance based on given assignments, potentially limiting its ability to entirely capture acquired specification skills from the course. The nature of the task assignment constrained the scope of skills showcased by the students, underscoring the importance of considering the broader curriculum context when interpreting the results. By providing insights into the nuances of students' performance and assignment tasks, the paper contributes not only to the benchmarking of RE education but also offers a pathway for continuous improvement in curriculum development. It encourages educators to consider the broader implications of the mapping scheme, fostering further exploration and adaptation to meet the industry's evolving demands and the diverse landscape of Requirements Engineering education.