The implementation of higher education studies is not a simple matter. However the presence of specialized curriculum recommendations can make implementation easier. Web engineering is an important discipline that is well worth the implementation of higher education studies, but, at present, no specialized curriculum recommendations on this subject have been developed. This paper gives voice to some thoughts about web engineering and its relationship with software engineering and information systems. In addition, a draft curriculum recommendation for web engineering is proposed.
The implementation of higher education studies is far from being a simple matter. In
recent years, the development of the European Space for Higher Education [
Indeed, our own university has changed its curricula and now offers three different
degrees in computer science. During the development of these degrees, the presence
of computer science curricula authored by ACM/AIS/AITP/IEEE-CS [
Web engineering is an important discipline that is attracting the interest of
students, academics and industry [
One major obstacle in the development of these specialist curriculum
recommendations on web engineering is agreement about what web engineering is.
Some authors hold that web engineering is a new emerging discipline in its own right,
rather than one that is subsumed under software engineering [
This paper reviews these constituent disciplines and their relationships with available curriculum recommendations and expresses some thoughts about the development of curriculum recommendations on web engineering. For the sake of conciseness, only curriculum recommendations from ACM/AIS/AITP/IEEE-CS are reviewed.
Thus, in Section 2 these constituent disciplines are reviewed. In Section 3 some ACM/AIS/AITP/IEEE-CS curriculum recommendations are reviewed. In Section 4 a draft curriculum pattern for the web engineering discipline is defined. Finally, our conclusions and future work are outlined.
Several authors have proposed that web engineering is a discipline made up of
different heterogeneous disciplines [
Others.
However, these disciplines do not have the same relevance in the web
engineering discipline. In order to obtain an approximate idea of the influence of
every constituent discipline more than seven hundred papers on web engineering were
classified in [
The previous analysis does not attempt to conduct an exhaustive classification and indexing of web engineering literature. The analysis does not aim to precisely rank constituent disciplines of web engineering by order of importance either. Its principal aim is to obtain an approximate view of the importance of every constituent discipline in web engineering. Thus, the analysis clearly indicates that software engineering is a very important part of the web engineering discipline. In addition, it indicates that information systems are another important discipline in web engineering. But of course, these are not the only constituent disciplines.
Therefore, it is reasonable to derive from [
ACM/AIS/IEEE-CS Computing Curricula 2005 (CC2005) provides undergraduate
curriculum guidelines for five defined sub-disciplines of computing: Computer
Science, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, Information Technology, and
Software Engineering [
ACM/IEEE-CS Software Engineering 2004 (SE2004) provides curriculum guidelines
for undergraduate degree programs in software engineering [
Table 2 depicts a curriculum pattern for a software engineering degree taught in a computer science department. Sem 1A Sem 1B Sem 2A Sem 2B Sem 3A Sem 3B Sem 4A Sem 4B CS101 CS102 CS103 CS220 CS226 CS270T SE400 SE400 Calc 1 Calc 2 CS106 SE A MA271 SE D SE F Tech elect NT181 CS105 SE201 SE212 SE C SE E Tech elect Tech elect Physics Any sci NT272 Linear Al NT291 Tech elect Tech elect Tech elect Gen ed Gen ed -- Gen ed Gen ed Gen ed Gen ed Gen ed CS101:Programming fundamentals; CS102: Object-oriented paradigm; CS103: Data structures and algorithms; CS105: Discrete structures I; CS106: Discrete structures II; CS220: Computer architecture; CS226: Operating systems and networking; CS270T: Databases; Calc n: Calculus n; SE 201: Introduction to SE; SE212: SE Approach to HCI; SE A, C, D, E, F: additional SE courses; SE400: SE capstone project; MA271: Statistics and empirical methods for computing; NT181: Group dynamics and communication; NT272: Engineering economics; NT291: Professional SE practice; Tech elect: technical elective course; Gen ed: general non-technical course. 3.2
ACM/AIS/AITP Information Systems 2002 (IS2004) provides curriculum guidelines
for undergraduate degree programs in information systems [
Fig. 1 depicts these ten courses and their dependences.
IS 2002.P0 Personal Productivity with IS Technology IS 2002.1 Fundamentals of
Information Systems IS 2002.2 E-Business Strategy, Architecture, and Design
IS 2002.3 Information Systems Theory and Practice
IS 2002.4 IT Hardware and System Software
IS 2002.5 Programming, Data, File and Object Structures
IS 2002.7 Analysis and Logical
Design IS 2002.6 Networks and Telecommunications
IS 2002.8 Physical Design and Implementation with
DBMS IS 2002.9 Physical Design and Implementation in Emerging Environments
IS 2002.10 Project Management and Practice
The development of a curriculum pattern is not an easy task. The patterns provided in
the curriculum recommendations put forward by ACM/AIS/AITP/IEEE-CS are large
documents made by teams of experts in every area. Therefore, the curriculum pattern
provided in this paper is not comparable to the curriculum patterns contained in
ACM/AIS/AITP/IEEE-CS recommendations. However, taking into account the work
done in [
Regarding the software engineering curriculum pattern described in Table 2 and the information systems courses described in Fig. 1: NT272 Engineering economics has been moved from Sem 2A to Sem 1A and has been merged with NT181 Group dynamics and communication. NT291 Professional SE practice has been moved from Sem 3A to Sem 2B. Linear Algebra has been moved from Sem 2B to 1B. CS270T Databases has disappeared. The inclusion of courses belonging to
IS2002 makes the presence of course CS270 on databases unnecessary. IS2002.4 IT hardware and system software has disappeared. The presence of computer science courses (cs22x) makes course IS2002.4 on computer architecture unnecessary. IS2002.5 Programming, data, file and object structures has disappeared. The presence of computer science courses (CS10x) makes course IS2002.5 about programming and data structures unnecessary. SE400 SE capstone project and IS2002.10 Project management and practice have been merged. The capstone project on software engineering can be merged with the capstone project on information systems. Of course, the project should be a web engineering project.
In addition, specific courses on web engineering have been added. These courses
have been selected taking into account the skills needed for the development of web
applications and the constituent disciplines of web engineering identified in [
Because the capstone project is under development in the last year we
think that the teaching load should be lightened; these, therefore, could be
introductory courses. Master’s and doctoral programs could provide
deeper descriptions of these courses. In particular, we propose ten courses
with (at least) a representative reference:
o WE301: Accessibility [
o WE310: Web 2.0 [34].
Software engineering courses should be reviewed according to [
The web engineering curriculum pattern depicted in Table 3 may be a bit dense. Removing advanced courses in software engineering and information systems could be a simple way to lighten it. General non-technical courses could be taught instead.
SE2004 also includes significant additional sections: Software Engineering as an Engineering Discipline, Professional Practice, Guiding Principles (for the development of SE2004) and Student Outcomes. We agree with the underlying philosophical message of these sections. Therefore, they could be adapted and included in a curriculum recommendation for web engineering.
IS2002 also includes significant additional sections: Principles Guiding the Curriculum Design, Guiding Assumptions about the Information Systems Profession, and Exit Characteristics of Information Systems graduates. As in the case of SE2004, we agree with the underlying philosophical message of these sections. Therefore, they could be adapted and included in a curriculum recommendation for web engineering.
Regarding the available web engineering curriculum recommendations, it is important to observe that, as the curriculum proposed in this paper, none is made by a major organization.
The curriculum proposed in this paper is an undergraduate degree program, while
the curriculum proposed in [
A framework for a web engineering curriculum is defined in [
Finally, in [
The development of a curriculum recommendation is not an easy task. According to the constituent disciplines of web engineering, this paper has proposed a draft curriculum pattern for web engineering.
This curriculum pattern could be reviewed and lightened to be made more attractive for both students and teachers. In addition, software engineering and web engineering courses must be adapted to the specific nature of the web engineering discipline.
However a question arises on analyzing the proposed curriculum pattern: is a web engineer a programmer with a solid foundation in software engineering and information systems that is able to build web applications and is aware of technologies used in web development? If the answer is yes, the proposed curriculum could serve as a basis for the development of web engineering curriculum recommendations. Otherwise, a concise definition of what a web engineer is should be formulated.
A final conclusion is that, in our opinion, the course structure presented in SE2004 is more useful and detailed than the one presented in IS2002. Therefore, if a web engineering curriculum recommendation is made, the structure defined in SE2004 would be preferable to the one defined in IS2002.
Finally, we think that future work should include the development of web engineering undergraduate curriculum recommendations by a major worldwide organization. In addition, the development of Master’s and doctoral programs should be analysed.
Acknowledgments. El Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (TIN2009-14317-C0301/TSI), La Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid (S2009/TIC-1650) and La Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Group 921340) have supported this work. 28.Carliner, S., Shank, P. The E-Learning Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Online
Learning. Pfeiffer (2008). 29.McCraken D., Wolfe R.J., Spool, J.M.: User-Centered Website Development: A Human
Computer Interaction Approach. Prentice Hall PTR (2003). 30.Nielsen J., Pernice, K.: Eyetracking Web Usability. New Riders Press (2009). 31.Lowe, D., Hall, W.: Hypermedia and the Web: An Engineering Approach. Wiley (1999). 32.Daswani, N., Christoph, K., Kesavan, A.: Foundations of Security: What Every Programmer
Needs to Know. Apress (2007). 33.Segaran T., Evans, C., Taylor, J.: Programming the Semantic Web. O’Reilly Media (2009). 34.Governor, J., Hinchcliffe, D., Nicknull, D.: Web 2.0 Architectures: What Entrepreneurs and Information Architects Need to Know. O’Reilly (2009).