Software Engineering Technology--Bachelor of Science
Mission
The mission of the Software Engineering Technology (SET) bachelor's degree program within the Computer Systems Engineering Technology (CSET) Department at Oregon Institute of Technology is to prepare our students for productive careers in industry and government by providing an excellent education incorporating industry-relevant, applied laboratory-based instruction in both the theory and application of software engineering. The program is to serve a constituency consisting of our students, high-technology industry, and the citizens of Oregon. Major components of the SET program's mission in the CSET Department are:
- To educate a new generation of Software Engineering Technology students to meet current and future industrial challenges and emerging software trends.
- To promote a sense of scholarship, leadership, and professional service among our graduates.
- To enable our students to create, develop, apply, and disseminate knowledge within the software development environment.
- To expose our students to cross-disciplinary educational programs.
- To provide government and high tech industry employers with graduates in software engineering and related professions.
Educational Objectives
- Graduates of the SET bachelor's program will have a thorough understanding of the key principles and practices of applied software engineering, including possessing the ability to identify, analyze, test, and solve non-trivial software engineering technical problems.
- Graduates of the SET bachelor's program will possess a firm foundation in the scientific, mathematical, and engineering principles that support the computing discipline of software engineering technology.
- Graduates of the SET bachelor's program will have developed a broad base of skills preparing them to function as a software practitioner. They will practice with ethical and professional responsibility; recognize the need for, and have the ability to engage in, continual life-long learning as it pertains to advances in technology; and have the ability to function and communicate effectively and successfully, both individually and within multi-disciplinary teams.
- Graduates of the SET program bachelor's program will have the means necessary to acquire practical and analytical skills for employment within a technical environment.
Expected Student Learning Outcomes
Software Engineering Technology baccalaureate graduates will have demonstrated:
1. an ability to identify, formulate, and solve software engineering problems, including the specification, design, implementation, and testing of software systems that meet specification, performance, maintenance and quality requirements.
2. the ability to elicit, analyze and specify software requirements through a productive working relationship with various stakeholders of the project.
3. an understanding of the core areas of data structures, theory of computation, operating systems, compilers, programming languages, and computer architecture.
4. an ability to function effectively on teams.
5. an understanding of professional, ethical and social responsibility.
6. a recognition of the need for, and an ability to engage in life-long learning.
7. knowledge of and ability to apply discrete math, probability and statistics.
9. the successful design, development, deployment and maintenance of a major software based project.
10. an ability to convey technical material through oral presentation and interaction with an audience.
11. an ability to convey technical material through written reports which satisfy accepted standards for writing style.
12. an ability to evaluate the impact of potential solutions to software engineering problems in a global society, using their knowledge of contemporary issues and emerging software engineering trends, models, tools, and techniques.
Curriculum Map
The curriculum map for the SET bachelor's degree program can be found on the program's web page on the OIT web site.
Summary of Student Learning Outcomes
During the 2007-08 academic year, the SET faculty formally assessed the student learning outcomes summarized below. Additional details can be found in the attached assessment report and in department assessment records.
SLO #1) an ability to identify, formulate, and solve software engineering problems, including the specification, design, implementation, and testing of software systems that meet specification, performance, maintenance and quality requirements.
Strengths: The students performed well when demonstrating programming skills. Their problem solving skills and ability to write efficient code are acceptable.
Weaknesses: As shown in the assessment activities, students resist the design and documentation processes. Also, their testing skills are sporadic at best. These assessment activities confirm observations made by the faculty that the students would rather program than document or design.
Action Items: Faculty in programming related courses will provide additional examples of poorly documented code.
Changes Completed: The curriculum now contains a class, CST 236 Software Systems Testing, designed to teach students better testing practices. This course will be offered for the first time winter term of 2009.
SLO #4) an ability to function effectively on teams
Strengths: None.
Weaknesses: The baseline data shows that freshmen students' ability to function in teams is practically non-existent.
Action Items: This outcome needs to be re-assessed after the Junior Project sequence and after SPE 321 Small Group and Team Communications.
SLO #5) an understanding of professional, ethical and social responsibility
Strengths: None, although their organization skills improve slightly as they progress through the curriculum.
Weaknesses: All aspects of this outcome are not acceptable for a graduate from the SET programs.
Action Items: The courses in which this is taught, CST 104 Introduction to Computer Systems II and CST 105 Introduction to Computer Systems III, will be enhanced for the next academic year. This outcome will be re-assessed next year. Possible courses that teach the necessary skills will also be researched.
SLO #10) an ability to convey technical material through oral presentation and interaction with an audience.
Strengths: The students excel in understanding and presenting technical content.
Weaknesses: The students' comfort level speaking in front of a group is fairly low. This results in poor delivery practices. They do improve dramatically throughout their academic career as shown by the assessment results.
Action Items: None at this time.
Additional Assessment on Critical Thinking
Strengths: The analysis of results obtained from the rubric indicate that 80 percent of the students demonstrated a proficient or highly proficient level of successfully identifying and summarizing the main issue associated with the particular controversial topic or problem they identified. Likewise, the same percentages of students were able to demonstrate the ability to clearly formulate and express their particular point of view and to examine the objections and potential weakness associated with their particular perspective. In relation to identifying and evaluating various consequences and implications associated with their particular topic, 80 percent of the students rated at either the proficiency level or higher.
The data reviewed also reveals that even higher percentages (93) of students were able to identify correctly the various contexts that are viewed as important among the various stakeholders involved in the particular topic addressed. In relation to the criteria associated with evaluating assumptions, including those assumptions that may be more abstract or even hidden, 73 percent of the students scored at a proficient or higher level.
Weaknesses: The lowest results uncovered by the assignment were in the area related to the student's ability to identify important evidence or information related to their topic. Only 53 percent were able to review evidence and consider its credibility or rigorously evaluate the evidence. In reality, in approximately 47 percent of the cases the students gave their opinions rather than citing creditable and factual evidence to support their argument.
Action Items: To address this specific weakness, future students will be made more aware of the expectations associated with identifying sources information and the need for them to evaluate the credibility of those sources in a paper of this nature. A module in CST 104 Introduction to Computer Systems II will focus on the importance of stating credible facts and data, not opinions, in this type of paper. This ISLO will be re-assessed winter term 2011.
Changes Resulting From Assessment
The following are changes that have been implemented because of the assessment process bringing to light certain inconsistencies or weaknesses. Some changes are ongoing processes and therefore will not be fully implemented until the end of next year.
At the recommendation of our Industrial Advisory Board (IAB), and the findings confirmed by one of our rubrics, we have introduced two new four-credit classes into the curriculum. These courses are CST 236 Software Testing and CST 276 Design Patterns. These changes have been approved by our Curriculum Planning Commission (CPC) and will appear in the 2008-09 catalog. Because of the importance of these changes, we have requested that all SET students under the 2007-08 catalog move to next year's updated curriculum.
Through the process of mapping our outcomes to our courses, we realized that there was no place we could assess the outcome outcome #12, "an ability to evaluate the impact of potential solutions to software engineering problems in a global society, using their knowledge of contemporary issues and emerging software engineering trends, models, tools, and techniques." Therefore, 18 CSET (CET, ESET, and SET) students were requested to take ANTH 452 Globalization as a social science elective. A rubric is being developed and will be used to determine if this course is acceptable to help meet these outcomes. If it can be used to assess compliance with these outcomes, we will determine the best way to introduce this course into the curricula.
An outcome has been removed from our Program Outcomes. The reason for this removal is because it was more in line with an objective rather than an outcome. The deleted outcome is: SLO #13) an ability to be prepared for employment within various governmental and high technology companies that utilize their computing education.