Does FLOSS in Software Engineering Education Narrow the Theory-Practice Gap? A Study Grounded on Students’ Perception

Abstract

Software engineering education is challenged by the need to convey practical experience in the context of a rich and large body of theoretical knowledge. This study investigates whether the use of open source projects can reduce the gap between theory and practice in undergraduate software engineering courses. Two qualitative case studies were conducted with students performing activities in an open source project, each one in a different course: software testing and software requirements. Results point out that the use of open source projects provides a concrete experience similar to industry experience, allows high cognitive engagement when performing tasks, favors understanding and content retention, and leads to the recognition of the usefulness of software engineering principles, techniques and methods.

Bridging the Gap between Academia and Industry through Students’ Contributions to the FIWARE European Open-Source Initiative: A Pilot Study

“…A promising approach for bridging the gap between academia and industry is the integration of open-source development into the software engineering or computer science curriculum. A recent study confirmed that the use of open-source projects in the classroom provides a concrete experience similar to industry experience [19]. In the systematic mapping study performed by Nascimento et al [11], a total of 72 articles were reviewed in order to analyze the extent and range of previous research relating to the use of opensource projects in software engineering education.…”

“…Researches such as the ones conducted by Ellis et al [13,24] analyze the impact of learning activities with Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software (HFOSS) projects in terms of motivation, learning experience, and career plans. Other studies describe courses where students take different roles (e.g., developers, testers, requirements definition engineers) in real open source project developments [7,19,25]. Researches, such as the one conducted by Braught et al, compare the methodology followed by different universities and colleges in courses and capstone projects offered to undergraduate students [12].…”

“…Researches, such as the one conducted by Braught et al, compare the methodology followed by different universities and colleges in courses and capstone projects offered to undergraduate students [12]. Some studies focus on the students' perspective [19,25,26], while others collect impressions from instructors and lead project developers [27,28]. Works like [29,30] present the experience in opensource project courses where students collaborate in small groups.…”

Open model of education using Open Source principles

“…I u naučno istraživačkom radu se sve više naučnih članaka objavljuje pod nekom od Open Source licenci kako bi bila dostupna većem broju istraživača, ali i samom autoru obezbedila veću vidljivost kroz citiranost tih radova. [11] Sa porastom popularnosti softvera otvorenog koda [36] i srodnih trendova, kultura otvorenosti napreduje od ivica društva do srži akademske kulture. [12] Jedan od primera akademske kulture otvorenosti znanja je Univerzitet Singidunum, Beograd, Srbija [13] koji ima portal na kome su besplatno dostupna sva univerzitetska izdanja knjiga, i svih ostalih naučnih članaka kako profesora tako i studenata.…”

Leveraging Final Degree Projects for Open Source Software Contributions

“…During the last 20 years, Software Engineering (SE) instructors have proposed the study and development of open source/free/libre software (abbreviated as OSS, FLOSS, or FOSS) projects to introduce students into real-world examples of SE principles, concepts and practices [1][2][3]. Mature OSS projects are considered more realistic than examples found in textbooks or developed by teaching staff [2,4]. These projects are usually complex and large, with many developers involved, responding to real-world needs and problems and are built following software engineering best practices.…”