Teaching Software Architecture in LATAM Universities through a Distributed CSCL Activity

Abstract

Software engineering education is a challenging task in computer science undergraduate programs. These challenges become stronger if we consider the distributed software development scenario that is gaining space everyday into the software industry. Today most higher education institutions are not addressing the challenge of transferring practical knowledge about distributed software development to their students. Such knowledge will be vital for the next generation of software engineers. This article presents a Collaborative and Distributed Learning Activity (CODILA) that helps higher education institutions to deal with the stated problem. The use of CODILA helps students to reach a set of skills that will be required to deal with their professional activities in the distributed work scenario. Moreover, this activity acts as a guideline that helps instructors to transfer this knowledge to the students. This article also present and discuss the results obtained of applying a CODILA in six Latin American universities. Such activity involved the distributed design of a software architecture of a communication infrastructure able to deal with a particular communication problem. The obtained results were satisfactory and indicate that the CODILAs can be used to address the stated challenges.