The System Cottage—a multidisciplinary engineering group practical

Abstract

Industrial input led to this group project practical for Computer Science students at the University of Edinburgh. The project ties together many components of the Computer Science curriculum, and involves students who do joint degrees with other subjects, enabling them to use their speciality subject. It is argued that this form of practical enhances the education of software engineers beyond that which is normally found in programming practicals. The industrial input has been retained throughout the project, and industry continues to play a valuable role in this course. Sufficient detail is included to allow others to incorporate elements of this group project in their own courses, as many have commented to us that they would like to run such a practical. Although the group project course was designed to improve the education of our students, it is concurrent with the latest trends in computer science and software engineering education, and also seems to have anticipated professional and political criticism of education.