Integrating industrial technologies, tools and practices to the IT curriculum: an innovative course with .NET and java platforms

Abstract

Exposure to state-of-art industry technologies, tools and practices by students provide CS/IT graduates highly desirable skills and marketability. A key expectation of the industry from their new cadre is a speedy integration into the business environment resulting in productive work. This usually requires having a sound technological background, a maturity to assess the environment and adapt quickly, and highly-developed soft skills to be productive in a team environment. Incorporating such experience and skills into a CS/IT curriculum is challenging and is still in its infancy stages. We undertook such as an endeavor in integrating .NET into the IT curriculum. Microsoft's .NET platform is becoming increasingly popular in the industry. Incorporating .NET into the undergraduate IT curriculum provides a plethora of skills and increases the employability of our graduates. We integrated .NET without a major revision to the existing curriculum by introducing an optional course in the final year (senior-level) of the IT undergraduate program. In addition to the .NET platform, the course covered the Java platform, which is similar in architecture to .NET. The course emulated an industry-based environment with real-world based assignments, focused on deliverables, used state-of-art IDEs and documentation, and pair programming to create a highly productive environment. The “soft skills” were integrated into the course with a project that implemented a virtual marketplace. Students in groups played different entities in the virtual marketplace and communicated with each other via Web Services. The project provided a virtual business environment and exposure to teamwork, collaboration, competition, negotiating, and creativity skills. Our first offering of the course in semester 1, 2005, attracted 128 students. The course created a highly productive environment throughout the semester. Students completed 7 assignments and the project within the 14-week semester. The initial results are encouraging and provide many insights to CS/IT departments planning to incorporate such courses.