Tracking and Evaluating Industry/University Collaborations for Software Engineering Education and Training

Abstract

Universities and industry organizations have traditionally maintained informal ways of working together, but a more recent phenomenon is the formal collaboration between a university, or group of universities, and an industry organization, or group of organizations. The purpose of these formal collaborations is to meet the critical software engineering education and training needs of adult learners through joint ventures such as graduate programs and professional development activities. Since September, 1995, the Software Engineering Institute (SE11 has tracked this phenomenon in its annual "Directory of Industry and University Collaborations with a Focus on Software Engineering Education and Training."However, the panelists, members of SEI' s Working Group on Software Engineering Education and Training, wanted to know more. What makes collaboration successful? What would a collaboration process look like from start to finish? What Lessons Learned can collaborations share to help improve the state of the practice? To answer these questions, they surveyed 14 collaboration practitioners worldwide, conducted follow-up interviews with four collaborations, and analyzed results. The panelists describe their survey findings and highlight the many Lessons Learned shared by industry/university collaborations.