Challenges and Lessons Learned on Preparing Graduate Students for GSE Work: Brazilians' Perceptions on a Multi-site Course Experience

Abstract

Global Software Engineering (GSE) has became a part of the academic curricula in Computer Science courses. However, training students for GSE inherits the challenges of teaching Software Engineering (SE) in globally distributed environments. Furthermore, the most related experience in teaching graduate students reveals difficulties in developing GSE competencies. In this paper, we report the Brazilians' perceptions in performing SE activities in a globally distributed environment. We collected data from a collaborative project developed as part of the DOSE (Distributed and Outsourced Software Engineering) project. As a result, we identified 12 challenges and 7 lessons learned on preparing graduate students for GSE. Our results are helpful for practitioners and researchers in supporting new strategies for training students in the future.