Broadening the Education of Software Engineers - Some Lessons and Pointers

Abstract

Professional Issues in Software Engineering (PISE) has been taught as part of the computer systems undergraduate degree programme at the University of Limerick using a multi-institutional collaborative pedagogy. PISE considers the ethical, legal and social consequences of the design, implementation and use of computer and information systems. Students from UL collaborated with students from other universities in USA, England and Malta, working together in geographically distributed virtual learning groups to consider ethical issues in software engineering. This paper reflects the longitudinal evaluation of teaching and assessment methods that have been developed over 20 years.