Systemic Requirements of a Software Engineering Learning Environment

Software Engineering (SE) educators worldwide are attempting to create learning environments that can effectively achieve their desired learning objectives. However, there exist additional needs that impact the learning process and the overall quality of a learning environment. We identified two sets of differentiating requirements, Climatic and Systemic, whose inclusion in design can assist in an effective, sustainable and usable SE learning environment. In this paper, we will describe the Systemic requirements, i.e. the desired system wide capabilities that impact the sustainability of a SE learning environment by affecting its operationalization and use in short and long term. We will also discuss, through few examples, the interactions between various differentiating requirements. Current SE course design and evaluation consider these as challenges to deal later, instead of addressing them through a conscientious design. Such courses find it hard to sustain and evolve with time, despite using powerful pedagogies. We intend to change this design approach by identifying and recording the various needs (as requirements) and their influence on the learning environment. Our aim is to draw attention to these differentiating requirements and help the educators look beyond learning objectives and move towards a more holistic and systematic design of SE learning environments.