Course Overview

This special topics course and (for some) senior seminar will focus on software development in a global context. Topics will include general software development methods and practices, internationalization of software, and developing greater awareness of, and sensitivity to, customer and end-user needs.

This course will be conducted as a mixture of an advanced seminar course and a software development work environment. Students will work in teams on various projects (or on different stages of a single, larger project), will research and present various topics, and will document and reflect on their learning and their software development progress throughout the course.

Objectives:

The objectives of this course are to help you:

1. further develop software development skills (programming & teamwork),
2. develop familiarity with tools and techniques used in developing large-scale software,
3. explore design issues for our application environment(s),
4. develop and apply professional life-long learning skills. You will:
   • learn a new realm of programming on your own or in a group using professional resources,
   • research unfamiliar topics and give presentations on them to the class,
   • provide analytical, summary, and reflective statements documenting software development progress and knowledge you have acquired of new topics.

Instructor:

Readings:  

You will find a list of useful books and resources in the class bibliography.

Prerequisite:   Data Structures.

General Outline:

(A detailed course schedule will be available on our class web site or on Moodle.)

Weeks 1 - 3:	Computing in a Global Context What is universal and what is not? How does Social Justice fit in? Getting to know another part of the world ACM Code of Ethics Principles of Agile Methods Version Control Project Brainstorming
Weeks 4 - 5:	Project Development Topics as determined by student interest
Weeks 6 - 9:	Continued Project Development Other topics as determined by student interest
Week 10:	Project demos Wrap-Up Final Projects Due
Exam Week:	Final Reflective Essay Due

Grades:

Grades will be based on:

Details about the format for presentations, journal entries, and the final reflective essay, as well as reading assignments, announcements, links to class presentations, and other material, will be made available on the COMP 487 home page (or on Moodle or Piazza, both of which will be accessible from the class home page). http://www.cs.kzoo.edu/cs487/ Students are responsible for checking these resources frequently.

Attendance and Participation:

Since this class will be a mixture of an advanced seminar and a collaborative software development team, regular attendance and fully engaged participation is crucial to everyone's learning and will weigh heavily in your grade. Please be sure to talk to me in advance if you must miss any class meetings. Active participation in the class means being on time, being prepared, listening to others, contributing ideas of your own, and asking questions as they come up. Student presentations in this course will be as important as presentations by the instructor; you should obviously prepare for your own presentations carefully, but you should also attend to your classmates' presentations thoughtfully and actively.

Meeting deadlines will also be very important -- in a collaborative setting such as this class, it is essential that you be ready with presentations and complete software development assignments in a timely fashion. Programming projects, in particular, are time-consuming and difficult to predict, but time-management skills are as critical in industry as they are in college.

Collaboration and the Honor System:

This course operates in accordance with the principles of the Kalamazoo College Honor System: responsibility for personal behavior, independent thought, respect for others, and environmental responsibility. In particular, academic integrity is a fundamental principle of scholarship. Representing someone else's work as your own, in any form, constitutes academic dishonesty. Unauthorized collaboration and receiving help from others outside the bounds permitted by the instructor are also violations of the College honor code. You are responsible for working within the permitted bounds, and acknowledging any help from others or contributions from other sources.

Software development projects: Most of the software development in this class will be highly collaborative. You will be assigned to groups for these assignments, and working effectively as a team will be an important component. Your responsibilities under the Honor Code include contributing to the team in all ways, documenting everyone who worked on any piece of code, and acknowledging all help you and your team receive from any source, including books, articles, classmates, your instructor, etc. Discussing group assignments with members of other teams is allowed in this class. I may occasionally ask all the members of a group to evaluate the effort and effectiveness of the other members of their group.

The course may include some short-term, exploratory projects (sometimes known as "spikes") that may be done individually.

Class presentations should represent your own analysis and synthesis of ideas drawn from one or more sources. Your presentation should indicate clearly the source(s) you used or about which you are reporting. You may work on presentations collaboratively or individually, depending on the topic. Be sure to discuss any proposed collaborations with me in advance.

Journal Entries and the Final Reflective Essay must be entirely your own work.

Any student with a disability who needs an accommodation or other assistance in this course should make an appointment to speak with me as soon as possible.