Throw Away Student Software At Semester End? Better Not!

Abstract

Software engineering is continuously evolving in order to meet the challenges faced by the ever growing complexity and longevity of digital systems. Students should thus acquire additional practical competencies wrt. software evolution and maintenance. This paper describes how student team projects at our Chair have been redesigned to meet this need, and reports on our first experiences. It also aims at initiating a discussion on the challenges we met, namely the contributions we can expect from students, the effort required from staff, and the individualization of grades.