Distributed Development Of Software Engineering Professionals

In the November, 2001 issue of Crosstalk, the emphasis was on “distributed software development” with several provocative articles. Elizabeth Starrett, in the editorial column, wisely asked which distributed development concept the reader would prefer: distributed development of software, development of distributed software, or distributed development of distributed software. Reading the entire article ignited a spark – what about the “distributed development of software professionals?” This is exactly the focus of this paper – the distributed development of software professionals around the world with the assistance of international universities recognized for their software engineering expertise, combined with the use of hybrid learning technologies, for providing high-quality credit and non-credit courses at all levels. Providing software engineering (SE) training and education on a global basis is a priority of several organizations. The primary markets are corporations wanting to develop reliable, robust, and useful software products in a timely and efficient fashion, but whose professionals do not currently have state-of-the-art knowledge or skills. As a response, the author instigated the International Software Engineering University Consortium ISEUC in 2000. Other “players” include individual universities, university consortia, ACM, IEEE, U.S. Department of Defense and book publishers. ISEUC is a worldwide consortium of universities designed to provide SE courses via distributed learning, primarily using the Internet. ISEUC, a group of 35 universities, was selected from the 100+ responders to a SE survey funded in 1999 by ACM and IEEE-CS. ISEUC was slated to begin initial operations in September 2003, based on the results of visits to Australia, Canada, the U.K., and the U.S.A. This paper gives a description of ISEUC,