Agile Development Process of a Web-Based Application to Improve Retention of Hispanic STEM Students

This study describes the application of Agile system development process and its accomplishments on a web-based Teaching Assistant System (ViTAS). The ViTAS is developed to improve the retention rate of the students in a Hispanic-Serving Institution. In particular, this project focuses on the Agile system development process, which is a group of software development methodologies based on iterative, interactive, and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing and crossfunctional teams. Also, the teaching assistant system is developed as a digital warehouse of homework assignments and students’ work in STEM courses. This system provides a homework assignments grading system for the students’ as well as instructors in STEM field and to provide an interactive learning environment outside the class for the students. Using ViTAS, students are able to submit the assignments online, to engage in anonymous peer review, and to discuss with their peers. The students grading their peer assignments are beneficial as during the process of grading other’s work, the students get the opportunity to learn/review their own work/mistakes.