This grant will allow us to equip a new projects lab with a Unix-based LAN of 10 Sun Sparcstations and a Windows-95 based LAN of 10 PC workstations, plus appropriate support equipment and software. This lab will support the foundations of our curriculum, by housing tools and a metrics repository for use in introductory classes, and the capstone of our curriculum, a new senior projects course. We find ourselves in the situation where the software development approaches that we use in our courses lag behind those used in industry. This grant will allow us to aggressively address this insupportable position, and show others how they can do the same. A key goal of this project is to allow our students to practice, and grow to appreciate, process improvement methods. These methods can be viewed as a meta-technology, which transcends the current hot topics in computer science, and provides a basis for continual use throughout a student's professional career. Using Watts Humphrey's work on the Personal Software Process as a guide, we will get our students involved in effort estimation and process and product measurement from the very start of their academic careers. A key part of this effort is the ability to track metrics across projects. To aid in this metric tracking, both at our university and others, we will develop a metrics repository that will be available over the World Wide Web and will be housed on one of the servers acquired through this grant. Another goal of this project is to provide our students with a meaningful capstone experience. The projects lab will allow students enrolled in our new projects course to work together in teams, in a realistic environment, on real world projects. The lab will provide the equipment, the tools, and the space for a meaningful project experience. Finally, creation of the senior projects course allows us to move our classic software engineering course earlier in our program. We can then add modern software development topics such as the use of component libraries and user interface design to our curriculum at the point where they will do our students the most good.
