Connecting campus and community through web development service-learning projects

In this paper we present a service learning course offered in Software Engineering Department at Fairfield University, which links two opposite cities together for good reasons. Web Development is a one-semester course required for undergraduate students and part of the Web Applications track for the graduate program. Currently, it operates with the service learning designation in the undergraduate catalog and annually being revised by university's Office of Service Learning. The course stresses web site design, current web technologies, and client-side scripting languages, including a class project. The paper discusses the service learning framework of the course, with the major role played by the project. The root of our approach is the belief that the best way of learning in engineering is by doing and the best way of doing is by actively participating in the community. Two case studies in which the web development projects have been paired with local community partners are first presented and the outcomes and success of them are later discussed.