Using an issue-based model in a team-based software engineering course

Communication in software engineering projects becomes a bottleneck as the number of participants increases. As today's software systems grow in complexity and size, teaching effective communication skills in software engineering courses becomes a critical issue. The paper is an experience report on the use of an issue based model for teaching meeting procedures in a team based software engineering project course (7 teams, 25 students). We observed that, when carefully introduced in the classroom, the use of an issue based model provided significant benefits, even with such limited tool support as a word processor template. More specifically, we observed that students conducted meetings more efficiently, that they maintained a more complete record of the issues under discussion, and that intra team communication was significantly improved.