In 2015 at the Aalborg University (Denmark), the first meeting of the international committee for the project "Joint Programs and Framework for Doctoral Education in Software Engineering" was held (or PWs@PhD). The program is realized within the international program Erasmus+. The main goal of the project is the development of international cooperation in software engineering in higher education. Within the project, SUSU postgrads who are preparing dissertations in the area of software engineering will have the chance in the 2016-2018 academic years to attend 7 international schools in 6 countries.
The main goal of the PWs@PhD project is to organize a series of scientific schools in various aspects of software engineering from 2016 to 2018. Every six months, at one of the universities included in the consortium, there will be a 2-week school for postgraduate students from all of the partner universities. Within these schools, postgraduates and their research advisers will be offered courses in advanced methods of software engineering and also reviews of best practices for the implementation of research projects and the preparation of quality scientific publications on topics of software engineering, including such areas as:
- Research methods in the age of Software as a Service;
- Advanced methods and tools of software engineering;
- Problem-oriented training in the field of software engineering;
- Human-computer interaction in software engineering;
- Models of software engineering and simulation;
- Mathematical and computational foundations of software engineering;
- Software engineering: a view from economic and business perspectives.
The first of such schools was held in March/April 2016 at the Lappeenranta University of Technology (Finland) and was dedicated to the topic of scientific research methods in the preparation of publications on research results in the area of software engineering. It is planned that LUT will be visited by 25 postgraduate students and 10 professors of partner universities as part of the school.
The SUSU School of Electronics and Computer Sciences is also one of the leading partners in this project and is responsible for the organization of the school “Mathematic and computational foundations of software engineering” (being held in the 2nd quarter of 2017).
The university’s participation in this project enables the activation of international partnership between postgraduate students and university’s scientific schools, strengthens the partnership between regional and international IT industries with the best graduates and leading researchers, enables the opportunity to found programs for dual postgraduate programs in the area of software engineering with international partners.
Also as part of the work of the consortium, professor and director of the scientific research laboratory in software engineering, École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS) (The University of Quebec, Canada) Alain Abran, presented the international standard SWEBOK (Software Engineering Body of Knowledge). SWEBOK is a collection of common knowledge about the process of software engineering. Authors identified 15 areas of knowledge, summarizing the general concepts, technologies, and methods which a specialist in the area of software engineering must have mastery over. This project aims to define the necessary set of knowledge and recommended practices for specialists in the area of software development, define the ethical and professional norms, and also define the academic program for students, postgrads, and specialists in the area of software engineering who are continuing their education. As part of the work in the PWs@PhD project, organizers of the schools will consider the main topics and areas of knowledge proposed in SWEBOK, and will also work closely with the collective of editors of this standard to ensure the highest quality of training for postgrads in the area of software engineering.
