Teaching the Unified Process to Undergarduate Students

A modern software development process framework, such as the Unified Process, is able to overcome problems of past frameworks, e.g., structural mismatches (notation, used method) between the products in different process steps. Moreover, it promotes an industry standard, which yields instantly tangible benefits from better communication in development teams and further secures investments into development methods based on such a standard. We describe the concept of a one-year undergraduate course in SE based on the Unified Process in detail and elaborate why, where and how the Unified Process can be incorporated into the course. The students’ response to the process was very positive. We argue that the Unified Process (UP) qualifies very well for being taught to SE students, as it integrates and extends essential SE practices. Another key argument for applying the UP was to integrate the different aspects and topics covered in the SE course and embedding them into a single structured and systematic SE process. By doing so students develop a much better understanding of the relationships and interactions between different models, analysis steps and techniques.