On a Partnership between Software Industry and Academia

This paper discusses a role for industry in software engineering education, specifically presenting a university-industry partnership between the Cardiac Rhythm Management (CRM) organization at the Guidant Corporation and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU). The focus of the partnership is technology transition. The partnership involves fostering students’ professional development, providing students experience solving realworld problems, and exploring modern directions of software engineering. The critical component of the partnership is a student-oriented research laboratory. After discussing the background and history of the project, we focus on the partnership’s accomplishments. These include facilitating the transition of graduates from student to employee by developing in them extended software engineering skills and in-depth understanding of the application domain.