Global Software Engineering as the First Step of the TUSUR/Ritsumeikan Dual Degree Program

Starting this year, the course is integrated in the project-based group learning program and is a part of the curriculum of TUSUR students.

Starting this year, the course is integrated in the project-based group learning program and is a part of the curriculum of TUSUR students.

At TUSUR University, the project-based group learning is supported by the Department of Industrial Electronics and is supervised by Associate Professor and head of the Biomedical Technology Laboratory Denis Pakhmurin, and Associate Professor Evgeny Ageev. At Ritsumeikan University, the project is supervised by Professor Viktor Kryssanov, who gives lectures for the course in English.

The goal of the Global Software Engineering is to engage students located in different countries and speaking different languages in cooperative projects. To execute their projects, the students must find a way to communicate their ideas across their teams using whatever means they find fit.

This year the teams are developing software for Windows OS in C++. The software will be based on the mechanism for processing and semantic analysis of social network comments and replies about politicians running for offices. The finished system will be able to determine which candidate is more popular among the social network users. The software will be analyzing English-language sites – Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Dmitry Pakhmurin says that, while software engineering is an essential part of the course, the core skill the students acquire is teamwork in geographically and culturally diverse teams. This semester, the teams are made up of students from Japan, Myanmar, Cote d’Ivoire, Morocco, Germany, Indonesia, the US, Kazakhstan and Russia.

The course in Global Software Engineering was first held in 2012. Every year students of Ritsumeikan and TUSUR Universities attend lectures and get together to work on their projects. This year the course is attended by 9 students from Tomsk (Faculty of Electronic Engineering) and 10 students from Kyoto. The group is divided into two teams, with both performing the same task, thus adding a competitive component to their learning process.

The joint course is also a good opportunity for students of the two universities to get to know each other, which will be helpful if later in their studies they decide to participate in the Dual Degree Program of TUSUR and Ritsumeikan Universities.