WorkshopProposal

Workshop Title: Software Engineering for Everyone

The basic goal of this workshop is to identify a set of concepts, ideas, processes, etc. that we believe the general public should know, and to begin to identify ways to introduce those concepts to the general public.

The basic format consists of three parts. Each will take about an hour.

1. In teams, brainstorm the basic concepts, ideas, processes, and other things that we believe the general public needs to know about software engineering. Rank these items from most important or fundamental to least, and select the top five to share with the others. Make a complete list, but put the top five on post-its.

We will then put these post-its on a whiteboard, and do grouping as needed. We will do a group vote as to priority, from most important to least, and select the top 15 for the next step.

2. In teams, brainstorm stories, analogies, simple models, or other learning approaches to use for each of the 15 items. Decide which ones are the best approaches for each item. Write up notes on the approaches, and put a summary title or note on a post-it.

Then put all the post-its up with the original set. Again, group as needed, then multi-vote to decide which approaches are the best for each item.

3. As a group, discuss the best approach to publicize and spread these concepts to the general public. Should we make videos about each one, or... maybe try to get a TV show? What do we expect as a result of these concepts becoming more widely understood?

Workshop Title: Software Engineering for Everyone

Objective: The basic goal of this workshop is to identify a set of concepts, ideas, processes, etc. that we believe the general public should know to understand the software engineering field, and to begin to identify ways to introduce those concepts to the general public.

Duration: Half-day

Relevance to the conference: All too often, software engineering is looked upon as some mysterious secret science. Part of our community responsibility is to identify the core concepts and ideas that everyone should know, whether they are software engineers or not, and to help develop the stories, analogies, simple models or whatever is needed to help the public understand those concepts and ideas. This is software engineering education and training for the rest of us.

Key organizer's name: Mike Barker

Email: mbarker@mit.edu

Affiliation: Nara Institute of Science and Technology

Brief bio: I began working in the software industry in 1977, and spent time in a small consulting company (200-400 people) near Washington, DC, in RCA near Philadelphia, and at BBN, both in Cambridge and Japan. I also worked at a Japanese software company for five years. Then I began working at MIT, where I led the Athena Project for 5 years, and organized and led the Educational Media Creation Center, which built a learning management system for MIT. Since August, 2003, I have been teaching at Nara Institute of Science and Technology. I am an ACM and IEEE Computer Society member, as well as a PMP-certified member of PMI. I was the CSEE&T Steering Committee Chair from 2012-2017. I have also been the ISERN Program Co-Chair from 2014-2015.

I do not currently have assistants for this workshop, although I think hope members of the committee might be willing to help out.

Strategy for publication of the workshop? Aside from publication in the proceedings, I suspect we can put up our results in the LinkedIn group, and possible a Facebook group? Actually, part of the workshop should be aimed at developing ways to publicize the results.

Number of participants? I'd like to think everyone at the conference would be interested in participating!

Requests for pre-workshop input? I was going to ask people to come and do brainstorming at the workshop, so hadn't really planned on preparation.

Workshop activities and format:

The basic format consists of three parts. Each will take about an hour.

We will then put these post-its on a whiteboard, and do grouping as needed. We will do a group vote as to priority, from most important to least, and select the top 15 for the next step.

Then put all the post-its up with the original set. Again, group as needed, then multi-vote to decide which approaches are the best for each item.

3. As a group, discuss the best approach to publicize and spread these concepts to the general public. Should we make videos about each one, meme images, or... maybe try to get a TV show? What do we expect as a result of these concepts becoming more widely understood?

Formal workshop outputs:

1. The main workshop outputs will be

a. A list of the top 15 concepts or ideas that we think need to be publicized. We will also have the individual group lists.

b. A set of stories, analogies, simple models, or learning approaches for each of the items.

c. A group recommended approach to publicize and spread these concepts using the stories, analogies, etc.

Strategy for judging the workshop's success:

The goal of this workshop is to develop a list of the top fifteen software engineering items (e.g., concepts, ideas, processes) that we believe the public needs to understand, along with a set of basic learning approaches (e.g., stories, analogies, simple models) to help them with that understanding. Finally, the workshop will look at the best ways to publicize and spread these concepts to the public. The workshop will be a success if we develop the two lists, and get people interested in spreading understanding of software engineering more widely to the public using these tools.