This was written during the summer of 2021 to collect thoughts prior to proposing research under GA Tech

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What is Agile in Education?

Abstract / Summary

The following abstract is a summary of the proposed research and not the final goal abstract of the research paper. However, this abstract will serve as the draft for the final paper.

<aside> ✴️ Agile and Scrum methodologies for developing software are becoming increasingly common in the workplace. To better prepare computer science students for the workforce, Agile concepts can be introduced into the classroom in courses such as Software Development or program capstones. However, current Agile tools do not lend themselves to use in academics. A new tool is necessary to bridge the gap between academics and industry. The goal of this research is to develop a tool that provides an introduction to Agile, Scrum, and other software development methodologies but is targeted towards short-term projects in the classroom. The tool will increase team member responsibility and accountability by increasing workload transparency to reduce the friction currently seen in group projects. Additionally, the tool will support instructors managing several disparate concurrent projects. The new tool will be intentionally designed utilizing information gathered during the Fall 2021 semester and will have a tested implementation in the Fall 2022 semester.

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Terms

Agile: A software development methodology utilizing an iterative process of planning, developing and evaluating with a focus on collaboration.

Scrum: An Agile framework that more clearly defines the iterations and more formalizing how collaboration is performed.

AIE: Shortcut acronym used to reference the tool being developed by this project. Stands for Agile in Education.

Goals/Objectives

• Dissemination of research in an area that has a lot of related publications but not a lot of direct research.
• An intentionally designed tool that:
  • can be utilized at any institution.
  • supports students during group programming projects utilizing Agile, Scrum, GitLab and GitHub.
  • helps students understand not just how, but why Agile and other tools (Stellman & Greene, 2014).

Motivation

My personal motivation behind this project is two pronged. To help instructors and to help students.

Help Students

• Positive experience with Agile/Scrum and group work
• Understand not just how, but why Agile and other tools Stellman & Greene, 2014
• Prepare for entry into industry jobs
• Increase team accountability to motivate all team members to participate

Help Instructors

• Manage a course where there may be several independent teams working concurrently on unrelated projects
  • Tracking, Maintaining, and Grading
• Provide feedback to students to increase knowledge and skills

Additionally

• Avoids unnecessary/complex setup/maintenance
• Maintains a free model to ensure students can utilize the tool without cost or having to request special education exceptions (Bruckman et al., 2009, Coates et al., 2005)
• Focuses the important parts of Agile/Scrum/etc

Previous personally done work

Phases are differentiated by different resulting pieces of software under the AIE umbrella. Each piece of software informs the next phase.

Phase 1 - Fall 2019 - Spring 2020

• I TA'd several semesters of a Software Engineering and Design course, keeping a purposeful eye towards what are the (unnecessary) problem points.
• Developed the Phase 1 tool to supplement the existing tools in the classroom to generate Burndown charts. This tool has continued to be used in the classroom since its development in 2019.
• Informally interviewed students after the end of class regarding their experience.
• Informally interviewed professors regarding their thoughts about the need for further development and what needs they have that are not met with industry tools.

Phase 2 - Spring 2021

• Completed as a part of the OMSCS CS 6460 course.
• High Fidelity Prototype of complete user story, spent time, and sprint tracking system to gain feedback from students, instructors, and industry members.
• Further research with instructors regarding dashboards that they believe would benefit students as well as themselves. The prototype includes implementation of some dashboard ideas. However the wireframe mockups include additional concepts.

Proposed future phases

The general semesters breakdown is:

1. Fall '21
   • Data collection of current systems through surveys, interviews, and hooking into current tools to automatically track metrics. [undergraduate]
   • Begin development of core system pieces that are independent of questions being studied
   • Formal Proposal
2. Spring '22
   • Data Analysis
   • Complete initial development of tool
   • Data collection of tool through surveys, interviews, and hooking into tool to automatically track metrics. [undergraduate]
   • Potential for publication at this point
3. Fall '22
   • Enhancement of the tool
   • Data collection of tool through surveys, interviews, and hooking into tool to automatically track metrics. [undergraduate and graduate]
4. Post Fall '22
   • Due to time of group projects tending towards the end of the semester, the final paper will need to be finalized Spring of '22 which would be after my graduation.
   • Final Paper

Phase 3 - Summer '21 - Fall '21

• Professor created system of repurposed existing tools

  • Google Sheets for tracking User Stories at a high level
  • GitLab features
    • Issue for task tracking
    • Labels for scrum boards
  • Burndown website

  The Burndown website will generally present to students the same way it has in previous years but will be augmented with various data collection points as necessary.

Phase 4 - Spring '22 - Fall '22

• A single intentionally designed site to cover most group project needs based on ideas already identified in the ASE Roadmap as well addition data collection hooks necessary for research
  • Undergraduate only study in the Spring
  • Undergraduate and Graduate study in the Fall