Tutorial on a Gamification Toolset for Improving Engagement of Students in Software Engineering Courses

Abstract

Few if any would dispute that educating software engineering is a challenging endeavour. Although programming and creating new artefacts can motivate the creativity of students. Other software engineering topics (like e.g. requirement specifications and testing) are not considered very exciting by students. However, these topics are important to develop quality software and insufficient knowledge of students-Europe's future software engineers-in the long run contributes to failing software. The EU Erasmus+ project IMPRESS was set to explore the use of gamification in educating software engineering at the university level. The objective has been to develop a toolset that can help to improve students' engagement, and hence their appreciation, for the taught subjects like software testing and specifications. The proposed tutorial will guide participants through the set of tools developed by the project and introduce how they can use them to improve students' engagement.