Supporting collaborative software development in academic learning environment: A collaborative pair and quadruple programming based approach

Abstract

Collaborative Software Development (CSD) practices in software industry engage team of developers, to work over shared codebases hosted over distributed Configuration Management Systems. Several academicians and researchers have focused their efforts to inculcate these collaborative software development practices in engineering curriculum. In order to make this more effective, it is necessary that we replicate a similar environment, as existing in the software industry, and position it in the academic domain. A technology-enabled, teamoriented and collaboration-intensive environment facilitating structured collaborative programming practices is required to foster the collaborative programming competencies of students. In this paper, we propose a technology-enabled academic learning environment for promoting collaborative programming engagements of students. The collaborative activities of the students are structured as pairs and quadruples and are facilitated using the tool named Collaboration Over GitHub (COG). Real-time dashboards, combined with COG, facilitate monitoring and evaluation by teachers during collaborative programming activities. The environment also provides support for remote presence of teachers and students, facilitating remote laboratories, distance education, remote monitoring and evaluation and cross-university software development projects.