The software development laboratory: incorporating industrial practice in an academic environment

Team-based project courses are commonly used to provide students with an opportunity to apply concepts of software engineering practice and process to realistic development efforts. However, these projects may be limited in duration due to curricular constraints or lacking in continuity because of turnover in student teams. Previous reports have suggested a number of ways that these problems can be mitigated. The paper describes experience with an implementation of an old idea, that of a software development laboratory in which student teams work for extended periods on large-scale, ongoing projects in the context of a standardized and evolving development process