The role of modeling in software engineering education

In traditional engineering disciplines students are introduced to modeling as a tool for studying/checking the feasibility, functionality, trade-offs, features, design and construction pitfalls, cost analysis, etc. of a system. Physical and/or mathematical models are built to better understand the artifacts to be designed and constructed. In the design, development and maintenance of software systems, constructing a model is not a standard preliminary activity. This is primarily because it is not something software engineers are used to doing and there have not been sufficiently powerful software system modeling tools or techniques available. It is usually impossible b build a physical model of a software system, so any model must be mathematical in nature. The mathematical fundamentals required for constructing models of software systems will be introduced, and it will be shown how they can be used in an undergraduate software engineering or computer science curriculum to introduce students to the importance of modeling.