Towards game-based simulation as a method of teaching software engineering

A typical software engineering course consists of a series of lectures along with a small associated class project. Although this may seem like a logical approach, practical, didactic, and timing reasons necessarily lead to a lack of an in-depth treatment of the critical issues involved in the overall process of software engineering. This paper introduces and lays out our plans for constructing SimSE, a graphical, interactive, educational software engineering simulation environment that teaches the software process in a practical manner without the constraints of an actual class project. We anticipate that the use of SimSE will enable students to form a practical understanding of the software process by allowing its users to explore different approaches to managing the software process and giving them insight into the complex cause and effect relationships underlying the process.