Guidelines proposal for undergraduate software engineering education

A body of knowledge for undergraduate software engineering will contribute to the ability to define software engineering curricula and professional registration and/or certification guidelines. The process for defining a body of knowledge has already begun through the efforts of dedicated professionals creating software engineering degree programs and promoting professional licensing of software engineers. These efforts are resulting in a synergism that is driving the formation of a document defining the software engineering body of knowledge. This paper describes a grass roots effort to motivate the formation of a body of knowledge document by starting the process of considering the knowledge units for software engineering. The knowledge units (Core, Foundations, Recurring, and Supporting), as presented here, are formulated by an international group of academic and industrial professionals known as the Working Group on Software Engineering Education and Training which seeks to promote efforts and works for software engineering education and training. The paper is meant to provide a forum for consideration of software engineering knowledge units for an undergraduate software engineering curriculum among interested professionals and to obtain their feedback.