On a partnership between software industry and academia

This paper discusses a role for industry in software engineering education, specifically presenting a university-industry partnership between the Cardiac Rhythm Management (CRM) organization at the Guidant Corporation and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU). The focus of the partnership is technology transition. The partnership involves fostering students´ professional development, providing students experience solving realworld problems, and exploring modern directions of software engineering. The critical component of the partnership is a student-oriented research laboratory. After discussing the background and history of the project, we focus on the partnership´s accomplishments. These include facilitating the transition of graduates from student to employee by developing in them extended software engineering skills and in-depth understanding of the application domain.