A project component in a web engineering course

Web applications are an extremely important and ubiquitous part of today's world. Students must not only know how to develop them from a technical perspective, but in doing so need to understand how to follow the proper principles of software engineering — delivering the project on time, on budget, and in a high quality manner. At the Department of Software Engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology, we offer a Web Engineering course which not only introduces students to a variety of web technologies, but more importantly it shows them how to use them in a collaborative environment while properly utilizing web engineering methodologies. The course includes a significant project component requiring students to use a variety of contemporary technologies and resources to create a robust web application. The main premise of the project is for each group to create a web portal using both custom-built and already existing components. The project takes place over the entire 15 week course term, includes multiple releases, and has students work in teams of 4–5. This innovative project component has received significant praise from both students and faculty members while fulfilling an emerging area of our curriculum. Students enjoy the real-world nature of the project and the ability to work with contemporary technologies in a format which closely mimics what they will see in industry. This paper outlines the educational objectives, project details, some sample project results of our class offering, as well as student feedback about the project. The goal of this work is to share the project, its importance, and lessons learned for use at other institutions with similar educational goals.