Taking a Studio Course in Distributed Software Engineering from a Large Local Cohort to a Small Global Cohort
One of the challenges of global software engineering courses is to bring the practices and experience of large geographically distributed teams into the local and time-limited environment of a classroom. Over the last 6 years, an on-campus studio course for software engineering has been developed at the University of Queensland (UQ) that places small teams of students on different features of a common product. This creates two layers of collaboration, as students work within their teams on individual features, and the teams must interoperate with many other teams on the common product. The class uses continuous integration practices and predominantly asynchronous communication channels (Slack and GitHub) to facilitate this collaboration. The original goal of this design was to ensure that students would authentically experience issues associated with realistically sized software projects, and learn to apply appropriate software engineering and collaboration practices to overcome them, in a course without significant extra staffing. Data from the development logs showed that most commits take place outside synchronous class hours, and the project operates as a temporally distributed team even though the students are geographically co-located. Since 2015, a course adapted from this format has also been taught at the University of New England (UNE), an Australian regional university that is also a longstanding provider of distance education. In this course, most students study online, and the class has to be able to work globally, because as well as students taking part from around Australia, there are also typically a small number of students taking part from overseas. Transferring the course to a smaller but predominantly online institution has allowed us to evaluate the distributed nature of the course, by considering what aspects of the course needed to change to support students who are geographically distributed, and comparing how the two cohorts behave. This has produced an overall course design, to teach professional distributed software engineering practices, that is adaptable from large classes to small, and from local to global.
Asynchronous critiques via video to enable studio collaboration for employability skills in distance education
Studio courses have become a key way in which professional skills, especially those involving collaboration and design, are taught in several fields. Studios typically involve students working on a design problem (individually or in groups), periodically presenting their work, and critiquing the work of others. They support 'productive inquiry', teamwork, communication, and reflection. They also enable students to apply their knowledge to more realistic, multifaceted problems, and to learn from each other's project experiences, not just their own. However, this culture of collaboration and critique of work in progress is typically offered in on-campus modes and can be difficult to achieve for online and distributed classes. This project examined the dynamics of using an asynchronous video-based approach to critiques, in classes that predominantly comprise distance education students. In this approach, students are asked to submit video presentations of their work in progress, and then to record video critiques of each other's work.
Visual Attention to Evolutionarily Relevant Information by Heterosexual Men and Women While Viewing Mock Online Dating Profles
The way people create social connections and access information has been altered greatly by technology in recent decades. Online browsing of visual profles has become a common means for seeking potential partners for both short- and long-term relationships. Little is known, however, about how people prioritize mate quality information while viewing online profles. Using eye-tracking methods and self-report, this study investigated how people evaluated profle-based facial attractiveness and text-based fnancial resources information, represented by income and occupation. Heterosexual male and female participants, aged between 18 and 27 years, viewed opposite-sex profles while their eye-movements were recorded using a remote eye-tracking camera. In line with current theory, resources information had little efect on men’s overall attention to women’s faces, whereas women’s overall attention to men’s faces varied depending on the level of income and occupation. Women evaluated men’s faces more when income and occupation were low, regardless of attractiveness. Unexpectedly, however, men marginally increased their attention toward unattractive women who showed a high-level of income and more esteemed occupation. Men self-reported a higher interest in women for a short-term relationship and women self-reported a higher interest in men for a long-term relationship. This work provides a foundation to further examine how people browse profle-based information and to investigate the mate selection process, with real-world implications for online dating app users, profle design, and content.