For the initial pilots, we're considering two possible incarnations of this course: as SE 498 or SE 499.

The first offering will be in the fall of 2012 as SE 499. We'll be targetting students in the Software Enginering faculty for these pilots but invite interested students from Engineering or Math to participate (as CS 499, ECE 499, NE 459, etc.).

Independent of the proxy course, topics on open-source software will be presented at weekly meetings.

Lecture Topics

Note that these are brainstorming ideas and will evolve as we iterate on designing this course:

As SE 498

SE 498 is the special topics course, which follows a more traditional, lecture-oriented model:

Marking Scheme

Since the focus of this course is contributing to open-source software, we reduce the weight of the required exam component in our marking scheme as much as realistically possible for department approval:

As SE 499

SE 499 is Software Engineering's individual project course and gives us greater flexibility to implement a project-oriented course:

As is done normally for SE 499 projects, your professor mentor will be grading your project (plus a secondary reader).

Advantages over SE 499 by itself