SWPM Course Format

SWPM is changing the traditional format of education by combining the face-to-face classroom experience with online learning. Software professionals become self-directed learners, working with fellow team members on real-world projects.

The course may be taken: online or onsite

Students choosing to participate in the onsite course, may attend a weekly class offered in Austin, Texas. All students will interact using the online courseware tool.

How The Course Works

For Online and On-site Students:

The online course management tool Blackboard is used, allowing students, mentors and instructors to virtually perform all work within a single application. This user friendly, browser-based application provides the central focus for all individual and team activities. Blackboard features include: email, chat rooms, threaded discussions, project creation, file posting, online test taking, reading assignments, homework assignments, and much more, in an innovative package.

Students will work in teams, shepherded through the program by a mentor. These teams will be responsible for completing team deliverables, which are based on a case study, such as the Software Design Document, the Software Configuration Management Plan, the Software Quality Assurance Plan, the Software Verification and Validation Plan, etc. Your team members may be located in offices around the globe or they may all be in the Central Texas area; managing time zones may be a factor for collaborating with your team members. This "virtual" team work is the direction in which many businesses are moving today.

In addition, students will also be responsible for completing individual exercises.

The mentor, who is an experienced software project manager, will guide the individual students and team members through the learning process, in addition to collecting program deliverables and giving feedback to the teams.

Textbooks provided for the course, along with supplemental readings on the web, draw from a wealth of current materials for today's software manager.

The time commitment for students is approximately 8-10 hours each week.

Students will participate in a weekly conference call. The call will last one hour: 15 minutes will be a Q&A period with the mentor, and the remaining 45 minutes will be designated team-work time.

For On-site Students:

The primary difference for on-site students is that they will have the option to attend face-to-face classroom lectures in Austin, Texas. The class will be a lecture by an instructor-practitioner about the particular topic.

Classes will be held on either Tuesday or Wednesday nights from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. at The University of Texas at Austin's J.J. Pickle Research Campus in northwest Austin, Texas.

Students will work through the online lesson plan, where they will complete session pre-work, complete individual and team exercises, access learning artifacts such as readings, complete self-paced quizzes, link to related web sites, etc.

If students are unable to attend the scheduled on-site session, or they simply choose to, they will have access to the online Topic Presentation that will cover the same material as would have been presented in the classroom. The online Topic Presentation is in a textual format along video clips, voice-over PowerPoints, or links to websites for clarity or emphasis.

The time commitment for students each week is approximately 8-10 hours. This includes 2 hours for the weekly lecture, approximately 1 hour for completing the online session, 3 hours for required readings and 3 hours working on deliverables.

For Online Students:

Online students will not participate in any face-to-face meetings. Instead they will complete all work online and will participate in weekly conference calls with their team members and the mentor.

Students will work through the online lesson plan, where they will complete session pre-work, read the topic presentation, see video clips, view voice-over PowerPoint slides, complete individual and team exercises, access learning artifacts such as readings, complete self-paced quizzes, link to related web sites, etc.

Online students will receive additional support from the mentor since they will not be participating in the face-to-face classroom lectures. The mentor is always just an email message away!

The time commitment for students is approximately 8-10 hours per week. This includes approximately 3 hours for completing the online session, 3 hours for required readings and 3 hours working on deliverables.