A survey of software engineering courses

Together with the recent, rapid growth in numbers of technical papers, survey articles, symposia, conferences, and books, there is also a corresponding increase in software engineering education activities. In order to obtain some insight into the number and nature of course offerings, Peter Freeman of the University of California, Irvine, published a survey form in early 1977 in both the ACM Software Engineering Notes and the IEEE TC/SE News-letter. Figure 1 replicates this survey form. Most responses were received by April, 1977. Recently, Peter Freeman forwarded these responses to A.A.J. Hoffman of Texas Christian University for analysis and reporting.

There were a total of 28 responses from 26 traditional educational institutions, offering regular and special courses, industrial organizations, and professional development companies. Table 1 is a list of the organizations represented by survey respondents. While most responses came from the United States, others originated in France, Canada, and the United Kingdom.