Introducing global supply chains into software engineering education

This paper describes lessons from running software development projects across three globally distributed educational institutions. What was innovative about this study was that two of the institutions were located in service providing countries, conventional onshore/offshore roles were reversed, and students were exposed to the realities of global supply chain management. Three teams of US students were tasked to develop three different software products for Cambodian clients, while sub-contracting the database component to third-party teams of Indian students. This paper details the role of the three institutions, the prerequisites for planning and logistics for running such educational projects, and summarises the findings, while drawing broader parallels with the commercial world of offshore and outsourced development. It ends with recommendations for software engineering education to better reflect the needs and skills demanded of right sourcing in the global marketplace. These extend more generally to global software engineering.