Environmental software development in academic settings to support digital game-based learning: A case study on PEWI
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Date
2023-11
Authors
Valek, Robert
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Abstract
Universities offer unique environments for software development, where the need for small custom software projects to support teaching, research, and outreach intersects with an abundance of young talent seeking to gain experience before entering the workforce. We present a case study on software development on versions (v) 2.1-4 of the People in Ecosystems/Watershed Integration (PEWI), a student-developed digital game-based learning application designed to teach students and land managers about land use decision tradeoffs. PEWI v2.1-4 was developed over four years by a professor who served as project director, a Ph.D. student who served as project manager, and teams of between two and six student interns. We used a custom software development methodology that integrated Agile principles into the top-down decision making of the Waterfall approach and employed Scrum-based sprint workload cycles to maximize our efficiency with our limited budgetary resources and ambitious but novice workforce. Over 90% of individual work tasks were completed in each of the four development years and student interns reported a high level of skill development. Release-ready increments were only achieved in two of the four years, however. We discuss elements of the methodology that worked well (i.e., sprint cycles, paired programming), were underutilized (i.e., engagement with an accessible population of users), or were insufficient (i.e., planning, training materials). We further discuss barriers that inhibit software development projects in environmental fields at academic institutions and how they might be overcome.
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Technical Report
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This work is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.