DSD is a joint course of:

• Mälardalen University (MdH), School of Innovation, Design and Engineering (IDT)
• University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER)

Teachers:

Course partners - external customers:

• Charles University in Prague (CUNI), Czech Republic, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Department of Distributed and Dependable Systems (Tomas Bures, PhD)
• Kapsch TIS company, Croatia (Branko Beslać)

Former partners:

• University of Paderborn (UPB), Germany, Software Engineering Group (prof. Wilhelm Schäfer, Dietrich Travkin, Markus von Detten)

Course Purpose:

The course will give students an insight in complexity of distributed software development. The students will be trained to work in distributed teams and use technology for development of distributed software applications.

The course includes the following topics:

• Introduction to distributed software development
• Distributed development projects
• Designing distributed applications
• Working in a distributed development project
• Documenting and presenting the project

What makes DSD different from the other courses?

Find out, at the DSD info links below :-) 

More info at:

• What is DSD? - A short explanation
• DSD History: 03/04 - A story about the beginnings
• DSD evaluations:
  • 2003/2004
  • 2004/2005
  • 2005/2006
  • 2006/2007
  • 2007/2008
  • 2008/2009
  • 2009/2010
  • 2010/2011
  • 2011/2012
• DSD video I - students' side
• DSD video II - teachers' side
• Enrol to DSD or not? - (in Croatian)
• DSD poster - SCORE 08/09 contest
• DSD iProject page - A longer explanation about the DSD course background methodology

2010/2011: SCORE competition and DSD workshop on ICSE conference

In the second SCORE competition for software engineering student teams, DSD teams achieved a great success - again! Two student teams took part in the finals of SCORE competition, organized every second year by ICSE conference, the biggest conference on software engineering. From September 2010. onwards, our students - among 94 teams from 22 countries - were working on projects proposed by professors from universities and research centers all over the world. Four DSD teams were accepted among 18 teams for the second round. Two DSD teams, Mass Observation and Public Transportation Product Line, are selected among the best five teams - finalists. Their representatives were invited, with paid expenses, to ICSE 2011 conference, which took place in Hawaii, USA, in the end of May.

In Hawaii, the team representatives were presenting their projects to the contest committee and interested conference participants, through project presentations, posters and final product demos. Their specific - distributed - way of working was received with great interest.

After the big success story from the first SCORE competition (see below), this year the overall winner award, in a tight fight, went to Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.

The students were accompanied in Hawaii by DSD teaching staff, who also participated in a conference workshop on Collaborative Teaching of Globally Distributed Software Development with two presentations. They discussed overall experiences in creating and carrying out DSD course, as well as student motivation. followed by students' experiences of a course.

2010/2011: DSD on Croatian national TV

In November, 2010, Croatian national TV (HRT) published a story about DSD course (and another course, Open Computing, from our course group). The story was a part of a show called "Trenutak spoznaje", which discusses scientific topics. Take a look!

2009/2010: IELA international e-learning contest

At the contest "International e-Learning Awards 2010", organized by IELA - International E-Learning Association, "Distributed Software Development" course won the second award, in the category of academic e-learning. The awards were announced during the International Conference on Computer Aidied Learning - ICL 2010, in Hasselt, Belgium. Award submissions were received from 26 countries, and awards were given in academic and business categories, for excellence in e-learning, mobile learning and blended learning.

2008/2009: SCORE competition

Our students are the members of finalist teams of the SCORE competition, organized by the world's largest software engineering conference (ICSE – International Conference in Software Engineering).

Out of 50 project teams from prestigious universities, six finalist teams were selected - three of them projects from DSD 2008/09 course. Above all, “BTW: if you go my advice to you” project was declared the overall winner of the SCORE 2009 competition.

Student teams were competing while working on projects as a practical part of this course, overcoming various challenges in distributed software development and working on real-life projects. Students - team representatives participated in project presentations at the ICSE conference itself, which took place in May 2009 in Vancouver, Canada. We are proud that DSD students actively participated in promoting the cooperation between our universities, and have shown the quality of such distributed work and project-based course.

Special award for outstanding achievement in the international software engineering competition and the contribution to the international visibility of University of Zagreb was awarded to the members of the winning, BTWmaps team.

 (Photo: www.unizg.hr)

2008/2009: "The best e-course" at the University of Zagreb contest

The University of Zagreb held a contest for the best e-course in the academic year 2008./2009. The purpose of this competition was to acknowledge the best examples of using ICT in university education, which enhances not only tehnological, but the pedagogical parts of the course education process.

Among a great competition, Distributed Software Development course was awarded the second prize for the best e-course at the University of Zagreb.