2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Software Courses in Computer Engineering

Abstract
There are approximately 270 ABET accredited computer engineering programs in the U.S. Most of these were developed as a specialty out of existing electrical engineering programs. Some developed from computer science programs and some developed where computer science and electrical engineering formed a combined department. As a result there is some significant variance between the amount of hardware and software that computer engineering programs require.

In this paper we examined fifty randomly selected programs in computer engineering and attempted to determine the distribution of required software courses. We have categorized software-related courses and summarized the program requirements with respect to these categories. Every program has a published online curriculum as well as catalog descriptions of the courses. Most of our analysis comes from that data. In several cases where the software content of a course was not clear from a catalog we contacted the department chair by email or phone.

We compared our results with the data from the version of the Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Computer Engineering published by the Joint Task Group on Computer Engineering Curricula Version 2015 October 3.

We provide a summary statement but we make no recommendations. We believe this information will be useful to anyone developing a new computer engineering program or to those who are in the process of curricular revision.