Although the discipline of software engineering offers different techniques and strategies to ensure quality, programmers in practice are reluctant to engage with them, with detrimental effects on software quality. A root cause of this situation lies in how software developers are educated: Software engineering education generally tends to focus more on the creative aspects of design and coding, whereas the more laborious and less entertaining activities are neglected; this disengagement with software quality assurance techniques carries over to practice. We therefore need a fundamental change in how software engineering is taught and perceived. Tomorrow's software engineers need to be raised with an appreciation of software quality, and quality assurance techniques need to become a natural aspect of software development, rather than a niche topic. To achieve this attitudinal change, the IMPRESS project will explore the use of gamification, i.e., the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-gaming contexts, which has seen successful applications in other domains.

Supported by: Erasmus+
Participating CS members: Tanja Vos, Stefano Schivo
project website