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Using Git to Manage Capstone Software Projects

Authors:
Zhiguang Xu

Keywords: Distributed Student Software Project Management; Distributed Version Control System: Git; Computing and Information Sciences Education.

Abstract:
Distributed software project development has become a reality not only in industry but also in computer science classes nowadays – students and teachers have to leverage time, talent, and resources collaboratively wherever they reside, especially when everyone is working on his/her own schedule, from his/her convenient location, and using various programming systems. In this paper, we will present an empirical study of how Git, “a free & open source, distributed version control system”, is used in an undergraduate Computer Science (CS) capstone class to facilitate team collaboration for the students and to ease the project assessment and grading tasks for the teachers. Other Git-related aspects such as preventing plagiarization, hosting online public/private project repositories, and improving the student-teacher interactivity during lecture sessions, are also discussed. Despite of the relatively bumpy and steep learning curve in the beginning of the semester, all four groups of students in the capstone class described in this paper benefitted tremendously from Git, which reduced the burdens of version control and group management on their shoulders, increased the collective productivity of their groups, and helped them in completing their substantial software projects successfully. This paper is concluded with a vision on expanding and standardizing the adoption of Git in other Computer Science classes in the future.

Pages: 159 to 164

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2012

Publication date: June 24, 2012

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4529

ISBN: 978-1-61208-202-8

Location: Venice, Italy

Dates: from June 24, 2012 to June 29, 2012