Course description

Course lay-out

This course is closely related and intertwined with software engineering theory (course number 11) and intramural internship. In this course has been setup according to the Problem Oriented Education (POE) model. In summary: students are devided into two groups and will discuss several cases presented to them and create educational goals. Each case is problem in the area of software engineering in the healthcare. Selfstudy is required to answer the educational goals and in the next meeting the results of the selfstudy is reported to the group. The coordinator will intervene when necessary.

 

Each group will meet every week for two hours, during this meeting the case is presented and discussed; which knowledge is already known and which parts of the case have to be researched, these parts form the educational goals. Each student will be the chair at a given time and another student will write everything down. These meetings will be supported by some lectures given throughout this course.

 

Educational goals

The goal of this course is to gain experience in software development for an existing clinical department. The student select relevant theory and applies the selected theory in practice. Besides this skill cooperation, project-based working, writing reports and giving oral presentations will be trained.

 

Involved departments

• Clinical Informatics
• Internship Departments
• Project Organisation Concern-ICT Strategy

 

Evaluation

Evaluation of the course and assignments

This course is the pratical part of Software Engineering. The project we choose was a result of observing for four weeks during our intramural internship at a clinical department (neuro surgery). One lesson that was quickly learned was that everything is different in the real world and theory is always easier. We had a good cooperating group, which is necessary to complete a project. I improved my communication skills and I was the project leader. You had to communicate with other group members and the stakeholders of the project.

 

Everyone knows that things go different in the 'real world', however sometimes you were caught by surprise; our client was not be able to meet with us, therefore we had to create a list of questions. A margin must always be planned otherwise you will run into problems. Before you start implementing the project it is necessary to think really hard about what you will try to accomplish. When you have written this down, you can always check whether or not you deviate from the original plans or you can refer to it when you client would like to know exactly what is going on. Another advantage is that you will have to think about the time you will need to complete the milestones and how big a specific margin is. You will have to be flexible, otherwise you cannot react to events that occur. It was very interesting to do a project in practice, this way you get some feeling with software engineering and how it works in the real world. Real practice is never wrong and I learned a lot during this project.