Can Software Engineers Develop Communication Skills Online?

By Kathy Milhauser, adjunct faculty, and Kal Toth, associate professor, Portland State University

Last month’s article in this series, “Is Online Software Engineering Education for You?” pointed out several technical software engineering topics that can be learned effectively through online methods and tools. But what about the “softer skills”? Is it possible for students to use online methods to learn about making good presentations, producing readable documents and conducting effective meetings? Many of you might be skeptical. Our experience at OMSE (http://www.omse.pdx.edu), however, has been that software engineers are particularly well-suited for learning online, possibly because so much of the day-to-day effort of a software practitioner involves working with others via Web-enabled collaboration tools.

This month, Kathy Milhauser, an OMSE faculty member, discusses successes she has enjoyed by using online methods to help students develop their communication skills.

One of the required courses for completing a Master’s of Software Engineering at Portland State University is “Professional Communication Skills for Software Engineers.” The goal of the course is to prepare students to be successful in the business world by balancing their technical knowledge with the skills required to communicate effectively. Coursework focuses on presenting ideas, influencing peers and superiors, running effective meetings and working collaboratively.

When we began to develop online courses for the OMSE program, we wondered how we would go about teaching these “softer” skills without the face-to-face interaction of a classroom setting. We were aware that before taking the course, many students were skeptical of its value to them as future software engineers. However, after those same students completed the course, they frequently called it one of the most interesting and practical courses in the program. So, as we considered taking the course online, we were more concerned than ever that we might be messing with success. We didn’t want to transfer a course online only to find that we had reduced its effectiveness.

For example, consider that a major focus of the course is presentation skills. Students create and present a series of informative and influential presentations for the class. The coursework includes real-world problems and self-selected topics from the students’ work, making it easy for them to apply what they learn. The students are provided a very clear picture of how they are perceived by others in their field through instructor and peer feedback from classmates. Additionally, the presentations are videotaped and streamed on the classroom Web site so that students can watch themselves and reflect on areas for improvement between each assignment.

How to transfer to an online learning environment?
Can students effectively learn communication skills without the face-to-face feedback and practice that they receive in a classroom? It was clearly time to address the challenges these students were facing in their work as they were increasingly expected to communicate online with colleagues around the globe.

In the fall of 2006, the OMSE program launched simultaneous classroom and online sections of the communication skills course with the intention of answering these questions. The basic structure of the course remained the same. Students began the term with a personal action planning assignment that allowed them to create individual goals for their skill development. They then worked within a Web-based environment (WebCT) to view streamed video of classroom lectures, and posted responses to the instructor’s questions in the online forums.

Assignments were submitted and reviewed on the same schedule as the classroom course. Presentations were conducted by each student individually, videotaped and submitted to the instructor for review and feedback.

While the weekly topics for the classroom and online students were the same, the students did take slightly different paths with their team projects. For the second half of the term, the focus in both sections of the course was to work in teams to identify and address a real-world problem facing software engineers. The teams then worked together, using all the skills they had practiced in class, to create a written proposal and a team-delivered presentation.

The online communication skills students in the fall 2006 course chose to address the deficiencies in the very online learning environment that they were using for their class (WebCT). They researched topics such as classroom management solutions, synchronous and asynchronous collaborative tools, and video presentation solutions, to name a few. They then proposed a hybrid peer-to-peer solution for online learning that would allow them more flexibility, enhance their connection with the instructor, and provide an opportunity for the student community to develop and maintain their learning environment themselves.

While the proposal was in response to a class assignment¾and the students were evaluated primarily on their ability to work as a team to develop an influential proposal and presentation--the choice of topics and depth of research that they conducted in addressing it raised interesting questions. Can the online environment provide a richer resource pool for students? Did the learning environment promote more creative and innovative thinking? Did the struggle to learn in this new way push these students to challenge the norms, and stretch their thinking further than they might have in the confines of a classroom?

What the students got out of it
Clearly, the students were affected by the experience. Each student reported deeper engagement in discussions and debate than their typical classroom experience. And, as is the norm in the classroom course, each student reported increased confidence and comfort with his or her face-to-face presentation skills as a result of the practice, videotaping and reflection that constituted the core part of the learning.

Were do we go from here?
The OMSE program will continue to explore opportunities for expanding the software engineering program offerings in increasingly innovative formats. With the successful transition of the communications course to the online format, the OMSE program is steadily moving toward an online degree program. One of our next challenges will be to bring together the classroom and online formats to create a blended environment (some classroom, some online). This would provide students with maximum flexibility and the best of both worlds. Future articles will explore the different approaches to online learning that we are evolving as we continue to grow the program.

About the authors
Kal Toth, associate professor in the Portland State University department of computer science, is director of the Oregon Master of Software Engineering (OMSE) program (http://omse.pdx.edu). He holds a Ph.D. from Carleton University (in electrical engineering and computer systems) and teaches several core OMSE courses. He can be contacted at ktoth@omse.pdx.edu; see http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~ktoth/.

Kathy Milhauser is an adjunct OMSE faculty member teaching the Professional Communication Skills course. She holds an M.A. in educational technology from Pepperdine University and a B.A. in communication from Marylhurst University. She is currently part of a team at Nike focused on leading process-improvement efforts. She can be contacted at kathym@pdx.edu.