D. Bork, A. Fend, D. Scheffknecht, G. Kappel, M. Wimmer: From In-Person to Distance Learning: Teaching Model-Driven Software Engineering in Remote Settings, 2021 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems Companion (MODELS-C) - Educator Symposium, October 10-15, 2021, pages 702-711. Doi: 10.1109/MODELS-C53483.2021.00114


The COVID-19 pandemic did not only dramatically impact the personal and social lives, for many academics, it also demanded immediate changes to the way their courses are taught. While a pragmatic approach is to do conventional lectures via video
streaming platforms, much more may be done to educate students also in a remote setting properly. This particularly holds true for practice-oriented and technology-engaging courses. This paper describes our experience of transforming an in-person Master level class on model-driven software engineering into a distance learning one. We describe the structure, the content, the teaching and examination format, and the used platforms in detail. We critically reflect on our experiences and report the feedback gained by a postclass student evaluation. We believe this paper provides meaningful lessons learned and best practices for other educators challenged with the task of teaching similar courses in a remote setting. With this paper, we publish an openly available Github repository that features all course content including sample solutions for all practical lab assignments.

From In-Person to Distance Learning: Teaching Model-Driven Software Engineering in Remote Settings