Producing and Delivering a MOOC on Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture for Concurrent and Networked Software Douglas C. Schmidt and Zach McCormick Vanderbilt University, Institute for Software Integrated Systems, Nashville, Tennessee fd.schmidt,
[email protected] Abstract The MOOC we taught on the Coursera platform was called A massive open online course (MOOC) is a web-based class en- “Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture for Concurrent and Net- vironment aimed at large-scale global participation and open ac- worked Software,” which we refer to as the POSA MOOC (see cess via the Internet. MOOCs are also a disruptive trend chang- www.coursera.org/course/posa for access to this material). ing how education is delivered and funded throughout the world. This MOOC showed by example how applying object-oriented pat- In the spring of 2013, we developed and taught Vanderbilt’s first terns and frameworks can help to alleviate many accidental and in- MOOC, entitled “Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture for Con- herent complexities associated with developing and deploying con- current and Networked Software” (known as the POSA MOOC). current and network software. The patterns and frameworks cov- This ten-week MOOC was an amalgamation of several courses on ered in this MOOC have been used successfully in many domains, software design and programming taken by ∼600 undergraduate including telecom and datacom, mobile devices, electronic medical and graduate students at Vanderbilt during the past decade. Enroll- imaging, network management, aerospace aviation and automation, ment in our POSA MOOC was more than 50 times (31,000+) that as well as online gaming, web services, and financial systems.