Technology Acquisition Plans to Foster Supply Chain Risk Management Learning Outcomes in Project-Based Software Development Courses

From theory and technical skills to self-management and interpersonal skills, and to role-specific knowledge such as DevOps or Requirements Engineering, students struggle to become proficient in all aspects to Software Engineering before graduating, while instructors struggle to prepare students for industry. Project-based instruction has become a de-facto standard to teach skills and knowledge. Many project-based courses focus on implementation, wherein students tend to adopt third-party technologies without critical reflection. This leads to insufficient knowledge about supply chain risk management (SCRM). The result is that students are inadequately prepared to handle risks to project success due to third-party acquisitions, including usage rights, introduction of security vulnerabilities, or their ability to identify and mitigate acquisition risks. In this paper, we present a capstone-style project-based course to deliver an industry-realistic and teamwork-centric software development approach. We propose incorporating Technology Acquisition Plans, which are based on an existing SCRM curriculum, and add acquisition planning, bidding, and risk monitoring activities to the project and development activities. Empirical evaluation and classroom observations show that while students' ability to justify the need for third-party acquisitions remains the same, self-reported ability to evaluate and bid on alternatives is improved. Furthermore, statistically significant improvement can be seen in areas pertaining to risk monitoring, problem detection, and problem resolution.