A typical project

A typical student software engineering project has 4-5 students and a client (you). The client gives requirements for a software package that the students implement together. A good project is simple to define and yet complex enough so that it requires all team members to work together.

Projects use an agile development process that requires an active participation from the client throughout the process. A more detailed description of the customer's role is presented below.

There are two types of software engineering projects. In single period (7 week) project the team works without any other commitments (e.g. studies, work, ..). The long project lasts two periods. We accept mainly prototype systems and systems with no legacy overhead as single period projects.

We accept the following types of proposals:

1. Proposals from companies or communities (client is authorized to submit a proposal),
2. Teaching-related proposals (client is a lecturer), and
3. Proposals based on someone's own research (client has at least a licentiate degree or is a PhD student).

The product

All work done in the project will be released under an open-source license (for example Creative Commons, Gnu GPLv2, ...). This is non-negotiable, and closed-source projects will not be considered. The immaterial rights for the developed software are transferred to the University of Helsinki, which in turn provides rights to the software to all stakeholders in the spirit of open-source software development. The contracts are available in both Finnish and English. Note that the English language version is merely a translation and the actual contract will be the one in Finnish.

The role of a customer

As a customer, it is expected that you — or a representative of your company/group — is able to meet with the team weekly (on intensive projects) or biweekly. During these meetings, the team will both present their progress on the project and ask for feedback.

The project is developed using an agile development process that consists of "sprints". These sprints last one or two weeks. At the start of every sprint, the team will discuss the direction of the project with the customer and they together will determine which new features to implement next. In an ideal case, every sprint results in a usable product that gets more and more refined and implements more and more features as the project continues.

Submitting a project

We are now accepting project proposals for spring 2016. The deadline for submissions is 4.12.2015.

Submit your proposal here 

Aihe-ehdotuksen voi kirjoittaa myös suomeksi!