Our 2019 book Client-Centered Software Development: The CO-FOSS Approach provides a detailed roadmap for instructors to develop an academic course around their own CO-FOSS project.
The book can also be used by students as a text and reference while working on a CO-FOSS project, by clients participating in the project, and by professional developers who support the completed project.
The book is available in hardcopy and ebook format from CRC Press (the publisher), Amazon, Routledge, and various other booksellers worldwide. A detailed preview of the book, including its Preface, Table of Contents, and Chapter 1, can be freely downloaded here.
All the teaching resources referenced in that book — course syllabi, weekly assignments, design documents, code bases, databases, and installation instructions — for the following CO-FOSS projects can be freely downloaded from this Web site:
These projects were completed by different student teams at Bowdoin and Whitman Colleges in 2012, 2013, and 2015.
The 2016 article Bridging the Academia-Industry Gap in Software Engineering presents the CO-FOSS model for software development, and discusses in detail the experiences of using this model by instructors at three different universities — St John’s, UNH, and Bowdoin. The article explains the effects of different student populations, class sizes, and course organizations on project organization, goals, and outcomes.
Our 2011 textbook Software Development: An Open Source Approach provides historical perspective on the larger HFOSS setting for undergraduates to develop meaningful software, including the earlier courses and projects developed by Bowdoin and Trinity College students from 2008 to 2013. It may be used as an additional reference alongside the more up-to-date teaching resources described above.