Using CVS Historical Information to Understand How Students Develop Software

Software engineering courses are expected to teach students a wide range of knowledge and skills, e.g. software-development methodologies, tools, work habits, collaboration skills, a good sense of scheduling, etc. In this paper, we present a method to track the progress of students developing a term project, using the historical information stored in their CVS repository. This information is analyzed and presented to the instructor in a variety of forms. The goal of this analysis is, first, to understand how students interact, and second, to find out if there is any correlation between their grades and the nature of their collaboration. Understanding these factors will enable instructors to detect potential problems early in the course of the students’ projects, so they can concentrate their help on those teams who need it the most.