Master's course
CAPE Groep helps to develop a Master's course for the University of Twente
CAPE Groep has been working closely with University of Twente. Since the beginning of our existence we have started giving guest lectures, we organized in-house days, we attend events of study associations and we helped record Mendix in the curriculum of relevant studies. Besides the fact that we like to share our knowledge, we stay informed of what is going on among the students. Now we can extend this collaboration with a contribution to setting up the practical part of a Master course for the study Business & IT, namely Low (No) Code Application Development (LCAD). A super nice way to show and prepare students for what they can expect when they actually go into the field. The pilot started last academic year.
The aim of the course is for students to gain both theoretical understanding and practical experience in Low Code Application Development through a mix of (guest) lectures, demos and hands-on sessions. Our own Academy, led by Stephen Braams, has worked closely with the teachers of the University of Twente to set up the practical part of this course. Closing the gap between the theory you learn during your studies and your daily work life is one of the objectives of the master course 'Low-code Application Development'. Other learning objectives of the course are that the students:
- Explain the role of Low/No Code development technology in the process of software design and development;
- Explain the Low/No Code development cycle, methods and business benefits;
- Low/No Code platforms can choose based on the intended business objectives;
- Be able to use modern Low Code development techniques to document business requirements and transform them into working applications;
- Being able to apply Low Code application development to an authentic case, and
- Be able to evaluate emerging technologies and trends for Low Code development and provide an academic report on this topic.
The department Industrial Engineering And Business Information Systems (IEBIS) wanted to provide more room in the range of electives for Business & IT master students to gain practical experience with one of the fastest growing sectors within IT: Low-Code Application Development. From the existing collaboration with the University, CAPE was asked to contribute to this course on the basis of its own experience.
In lectures of Assistant Professor Dr Gayane Sedrakyan, Prof.dr. Jos van Hillegersberg en Prof.dr. Mary Jacob and in guest lectures by various parties from the Low-Code sector, the participants receive the latest trends and insights from the literature on Low-Code Development. In addition, CAPE takes the students along in its approach in Low-Code projects: the CAPE Methodology. This methodology, which combines the advantages of the agile and plan-driven methods, consists of four main phases: Discovery, Sprint 0, Rapid Development and Application Lifecycle. The intention is that, on the basis of the existing methods and with a state-of-the-art Low Code platform of their own choice (for example Mendix, Novulo, Ciphix, Thinkwise, BizAgi, eMagiz, Outsystems or Betty Blocks), students quickly convert a presented case into an app that meets professional standards. In this way, the students learn the right methods to transform business requirements into working applications.
These phases are converted into four workshops. From the CAPE traineeship and the Self-Enablement trajectories that CAPE offers to customers, CAPE has all the learning material about Low-Code Application Development in-house. With the help of this material, CAPE has built the workshops that show the students and experience how CAPE brings projects to a successful and valuable end product. After the first week, the students have already built a working application on which they could develop the rest of the course.
While setting up the practical part, we looked at the needs of the students, the experience of our own employees and Academy, the experience of teachers and the current scientific theory in this area. “It was fun and challenging to help set up the course in such a way that it really helps students,” says Stephan Braams, knowledge management consultant at CAPE Groep.
The course started on April 21 and was taught both digitally and on location. A group of 10 students completed the new course for the first time. We hope in this way to bring students a little closer to practice and to give them some extra experience for the 'real' work. The first evaluation was very positive! Other contributors to this course are mendix, Novulo, Thinkwise, Ciphix, CGI, ForFarmers en Outsystems.
