Computer software engineer

Software engineering should be available in computer science and engineering departments of Canadian universities, says the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS). However, the Canadian Council for Professional Engineers (CCPE) wants the term "software engineer" abolished in connection with computer science programs.

CIPS recently presented its case to an independent panel struck as a settlement in a 1997 lawsuit brought by CCPE against Memorial University of Newfoundland for breach of copyright. Memorial subsequently copyrighted the term "software engineering". However, the CCPE dropped its lawsuit early last year in favour of the panel and the university dropped its "software engineering" copyright entitlement.

"There is a lot of demand for software workers in this country. Why restrict where software engineering is taught and, therefore, lower the demand or lower the supply of qualified future software workers in this country?" CIPS executive director Mary Jane Kucerak asked the panel made up of IT and engineering professionals, plus science and engineering academics.

Kucerak added the term software engineer was adopted by computer scientists about 30 years ago but it may not be appropriate today because "it's very much a computer science application. It's not the rigid set of engineering processes that you more commonly refer to in terms of chemical engineering etc." However, Kucerak noted, computer scientists adopted the term because they were trying to apply a methodical process for software development.

"We perceive that the use of the term software engineering to describe computer science programs is misleading to the students in those programs and misleading to the public," said CCPE communications manager Terence Davis.

"If graduates of a computer science program call themselves software engineers then the (engineering) associations will be in the position of legally having to take some form of enforcement action against these individuals," said Davis.

The CCPE put forth its own proposals to the panel, citing McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. "What McMaster did was take the computer science department and put it under the faculty of engineering and created a joint program with two streams. There's a stream that's computer science and there's a stream that is software engineering," said Davis.

David Parnas, director of the software engineering program in the department of computing and software at McMaster University said he would like to see two professional programs -- one called software engineering and one called software development.

"The software engineering (program) would meet the CEAB (Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board) requirements and the second one would also be a professional program, and fairly restrictive, (but) would not meet the CEAB requirements and deal . . . more about things that could happen purely inside the computer."

Parnas said the computer science and engineering departments have very different and distinct characteristics and to call computer science graduates software engineers would be inappropriate.

"Any program that has the term software engineering should qualify its graduates for licensing of engineers," said Parnas. "I don't actually care what department it's in but I want it to meet the accreditation criteria so that every student knows, after they get their four years of experience, they can be licensed as engineers. And if you want to teach a program which doesn't lead to licensing of engineers, then it shouldn't be called engineering. It's misleading."

Not so, according to Craig Slaney, director of research and human resources development at Operations Online Inc. in St. John's,.

"I think people know there's a difference between a professional engineer and an engineer that drives a train or whatever. And I really don't think there's that confusion over what a software engineer is," he said.

"The university makes it very clear that a graduate of this software engineering program (from the computer science department) is not eligible for a professional engineering designation," said Slaney.

"That very clearly deals with the issue from a public perception perspective. I can't see how anybody can be confused that a B.Sc. in software engineering is not a professional engineer."

The panel is expected to make its recommendations later this year.