Fall 2026 SENG 480B: Topics in Software Engineering: "Community Engaged Research and Innovation" (Units: 1.5)

Accessible Learning

The University of Victoria is committed to creating a learning experience that is as accessible as possible. If you are registered with the Centre for Accessible Learning and anticipate or experience any barriers to learning in this course, please feel welcome to discuss your concerns with me. If you are a student with a disability or chronic health condition, you can meet with a CAL advisor to discuss access and accommodations.

How to contact CAL:  https://www.uvic.ca/accessible-learning/students/how-to-register/index.php.

Academic Concessions

The university recognizes its responsibility to offer academic concessions to students whose ability to complete course requirements is interrupted by unexpected and unavoidable circumstances or conflicting responsibilities.

Review the Academic Concession Regulation:

https://www.uvic.ca/calendar/future/undergrad/index.php#/policy/HJjAxiGO4?bc=true&bcCurrent=11%20-%20Academic%20Concessions&bcGroup=Undergraduate%20Academic%20Regulations&bcItemType=policies

and web site:

https://www.uvic.ca/students/academics/academic-concessions-accommodations/request-for-academic-concession/index.php#ipn-undergraduate-requests-for-academic-concession.

Course Overview

This is a project-based, experiential course that brings students together to design and build real-world solutions with meaningful community impact. Working in interdisciplinary teams, students will engage directly with community and industry partners to identify needs, scope problems, and iteratively develop solutions, while exploring emerging approaches such as generative AI, agentic AI, and “vibe coding” as part of their development process. The course emphasizes hands-on learning, critical reflection, and responsible innovation, encouraging students to not only apply technical skills but also examine the broader social, ethical, and human dimensions of the systems they create. The course creates unique opportunities for connecting within a network of industry leaders and academic partners at other universities, as well as the growing INSPIRE (inspireuvic.org) innovation student network.

This course is ideal for students passionate about using technology to address complex, real-world problems in a collaborative and inclusive way, while strengthening their skills in software engineering, AI-based system development, communication, and socially impactful innovation. 

The course starts strong in the first week of classes, and attending the first lecture on Sep 10 is very important to understand the learning outcomes and expectations. 
 

The course is centered around a major team, community-engaging project

Students work in a team of 4-6 students on a project designed to be societally impactful and rooted in real-world needs, often identified in partnership with local organizations, non-profits, or government bodies. Projects focus on addressing challenges related to equity, accessibility, sustainability, or community well-being, allowing students to build solutions that make a tangible difference. Throughout the course, students will be supported by industry mentors who bring domain expertise and professional insights, helping guide technical decisions and exposing students to industry practices. This ensures that each project is both technically rigorous and societally meaningful. This offers students a chance to build a portfolio that reflects both innovation and societal impact.

Should I Take SENG480B?

SENG 480B is an exciting and rewarding course, but it’s not for everyone. This is an intensive and fast-paced hands-on learning experience that demands strong communication skills, teamwork and a collaborative mindset, and a genuine passion for making a difference in society. If you’re someone who thrives in team environments, cares about creating social impact through technology, and has experience working with communities or real-world stakeholders, this course is a great fit. Expect significant teamwork through which you’ll be building a real solution: you’ll be meeting with clients and industry experts, reflecting on ethical and societal impacts, and participating in team-led activities and events. Your ability to work well with others, contribute meaningfully to a project, and navigate complex, dynamic team environments will directly impact your grade. It’s challenging, fast-paced, and immersive, but if you’re ready to dive in, SENG 480B will be one of the most impactful and inspiring semesters of your degree.

Course Objectives And Learning Outcomes

SENG 480B is designed to prepare students to design and develop software with a deep sense of ethical awareness and social responsibility. This course equips students with the practical skills, interdisciplinary experience, and reflective mindset needed to develop technology that responds meaningfully to real world challenges. By the end of this course, students will be able to: 

1. Employ design‑thinking principles to understand a community need for a technological solution.

2. Gain familiarity and experience with co-designing software solutions in direct collaboration with a community partner. 

3. Gain experience in using generative AI, agentic AI and vibe coding in designing and implementing ethical solutions. 

3. Analyze societal values and translate them to software requirements. 

4. Analyze software requirements and translate them into technical specifications.

4. Employ collaborative tools and agile methodologies to coordinate tasks, track progress, and adapt to changing requirements.

5. Communicate technical concepts and project updates clearly to both technical / non-technical stakeholders and peers.

6. Present developed software in an engaging way to stakeholders and community members.

7. Collaborate effectively to develop software in a cross-functional, multi-disciplinary team with various domains of expertise.

8. Work, communicate and collaborate effectively in a multidisciplinary team. 

Topics

Technology design for societal impact

Empathy in teams and in stakeholder collaboration

Iterative, agile development

AI-based development, including generative AI, agentic AI, vibe coding

Designing with and for community partners

Responsible innovation

Stakeholder communication

Delivery Method and Participation to class and project

Attendance and illness: Attendance in person is expected during the scheduled lecture and all labs. Given the fast-pace nature of the course, any lecture or lab you miss can lead you to miss important project activity, deliverable, or insight. If you need to be away, please make sure I as well as your team are aware in advance, if possible, and make alternate plans to contribute to the team project work. Missing critical assessments will require submission of the University Request for Extension form.

Attendance at the first lecture on September 10 is mandatory. The course structure, and the major course project will be discussed, as well as preferences for both projects and teams will be collected. Throughout the term, lectures contain topical content as well as significant time dedicated to reflections and presentations on the project and team experience. The class participation is graded at 15%, 

Office hours: will be conducted in person, or on Teams (or similar synchronous remote communication software like Google Meet, Skype, Discord etc). If my door is open outside those hours, feel free to ask me questions in person.

Grading/remark requests: please email me to request a grade review or remark request within 7 calendar days of the marks being distributed.

Class Participation

This is an experiential learning course that builds on students’ passion for designing technology for and with comunities/society. Rather than simply absorbing instructor-prepared material, you will learn through inquiry: asking questions, exploring ideas, engaging with others, and reflecting critically on your learning experiences. Active participation and meaningful engagement in this process during lectures are therefore central to the course.

Your participation grade is ongoing and begins in Week 1. You will receive a final participation grade at the end of the course. Feedback on your participation will be provided at the course midpoint and at other times upon request.

Class participation will be assessed based on your active and meaningful contribution to course activities, including:

• attending classes and arriving on time;
• completing assigned class activities, reports, and presentations;
• engaging constructively in class discussions and group activities;
• preparing for and contributing to discussions of course readings;
• asking questions, sharing ideas, and responding thoughtfully to the ideas of others;
• making explicit connections between your contributions, course readings, concepts, and your own project experiences; and

Participation is about more than simply being present. Meaningful participation means actively contributing to the learning environment and to the learning of your peers. You are expected to come prepared, engage critically with the material, contribute to discussions and activities, and reflect on what you are learning.

Note: Mere attendance does not, by itself, guarantee any portion of the participation grade.

Textbooks

The Unspoken Rules: Secrets to Starting Your Career Off Right  by Gorick Ng

The book is available through UVIc's Libraries

Course Grading

Project Grade (65%)

Assignments

There are no assignments in this course, except for regularly scheduled Project Deliverables as detailed below. There are five 2-3 week-long Project sprints. Each sprint has a Sprint documentation deliverable (planning, decision record, demo and retrospective). In addition, some other sprint deliverables include:

Sprint 0, Week 2: Problem framing and scope in the term project 

                Week 3: Project stakeholder map, requirements elicitation plan, requirements document 

Sprint 1, Week 5: Tech-Value Alignment Strategy, Stakeholder Values Document

Sprint 2, Week 7: Project code repository 

Sprint 3, Week 10: Updated Tech-Value Alignment Strategy, Project code repository

Sprint 4, Week 13: Final project demo and plan for final oral presentation, Project code repository 

Teamwork and Peer Reviews

Contribution to Teamwork: The extent to which a student actively and constructively contributes to the functioning and success of the team. This includes participating in team activities and decision-making, taking responsibility for assigned work, communicating reliably with teammates, collaborating and sharing knowledge, supporting other team members, contributing to team processes, and helping resolve problems constructively.

Peer Reviews of Teamwork: Each student will submit a Peer Review of each of their team members and themselves at the end of each Sprint, using a template provided in class. The Peer Review will essentially assess the extent to each the team member contributed to the project teamwork, using criteria such as communication style, completion of assigned tasks, participation in the sprint activities or project class activities, contribution to discussions relevant to project experience, reliability of contribution to group work, and attendance to project work in general. The quality of the Peer Review will be assessed. 

Exams

There will be a final oral exam scheduled by the University. It will consist of the presentation of the project and team experience in a conference like event where community partners and industry collaborators, as well as other UVic students will be invited to attend. 

Quizzes

Quiz 1 on Sept 17, from required reading provided in first class (Sep10) and Quiz 2 on Sep 21 (textbook).

Generative AI Guidelines

A learning outcome of this course is to collaborate critically with AI: to use its output, evaluate it against your project goals and broader context, and critically evaluate it in light of your community partners' needs.

You may use AI tools in any project deliverable. There is no penalty for using them. What is required is that you engage with them critically rather than accepting output at face value.

For each deliverable, you are expected to:

• Identify where and how AI was used, including the tool and the kind of task it supported.

• Evaluate the output against your project goals and context. Your regular sprint deliverables will question: What did you accept, revise, or discard from generated AI content, and on what basis?

• Explain your reasoning for why AI did or did not add value at that point in the work. For example, "It came up with good ideas" is a claim that needs evidence; so does "it was not useful."

• Remember that you are designing software for real community partners. Take responsibility for what you submit. AI-generated content that you include is your content, including its errors, its assumptions, and its fit to the requirements you were given.

Project deliverables assess the quality of your critical engagement with AI. A team that used AI heavily and reasoned well about where it helped and where it misled them will do better than a team that used it heavily and cannot account for the difference. Similarly, a team can choose not to use AI for a given task and should also be able to explain why.
The goal of your teaching team is not to police AI use but to build the judgement that professional software work now requires: knowing what a tool is good for, recognizing when its output is wrong or misaligned with your goals, and being able to defend the decisions you made with it. 

Voluntary participation in Research

As part of related graduate-level coursework and research activities, students enrolled in CSC 586C may conduct research examining aspects of the projects and learning activities completed in SENG 480B. During the term, you may be invited to participate in research related to your experiences or work in this course.

Participation in any such research is entirely voluntary. You are free to accept or decline an invitation to participate, and choosing not to participate will have no effect on your grade, standing in SENG 480B, or relationship with the instructional team or the university.
Your decision about whether to participate will not be shared with the SENG 480B instructor while the course is ongoing. Where applicable, additional information about the specific study, what participation involves, how your information will be used, and your rights as a research participant will be provided to you before you are asked to consent.

Posting of Grades

Typically marks for assignments, examinations, and provisional final grades are made available through a Learning Management System (LMS) like Brightspace, where each student will be able to view only their own grades. Sometimes numerical marks/grades may be posted publicly to the entire class. In that case, full student numbers or names will not be included with the posted information.

Csc Student Groups

The Engineering & Computer Science Students' Society (ECSS) serves all students registered in an Engineering and Computer Science degree program, including Software Engineering (BSEng). For information on ECSS activities, events and services navigate to https://sites.google.com/view/uvic-ecss/.

Course Policies And Guidelines

Late Assignments: No late assignments will be accepted unless prior arrangements have been made with the instructor at least 48 hours before the assignment due date.
Coursework Mark Appeals: Appeals of marks for coursework will only be considered if received within 7 days of the mark being posted.
Attendance: We expect students attend all lectures and labs. It is entirely the students' responsibility to recover any information or announcements presented in lectures from which they were absent.
Electronic devices in labs and lectures: No unauthorized audio or video recording of lectures is permitted.
Electronic devices in midterms and exams: Calculators are only permitted for examinations and tests if explicitly authorized and the type of calculator permitted may be restricted. No other electronic devices (e.g. cell phones, pagers, PDA, etc.) may be used during examinations or tests unless explicitly authorized.
Plagiarism: Cheating, plagiarism and other forms of academic fraud are taken very seriously by both the University and the Department. You should consult the link given below for the UVic policy on academic integrity. Note that the university policy includes the statement that "A largely or fully plagiarized assignment should result in a grade of F for the course."

The Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science Standards for Professional Behaviour are at https://www.uvic.ca/ecs/_assets/docs/student-forms/professional-behaviour.pdf
U.Vic guidelines and policy concerning fraud and academic integrity are at http://web.uvic.ca/calendar/undergrad/info/regulations/academic-integrity.html
U. Vic Privacy Policy: If any student has concerns about their private information being stored or accessed outside of Canada, they are required to inform the course instructor about their concerns before the end of second week of classes.