Teaching Computer Programming in a Platform as a Service Environment

In this paper we recall a previous research on the future development of the current model of higher education, which highlighted that the labor market is looking for people with competences and skills reflecting a T-shape model. As a consequence, universities should include a wider mix of disciplines in the curricula of their courses. Hence, to overcome existing criticisms and to provide some suggestions on how to enhance universities’ performances, we thought of education as a process with inputs, outputs, and relevant dependencies. We based our research on a smart-city-like model due to the fact that next generation networks and relevant services are going to be more and more integrated with existing infrastructure and information management systems. Thus, it is mandatory that smart solutions are the most prominent assets of modern university environments, to improve the effectiveness of higher education. We called such a university a “smarter university” in which knowledge is a common heritage of teachers and students. In this paper, we report experimental results from a specific case study of collaboration between industry and university, which could be used as a reference for the definition of patterns to be applied in the redesign of the current education systems, even tough it is referred to a technological application scenario.