A Master Program on Engineering Energy-Aware Software

Abstract

Software-intensive systems support most if not all aspects of modern society and in all industrial sectors. Because of software’ pervasiveness and crucial role, its energy consumption and impact on sustainability cannot be neglected anymore. As computing resources are necessary to run software, and as software runs more and more globally (e.g. in data centers and by cloud providers), time has come to engineer energy-aware software. This means educating current professionals and future generations with the appropriate skills and competencies. This paper describes the design of our program in “Software Engineering and Green IT” within our Computer Science curriculum and extending our Master Track in Software Engineering. We also introduce four types of modules that we defined to design our program, and for each type discuss the underlying rationale, learning objectives, risks and related mitigations, with the idea to offer them as building blocks for other educators.