Systematic teaching of UML and behavioral diagrams

TL;DR

This paper presents a systematic approach to teaching UML and behavioral diagrams, emphasizing exercises and evaluation methods for hand-drawn diagrams without relying on parsers.

Contribution

It introduces a structured teaching methodology with exercises and evaluation techniques for UML diagrams, including unconventional image-based questions.

Findings

Well-formed activity diagrams improve understanding

Exercises are effective for digital and handwritten assessments

Evaluation methods do not depend on model parsers

Abstract

When studying software engineering, learning to create UML diagrams is crucial. Similar to how an architect would never build a house without a building plan, designing software architectures is important for developing high-quality software. UML diagrams are a standardized notation for the visualization of software architectures and software behavior. The research question that inspired this work was how to effectively evaluate hand-drawn diagrams without relying on model parsers. The findings of this investigation are presented in this paper. This article discusses the systematic acquisition of skills required for creating UML diagrams. Especially well-formed activity diagrams are one highlight. Additionally, the paper provides a variety of exercises. The exercises use recommended question types. The more unusual question types are related to images, such as questions about image annotation, finding hotspots on an image and positioning a target on an image. All the demonstrated exercises are suitable for both digital and handwritten training or exams.