202601-CMSC435-0101-SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (James Purtilo) - Instructor Report

202601-CMSC435-0101-SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (James Purtilo) - Instructor Report - Spring 2026

Project Title: University of Maryland Course Experiences Spring 2026

Number of Students Invited: 38
Number of Evaluations Submitted: 13
Response Rate: 34 %

Report Comments This report presents feedback received from students for the course SOFTWARE ENGINEERING and for the Instructor James Purtilo in that course. Course means are calculated from all responses by all students in the unit (i.e., course section/lecture) on that item and exclude N/A (not applicable) responses.

Indication is provided below for the Report Group if there is one affiliated with this course section, otherwise it is blank. The Report Group will be the lead section of a grouped course (i.e. multi-section lecture) and/or the primary of cross-listed courses. Subsections are found in the Instructor Subgroup Report.

Semester: Spring 2026
College: CMNS-College of Computer, Math & Natural Sciences
Department: CMNS-Computer Science
Course #: CMSC435
Section #: 0101
Course Title: SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
Report Group:

Instructor: James Purtilo

Download PDF

University-Wide Course Items Applied to All Section Instructors
N/A responses have been excluded from the following calculations.

Campus Wide Course Questions

1. The content covered in the course was directly related to the course goals and objectives.

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Total

Table for [QTitle]-1. The content covered in the course was directly related to the course goals and objectives..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	0	0%
Disagree	1	0	0%
Neutral	2	1	8%
Agree	3	1	8%
Strongly Agree	4	11	85%

Table for [QTitle]-1. The content covered in the course was directly related to the course goals and objectives.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	13
Mean	3.8
Standard Deviation	0.6

2. The assessments (e.g., tests, quizzes, papers) were directly related to what was covered/practiced in the course.

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Total

Table for [QTitle]-2. The assessments (e.g., tests, quizzes, papers) were directly related to what was covered/practiced in the course..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	1	8%
Disagree	1	0	0%
Neutral	2	1	8%
Agree	3	4	31%
Strongly Agree	4	7	54%

Table for [QTitle]-2. The assessments (e.g., tests, quizzes, papers) were directly related to what was covered/practiced in the course.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	13
Mean	3.2
Standard Deviation	1.2

3. The required texts (e.g., books, course packs, online resources) helped me learn course material.

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Total

Table for [QTitle]-3. The required texts (e.g., books, course packs, online resources) helped me learn course material..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	0	0%
Disagree	1	3	25%
Neutral	2	3	25%
Agree	3	4	33%
Strongly Agree	4	2	17%

Table for [QTitle]-3. The required texts (e.g., books, course packs, online resources) helped me learn course material.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	12
Mean	2.4
Standard Deviation	1.1

4. This course pushed and expanded my ability to think deeply about the subject.

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Total

Table for [QTitle]-4. This course pushed and expanded my ability to think deeply about the subject..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	0	0%
Disagree	1	0	0%
Neutral	2	0	0%
Agree	3	1	8%
Strongly Agree	4	12	92%

Table for [QTitle]-4. This course pushed and expanded my ability to think deeply about the subject.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	13
Mean	3.9
Standard Deviation	0.3

5. I believe the content of this course was a valuable part of my education.

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Total

Table for [QTitle]-5. I believe the content of this course was a valuable part of my education..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	0	0%
Disagree	1	0	0%
Neutral	2	1	8%
Agree	3	0	0%
Strongly Agree	4	12	92%

Table for [QTitle]-5. I believe the content of this course was a valuable part of my education.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	13
Mean	3.8
Standard Deviation	0.6

6. I believe I learned a lot from this course.

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Total

Table for [QTitle]-6. I believe I learned a lot from this course..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	0	0%
Disagree	1	0	0%
Neutral	2	1	8%
Agree	3	0	0%
Strongly Agree	4	12	92%

Table for [QTitle]-6. I believe I learned a lot from this course.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	13
Mean	3.8
Standard Deviation	0.6

On average, how many hours each week did you spend on this course (e.g., attending class, doing homework, studying, completing assignments)?

Less than 3 hours
3 up to 6 hours
6 up to 9 hours
9 up to 12 hours
12 up to 15 hours
15 hours or more

Total

Table for [QTitle]-On average, how many hours each week did you spend on this course (e.g., attending class, doing homework, studying, completing assignments)?.
Options	Count	Percentage
Less than 3 hours	0	0%
3 up to 6 hours	0	0%
6 up to 9 hours	1	8%
9 up to 12 hours	3	23%
12 up to 15 hours	3	23%
15 hours or more	6	46%

Table for [QTitle]-On average, how many hours each week did you spend on this course (e.g., attending class, doing homework, studying, completing assignments)?-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	13

How did this course fit into your academic plan and/or educational goals?

Table for [QTitle].
Options	Count	Percentage
Required for program/major/minor/certificate, or as a prerequisite	9	69%
Elective for program/major/minor/certificate	3	23%
To satisfy an undergraduate General Education requirement	0	0%
In preparation for research, employment, or future program/degree	7	54%
Personal interest in content	9	69%
Other/It doesn't	0	0%

The counts above are based on a total of 13 responses to the survey.

Comment Items Applied to All Section Instructors

What about the course and/or instruction most enhanced your learning?

Table for [QTitle].

Comment

–The "real–world" aspect of this course significantly improved my learning of the software development process. Had we reviewed the same concepts in a study/test format, I would have had trouble applying the knowledge and retaining it.
–Thank you for responding frequently and promptly to emails
–Focus on in–person interactions kept me more focused and aware of what was happening

The instructor himself enhanced my learning the most. You can very obviously tell that the professor cares a lot about his students and really hammered home how important our success was to him. This is really the first time in my entire career here at Maryland where I had a professor actually care about his students in this kind of way. It felt like we weren't just being forced to learn material but that Purtilo wanted us to really ingrain his knowledge and experience in ourselves and be able to apply what we are learning to our future jobs. The project was incredibly thought out and it was obvious that each one was built to give the students very specific lessons over the course of the semester. To sum things up this has undoubtedly been the best class I have taken at UMD and Im glad I will be able to carry these lessons forward into my career.

The only class where I feel like I learned something.

The whole course was very hands–on in nature, which facilitates much deeper learning in practice. The instructor's vast experiences provided valuable information to us, throughout lectures and correspondences. Rigorous structure for certain things like testing, delivery, etc., were valuable learning tools.

Professor availability was incredible, naturally never seen the same level of responsiveness and openness.

I do like a lot of the ambiguity in the course. While frustrating at first, I think its an early and effective tool to get those who don't really care or have the drive to take on this course (or those who give up easy) to get out early.

I did notice the projects seem somewhat unbalanced in terms of scale of project, but that isn't really a big deal given that the students taking the course had a wide variety of skill levels and/or experience. While I personally struggled with the research nature of our project, I do think its important to have those.

GitLab repos were greatly appreciated, as concurrent work on coding projects in svn would've proven to be very difficult in comparison. I do like the mentors site, but I think tickets should be editable WITHIN REASON. I understand why they aren't, but I think being allowed to edit tickets within a few days to a week of originally writing it would be good, because it can ensure tickets are accurate. So if there was some mistake of information, then a new ticket wouldn't be necessary to fix those things.

The professor was incredibly available, even on non–course subjects, to act as a mentor for life in general.

I think allowing people to figure out what they wanted in a team while in the scrimmage, then having them apply it with new people on the actual project is a great application of what you preach regarding teamwork.

I see why the CDR is as early as it is, and I agree that it is good to have that be relatively early, to give time for AT.

My interpretation of the computer science major is that the general track is SE. However, I do see the value in it, focusing more on process analysis rather than just coding. Through this course I now understand how much depth there is to this field with planning.

The project experience and being able to work on an intensive project in a group

Purtilo's very available and willing to help his students when they ask for it.
The day we went outdoors was nice and was a nice breath of fresh air from this class.

I appreciate professor Purtilo's approach to teaching, although he makes the course seem really scary, the way he teaches it making it interactive, asking student questions and building on their responses and outside class, his response to emails with questions are so quick and effective.

Literally everything except for the textbook. I personally just don't like reading, so barely read the topics that were covered. These topics however were present in the lectures, so I was still able to learn about software engineering.

If I had to attribute one thing to my enhanced learning I would say the challenge of ambiguity that Professor Purtilo offered. Every step there was no clear direction in the course, which was intentional and designed to help me learn how to solve things on my own and ask questions.

The actual capstone project was incredibly valuable in enhancing my learning. It allowed students to apply many of the principles covered in lecture. The involvement of a client introduced an external factor that simulated parts of software engineering. The actual checkpoints were also very help. I think the CDR and cover sheet were incredibly helpful in challenging students to think about problems in different ways. This project made the course incredibly unique and I wouldn't change anything about it.

The professor made every effort to ensure all resources we could possibly need were available. Even if there was something we needed that he didn't have immediately on hand, such as specialized workstations, high performance compute, or certain kinds of information, the professor made every effort to help us acquire what we needed.

Team formation worked well in my experience. My team worked well together and I felt like this was the best team I have worked on in my college experience. I believe that the professor's team formation method is overall successful and is the best option to deal with the challenge of group forming.

The professor's use of class time was also effective. The majority of the project work we do is outside of class time, so keeping classes to the point and advisory was the best way to support our efforts. I always found the lectures interesting and I wish that we had more time to hear more advice from the professor.

Being able to work on a difficult and open ended problem was the most valuable part of this course. My team also contributed a lot to that experience, and I am very happy with all my team members. I'm glad I was placed an a team with other motivated students and given a chance to take a leadership role within that team. What also greatly benefited the experience was always getting quick responses from Dr. Purtilo about questions or things we needed. It helped keep the momentum of the project high and made our team feel very supported as we worked on the project. I also appreciated there being very little extraneous assignments on top of the project, and the ones we did have were useful to learn from. The major assignments, like the proposal, CDR, and final delivery were well placed and created a good timeline for the project, with no dull or overly busy moments.

CMSC435 was a very valuable course for me because it gave me a real software engineering experience instead of only theoretical assignments. The biggest thing that enhanced my learning was working on a real project with a real client, real mentor feedback, changing requirements, team coordination, documentation, testing, and a final delivery. That made the course feel much closer to an actual professional software project.

Professor Purtilo’s lectures and guidance also helped a lot. I appreciated that he was available to meet, talk through project concerns, and give feedback when we needed direction. The course pushed me to think beyond just writing code and focus more on communication, planning, project ownership, client needs, reports, acceptance testing, and final delivery. The SVN, GitLab, repositories, and project resources were also useful because they gave the team a real development environment to work in.

What about the course and/or instruction can be improved the next time it is offered?

Table for [QTitle].

Comment

–notify students of the course's use of textbooks and accepted textbooks early on, so people can purchase them in time

I really don't know what could be improved as I felt everything worked perfectly. The one thing I would say is it would be nice to have another alumni day after the CDR. The alumni day was a huge help to my group atleast and speaking with very experienced professionals helped learn how we should act and that we should be looking forward to our future.

Engagement between teams would be more helpful, especially since we're all generally on the same page with regards to the course, with very different perspectives from individual projects. Decidio exercises weren't very useful for actual feedback, active participation in class (for like poster review) was much more helpful. Could be tuned to be made more accessible, but there's always a lot of noise in the Decidio exercises.
The community was very good, but we didn't really have structured time to meet in between teams, unless we already knew them or ran into them.

Project choices could be tuned more to cater to the criteria the capstone expo looks for more, if possible.
There would definitely be incredible value in a SE specialization for CS, especially because so many CS students are in the major for that purpose. I'm not quite sure how many of those would survive a course like this, but it would be incredibly helpful.
Scrimmages were useful, but perhaps scrimmage 3 could have been earlier with less weight to give a reality check without as much impact.

I think tickets should be editable WITHIN REASON. I understand why they aren't, but I think being allowed to edit tickets within a few days to a week of originally writing it would be good, because it can ensure tickets are accurate. So if there was some mistake of information, then a new ticket wouldn't be necessary to fix those things.
On the topic of tickets, I think you could have ticket writing be graded on a per–week basis like peer mentoring is. I personally found myself slacking on ticket writing, and this would've ensured that I remembered to write them.

Better timeline and grade weights to accurately reflect effort

Give us more time then 3 weeks to complete the CDR (THE ENTIRE PROJECT MORE OR LESS).
The "coding part" is 100% not the "easy part". That is a completely silly assertion that Purtilo gave multiple times throughout the semester and I 100% disagree with.
Coding was one of the hardest parts of the project and he kept on stockpiling more and more work throughout the semester in a completely unreasonable way for a 3 credit course. This class should be 8 credits.
I have never in my entire life had to write 60+ pages for an assignment in a course until now.
Why on earth are we using Purtilo's personal website he made when we can just as easily use ELMS like every other course? His website made things much harder because I now need to check his blog frequently in addition to ELMS for my other courses.
His communication is so bloated and you have to read 2 pages of writing for an assignment that could have been explained in 4 lines. The rest of the communication could be explained in class in words instead.
Lectures were useless. I learned nothing even though I attended every single one.
We were quizzed for 4% of our grade based on the most absurd questions that no one could possibly have been prepered for. Make the assignments easier and smaller and more understandable. MCQ questions where you can pick multiple options can be very confusing because the answers feel pretty arbirary (especially when each option has like 2 lines of text),
I don't dislike Purtilo himself, but this class SUCKED. He was pretty nice but I cannot fathom why on earth he decided to make this class so difficult. It made the experience much worse than it needed to be.

This might be a way to train students for the real world of software engineering, where the day actually ends at the of the business day, but I think better clarity about deadlines and due dates would be good for future students.

Provide lecture slides after lectures. I didn't specifically ask, but it could be helpful for review.

The scrimmage could be refined, not scrapped. I understand that it is a "jedi mind trick" and that's great, but I believe there was too much ambiguity in scrimmage 3. From the teams I've talked to, they all understood the project needed more clarity regarding the input and asked for it. However, the responses purposely hopped around the actual information that would've been relevant to succeeding in the project. I have a feeling no teams were expected to "succeed", but there should be an opportunity for those willing to ask the right questions.

The prereqs of the course are a little questionable, since I believe that a lot of the experience that would help a student is not taught in currently available courses. Since school does not offer any serious leadership or basic development practices courses, I think that having the current prerequisite courses is the least bad option.

Team cohesion is an important part of the course and pushed pretty heavily. Maybe doing some class social activities to help everyone connect and socialize would be helpful? At least at the beginning semester, organizing some way for people to talk more with each other casually would be nice although I still think the social environment was good regardless.

There is very little I would change about the structure of the class. I think the biggest determining factor of the experience of the class is having an engaged client and team the works well together, and I think Dr. Purtilo does a good job selecting teams and finding projects. Our project for this class had a research focus and was different from the other projects in the class. I think the structure is well suited for a research project (assuming the scale and skill required are correct), but the specific details of the major assignments are not as well adapted. We were given leniency in how we approached those assignments, but it may have helped us achieve a better outcome, or at least gotten some more focus, if they were a bit more strictly defined.

For example, while our team explored a lot of existing research papers while looking for solutions, I think a slightly more formal literature review process (perhaps as a section on the proposal) could have benefited our team by having us all build a stronger foundation of how our problem could be approached. There were certain techniques that we did not discover until at least halfway into the project that might have been found earlier if we spent more time exploring the landscape. I think it would have also greatly helped our progress to have a more structured testing methodology in place so that we could quantify our results. As opposed to acceptance testing, which is very specifically defined and only applied at the end of the project, it could have been helpful to be thinking about that during the proposal and in the early stages of the project.

One thing that could improve the course is having major checkpoints earlier. I think the CDR should happen the first class after spring break so teams have more time for implementation, testing, and acceptance testing before the final delivery. A slightly earlier push would help teams realize sooner whether they are actually on track.

Another area that could improve is team structure and accountability. The hardest part of the course for me was not being able to choose who I worked with and then feeling held back when the workload was not balanced. I think the course should have a better way to reward students who are carrying a large amount of the work and make sure they are not brought down by teammates who are not contributing at the same level. Peer reviews help, but there could be stronger checkpoints where individual contributions are evaluated earlier.

I also think the course could include more direct software engineering skill instruction earlier, especially Git, GitLab workflow, branching, merge requests, code review, testing, and basic project management. I had to teach some teammates how to use Git during the project, so having more structured practice with these tools early in the semester would make teams more effective.

University-Wide Instructor James Purtilo Items
N/A responses have been excluded from the following calculations.

Campus Wide Instructor Questions

1. The instructor provided constructive feedback on my work that helped me to learn.

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Total

Table for [QTitle]-1. The instructor provided constructive feedback on my work that helped me to learn..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	0	0%
Disagree	1	0	0%
Neutral	2	0	0%
Agree	3	2	15%
Strongly Agree	4	11	85%

Table for [QTitle]-1. The instructor provided constructive feedback on my work that helped me to learn.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	13
Mean	3.8
Standard Deviation	0.4

2. The instructor provided feedback in the course in time to apply it.

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Total

Table for [QTitle]-2. The instructor provided feedback in the course in time to apply it..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	0	0%
Disagree	1	0	0%
Neutral	2	0	0%
Agree	3	0	0%
Strongly Agree	4	13	100%

Table for [QTitle]-2. The instructor provided feedback in the course in time to apply it.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	13
Mean	4.0
Standard Deviation	0.0

3. The instructor clearly communicated grading criteria for my work throughout the course.

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Total

Table for [QTitle]-3. The instructor clearly communicated grading criteria for my work throughout the course..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	1	8%
Disagree	1	2	15%
Neutral	2	1	8%
Agree	3	4	31%
Strongly Agree	4	5	38%

Table for [QTitle]-3. The instructor clearly communicated grading criteria for my work throughout the course.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	13
Mean	2.8
Standard Deviation	1.4

4. The instructor clearly communicated the purpose, instructions, and deadlines for my graded work throughout the course.

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Total

Table for [QTitle]-4. The instructor clearly communicated the purpose, instructions, and deadlines for my graded work throughout the course..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	0	0%
Disagree	1	1	8%
Neutral	2	0	0%
Agree	3	3	23%
Strongly Agree	4	9	69%

Table for [QTitle]-4. The instructor clearly communicated the purpose, instructions, and deadlines for my graded work throughout the course.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	13
Mean	3.5
Standard Deviation	0.9

5. The instructor helped me understand new content by connecting it to things I already knew.

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Total

Table for [QTitle]-5. The instructor helped me understand new content by connecting it to things I already knew..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	0	0%
Disagree	1	1	8%
Neutral	2	0	0%
Agree	3	0	0%
Strongly Agree	4	12	92%

Table for [QTitle]-5. The instructor helped me understand new content by connecting it to things I already knew.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	13
Mean	3.8
Standard Deviation	0.8

6. The instructor created an inclusive environment where everyone belonged.

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Total

Table for [QTitle]-6. The instructor created an inclusive environment where everyone belonged..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	1	8%
Disagree	1	0	0%
Neutral	2	1	8%
Agree	3	1	8%
Strongly Agree	4	10	77%

Table for [QTitle]-6. The instructor created an inclusive environment where everyone belonged.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	13
Mean	3.5
Standard Deviation	1.2

7. The instructor demonstrated confidence in everyone's potential to succeed in the course.

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Total

Table for [QTitle]-7. The instructor demonstrated confidence in everyone's potential to succeed in the course..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	1	8%
Disagree	1	0	0%
Neutral	2	0	0%
Agree	3	0	0%
Strongly Agree	4	12	92%

Table for [QTitle]-7. The instructor demonstrated confidence in everyone's potential to succeed in the course.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	13
Mean	3.7
Standard Deviation	1.1

8. I felt like the instructor cared about my learning in the course.

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Total

Table for [QTitle]-8. I felt like the instructor cared about my learning in the course..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	0	0%
Disagree	1	0	0%
Neutral	2	0	0%
Agree	3	0	0%
Strongly Agree	4	13	100%

Table for [QTitle]-8. I felt like the instructor cared about my learning in the course.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	13
Mean	4.0
Standard Deviation	0.0

Campus Wide Instructor Questions (continued)

9. I would recommend this instructor to other students for this course.

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Total

Table for [QTitle]-9. I would recommend this instructor to other students for this course..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	1	8%
Disagree	1	0	0%
Neutral	2	0	0%
Agree	3	0	0%
Strongly Agree	4	12	92%

Table for [QTitle]-9. I would recommend this instructor to other students for this course.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	13
Mean	3.7
Standard Deviation	1.1

End of Report