Perhaps online training will continue to survive the competition from traditional classrooms. What changes should online academic institutions make with regard to instruction in order to satisfy both students and industry? Noguera et al. report research results of using agile practices to equip online students with skills required in industry. Are industrial agile strategies useful and effective in regulating and managing teams in online cooperative project-based learning? The authors propose new strategies for learning in collaborative and project-based courses. The strategies for project implementation include: (a) tools for listing tasks and visualizing the workflow plans of projects, (b) tactics for coping with team responsibilities and commitment, and (c) active reviews and reflection on project work cycles to rectify poor communication.

An undergraduate project-based course was redesigned in consecutive semesters to evaluate the effectiveness of agile-based strategies in online education. Students were surveyed to ascertain satisfaction with the newly designed agile-based course and the usefulness of the agile methods. Teachers were interviewed to gain insights into the design and administration of agile-based courses. The results show that agile strategies are valuable for improving the skills of students in online project management and collaborative courses. However, the students failed to express significant satisfaction and learning impact with agile training.

Clearly, industry will continue to demand the knowledge of agile skills and practices from current and future information technology (IT) and computer science (CS) graduates. Industry practitioners should read the insightful ideas in this paper and recommend how to more effectively incorporate agile practices into CS, software engineering, IT, and data science curricula.