Teaching computer science is a challenging experience. Especially, the advanced concepts in programming languages and software programming, considered as more difficult areas in the computing. Software projects help students to understand programming concepts in real experience. The Open Source concept allows many to contribute in one software code base with motivation to improve it further and further, which may also a good way of learning to program. There are lot initiatives for free and open software both from academia and industry. This paper tries to explain how students prefer to use Open Source Software as supportive tools for their programming projects. The paper also summarizes certain issues which obstruct the usage of Open Source Software (OSS) in university environment while indicating the importance of making OSS popular in the academia.
Open Source Software, Student Preferences, Software Engineering, Computer Science Education
