A spiral software engineering model to inspire innovation and creativity of university students

Abstract

University students have tremendous energy that could be utilized to support their universities' visions and their societies. However, students face several problems to convert their innovative ideas into actionable projects. The problems are related to their personalities, monetary support, environment, and lack of mentoring. An innovative idea goes several steps to crystallize, develop, and then be evaluated to gain success. However, the innovation process is agile, unstable, and subject to the risk of failure. The spiral software engineering model is a development model for risky agile projects. Therefore, this paper proposes an iSpiral (innovative Sprial) model based on the original spiral software model. The iSpiral model starts with student ideas and ends with creative operational projects. The proposed model helps to mentor students' initiatives qualitatively over time. Compared with related innovative models over eight criteria extracted from the literature, the proposed model was found actionable and easy to use. The proposed iSpiral model was applied to a series of interrelated student ideas, switched unmanaged and risky initiatives into active-inspired projects.