Using OpenSky Data for Teaching Software Engineering to Undergraduates

Abstract

In the past year, the author has been using the OpenSky ressources for teaching purposes in the context of Software-Engineering courses for undergraduates at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences (Germany). Challenges in using the OpenSky-Online-API during hands-on sessions with groups of students could be found in the following areas: restrictions on the update frequency for data-retrieval calls when using the same IP address from the university network; necessity to create logins for accessing data for a specific timestamp; and a lack of student understanding of basic flight-data terminology, including geographic location. The OpenSky-Network data was used to teach Software-Engineering topics with the focus on professional software tests including UI-Testing with an OpenLayer visualization, testing of network connectivity using a circuit breaker, and the usage of mocks and stubs to obtain independent integration tests. To overcome the technological limitations of the data retrieval, a simple flight-data proxy was implemented to be used instead of the actual OpenSky website. This paper gives some insights into the specific testing topics covered by the course and the usage of OpenSky flight data. Some future improvements are suggested so that undergraduate students can further get to know the interesting field of flight-data processing while learning essential techniques for professional software testing.

Keywords

• OpenSky
• teaching computer science (software engineering)
• proxy for aircraft-position data
• testing techniques
• OpenLayers