Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


Minnesota State U Tech Students To Use Alpha Software To Build Databases

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 09/10/08
The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Technology of Minnesota State University, Mankato has selected Alpha Software's Alpha Five Platinum as the standard programming tool for its engineering curriculum. Engineering students are now using Alpha Five to develop databases that support hardware design, system integration, project management, budget management, verification plans and reports, and engineering tools.

"The software development skills our students are learning with Alpha Five will be crucial to their future success as engineers," said Bill Hudson, chair of the electrical and computer engineering and technology department "We looked long and hard at several popular programming platforms, such as .NET, Java, PHP, and so on. But the learning curves were steep, and would have required an excessive amount of time teaching programming instead of engineering. With Alpha Five's agile development approach, our students need very little time to become productive. They can quickly focus on solving their specific problems with software solutions they can rapidly create."

The Department's curriculum balances theory and application to keep students and faculty up to date on industry trends and toolsets. This philosophy was one of the principal reasons the department standardized on Alpha Five.

"We have to prepare students for how software will be developed in the future, not how it was developed 10 or 20 or 30 years ago," Hudson said. "Alpha Five's contemporary methodology encourages agile development practices that get ideas into action quickly, and makes it easier to evolve applications as engineering requirements evolve. That's a competitive edge they'll be able to take advantage of for years to come."

Alpha Five Platinum is a development tool that allows users to visually build AJAX Web applications and integrate SQL databases through drag and drop.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • man viewing holographic display of data and code

    Why Cross-Skilling Is the Smartest Investment a Campus IT Team Can Make

    Higher education IT teams are being asked to keep pace with AI, cloud, and cybersecurity on flat budgets, and hiring a specialist for every new need can no longer keep up. Building adjacent skills across the people already on staff creates more agile, resilient teams that move faster and retain talent without adding headcount. Pluralsight makes the strategy work through skill assessments, tailored learning paths, hands-on labs and sandboxes, and microlearning that fits into the flow of work.

  • Glowing digital padlock breaking into tiny cubic fragments over complex circuit board background

    Report: Basic Security Failures Continue to Fuel Enterprise Breaches

    Despite years of investment in cybersecurity technologies, many enterprise breaches still begin with familiar weaknesses, according to a new report from SonicWall.

  • VSLive! session

    VSLive! San Diego 2026 Puts AI at the Core of the Campus IT Stack

    For higher education IT teams working through AI pilots, ERP integrations, student-facing apps, analytics projects, and mounting security concerns, Visual Studio Live! San Diego 2026 offers a look at the development practices that are shaping the campus technology landscape.

  • A glowing digital brain with neural connections and light trails

    AI Giants Warn It May Be Time to Slow Down

    For years, leaders in the artificial intelligence industry have warned that increasingly capable AI systems could eventually become dangerous, all the while continuing to race to build them. Now, their sentiments have changed.