Background: Software projects are facing the need to adopt security practices during the software development life cycle (SDLC). Nevertheless, the amount of effort to be invested in order to achieve a certain level of software security is not clear yet. Aims: The goal of this study is to get an overview of the application of software security practices in the industry and to identify the impact of the introduction of such activities in software development projects in terms of effort/cost. Method: We conducted a survey on a software security group of a professional social network by applying a random sampling strategy to establish a representative set of participants. Results: The questionnaire was fully answered by 110 participants, from the 808 profiles that were invited from the sampling frame. The results show that security practices have been applied thoroughly in the projects and revealed high variability in secure software development effort across the participants' projects. Further research is needed to understand the different professionals' perspectives regarding security effort in projects. As lessons learned, we found that the professional social network offered a demographically diverse sampling frame, but this comes with hurdles that need to be overcome. Conclusions: The experiences of the participants showed that security is a factor that drives effort in software projects, and security practices need to be taken into account when planning software development initiatives. Our findings about the current state of practices and adoptions can help practitioners and researchers in future endeavors.

This paper presents the scenario of the Engineering courses of the Faculty UnB Gama (FGA) in relation to the number of male newcomers versus the number of female ones. It is possible to see, through analysis of the data collected, that the number of male students is much higher than that of female ones, from the creation of the campus in the second semester of 2008 until now. This occurs despite FGAs efforts in promoting the Engineering courses on campus using an experimental laboratory, through the Girls in Computing Program, supported by the National Council of Scientific and Technologic Development (CNPq), in partnership with the high schools of the region. Lectures are also conducted, focused on the female public, and looking do debunk the idea that Engineering is a typically male-oriented course, and trying to awaken the vocational interest of women towards Engineering. Through the surveys focused in the low rate of women in engineering courses, some things come up: (1) the lack of stimuli from family and friends when they intend to graduate in this field, and (2), in a way, the stigmatized role of women in Engineering.

As stated by the IEEE Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Software Engineering, elements outside the classroom such as field trips, visits to industry and technical presentations can affect student's preparation for professional practice. This work describes a framework of academy-industry collaboration where students develop practical and academic activities in a real world scenario. It is a methodological research, in which a case study was conducted with a Government Agency that has a close collaboration with a University. This joint project led to the proposition of new software processes for the organization and produced research and capstone project papers. Results demonstrate that students have acquired experience in solving real world problems in the industry; they received recognition in the academic community through the acceptance of papers in international conferences; and also, the projects executed with the students produced outcomes that brought benefits to the government agency, under study.