Vital Statistics

Lectures: By appointment, 1 hour per week minimum
Office: ICICS/CS 305
Office Hours: By appointment
Email: murphy@csDELETEthisTEXT.ubc.ca

Overview

Software systems are amongst the most complex artifacts that humans build. These artifacts are not static: they must operate correctly within a fluctuating environment and they must continuously be evolved to meet the changing needs of users, the environments and other factors.

This course will review state-of-the-art techniques and tools introduced to manage the complexity of software development. Topics covered will include requirements engineering, software design, software architecture, software visualization, reverse engineering, and the methodology used in validating software engineering results.

This course will focus on software engineering literature, involving both review and synthesis.

Prerequisites

An undergraduate software engineering course and experience developing software as part of a team (CPSC 310 and CPSC 319 or equivalents) Familiarity with issues in programming languages, object-oriented languages, and object-oriented design

Required Work

• Readings, including written critical evaluations of six papers over the course of the term.
• Participation in discussions of the papers covered
• An in-depth literature survey in an area to be chosen in consultation with the instructor
• A proposal for research in an area of software engineering chosen in consultation with the instructor
• A critical review of a software engineering research proposal

Grading

• Critical Paper Evaluations 20%
• Literature Review 30%
• Research Proposal 20%
• Review of Research Proposal 15%
• Participation in Paper Discussions 15%

Intangibles may be considered in assigning grades.

Readings

This course will cover articles from the literature.

Paper Evaluations

The readings are an important part of this course. You are expected to read all papers. For six of the papers, you must submit written evaluation that critiques the structure and content of the paper. Refer to the provided guidelines on how to read the papers. Papers suitable for critique are identified in the paper schedule. These critiques are due prior to the meeting at which the paper will be discussed. Each critique should answer the following questions:

• What is the motivation for the work (both development problem and technical problem)?
• What is the proposed solution (hypothesis, idea, design)?
• What evaluation of the proposed solution is presented? Did this evaluation convince you of the merit of the proposed solution?
• What are the paper's contributions (both the author's opinion and your own)?
• What are the future directions for this research (both the author's opinion and your own)?
• What do you have questions about or don't you understand about the paper?

In-depth Literature Survey

A critical research skill is the ability to read, digest and synthesize a set of papers in a particular research area. As part of this course, you will gain experience in performing an in-depth literature survey by choosing (in consultation with the instructor) a research area within software engineering, identify eight to ten papers in the area, read the papers and write an up to eight page survey that synthesizes the papers and identifies potential research areas. This literature review is due March 7, 2008.

Research Proposal

A second critical research skill is the ability to identify a problem that is not solved, to determine a potential means of solving the problem and a means for evaluating the solution. As part of this course, you will gain experience in writing a research proposal. In consultation with the instructor, you will produce an up to five page research proposal. This research proposal is due March 28, 2008.

Research communities typically rely on qualified peer review of proposals and results. To provide you experience in this area, you will be given a research proposal for which you will write a one-page critique. This critique will be due April 4, 2008.

You will then have a chance to revise your research proposal based on the comments and feedback with a final research proposal due April 11, 2008.

Paper Discussion

A meeting will be held once per week to discuss the scheduled papers. You are expected to fully participate in these discussions.

-- Main.murphy - 16 Jan 2008