The required work in this class consists
of
- Reading assignments
- Reports on these readings
- Development of web pages capturing an
industrial view of these readings
- A final
project
- Participation in email discussions (OK,
this isn't required, but it is recommended)
1. Papers will be distributed in
class on a weekly or bi-weekly basis
Please write a check for
$25 to the University of Washington to covering copying costs; for those of you who are
off-site, please gather the checks together at the second lecture and mail them to me via
U.S. postal mail.
2 & 3. Responsibilities for
reports and distilled web pages will fall into two categories
- For each of the first four technical
topics, two
students will be in charge of producing the web page(s) for that topic. These
eight students are required to write reports on the readings for three of the five topics
(not including the one for which they are producing the web page).
- The other students in the class are
required to write reports on the readings for four of the five topics.
- No, there won't be a web page for the last
(single lecture) topic, quality assurance, largely because of the time pressures.
- During the first week of the quarter, I
will accept (email) offers from students to (co-)produce the pages for each topic; if I
don't get people for each topic, I will assign people to these positions
- The reports are due on the following dates
for each topic
- Design (October 16)
- Evolution (November 2)
- Requirements and specification (November
16)
- Analyses and tools (November 30)
- Each report, done individually by students
(although discussion of the material is aggressively encouraged), should be (very roughly)
three pages long, preferably in the form of a web page (it needn't be fancy) and
definitely in softcopy (so they can be easily accessed by the producers of the overall web
pages
- The reports should generally cover the
assigned readings, providing a brief overview of the key material in the readings along
with a thoughtful and as concrete as possible discussion of the issues involved with
applying the ideas, techniques, tools, methods, etc. to industrial practice
- Each report will represent 20% of the grade
in the course
- The final overall web pages are all due on
December 11. However, you must do drafts earlier and make them accessible to us and
the other students for comments. Specifically, you are required to have the basic
structure of the page, along with some initial content, ready by Friday, November 6 (even
for topics that have not yet been covered); this will allow us to make comments and
mid-course corrections, if any are needed. This November 6th draft should include a
first cut of points a-d under the next bullet.
- The overall web pages should include at
least the following information
- Citations to the readings for the topic
- Links to related material on the web
- Lists of related papers, books, etc.
- Open questions about the topic that might
be suitable for further research
- An assessment of each paper that is based
on the reports from the class; again, this should represent a thoughtful and as concrete
as possible discussion of the issues involved with applying the ideas, techniques, tools,
methods, etc. to industrial practice. Do not just combine the material from the
reports, but make sure to organize it in a way that makes a set of key points as clear as
possible.
- Each overall web page will represent 20% of
the grade in the course (and the grade will almost certainly be identical for both of the
co-producers)
4. Every student is required to do a
final project
- Projects may be done singly or in
pairs
- The details of the project must be
negotiated with the instructor, but a lot of leeway is permitted
- Possible projects include:
applying research tools to non-research problems (for instance, part of a code base that
you deal with at work); an in-depth report on an area in software engineering that we
didn't cover; a careful study of a book on software engineering (or on one that may shed
light on software engineering), etc.
- The form of the report may vary,
but in general should take the form of a web page accessible to the rest of the class
- The details must be negotiated
with me no later than October 30, 1998
- Projects are due on December 11, 1998
- The project represents 20% of the grade in
the course (and the grade will almost certainly be identical for projects done in pairs)
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