CSci 780: Advanced Software Engineering

Syllabus

Where and When

• Class: 12:30-1:50 TT, Tucker 114
• Office hours: 1:00-2:30 MW, and by appointment. 104A McGloughlin-Street Hall

Instructor

• Instructor: David Coppit (http://www.cs.wm.edu/~coppit/, coppit@cs.wm.edu). Research: software plans, sofware testing, software development methods, applied formal methods.
• Teaching Assistant: Robert Painter (http://www.cs.wm.edu/~rrpain/, rrpain@cs.wm.edu).

Web Page

• Course homepage: http://www.cs.wm.edu/~coppit/csci780-fall2006/. Contains the definitive versions of assignments and such.

Description

From the catalog: "Research seminar on current topics in software engineering, with an emphasis on software design. Students read and present technical papers from relevant journals and conference proceedings. Synthesis and understanding of materials is demonstrated by a required research project."

Prerequisites

• Graduate students only.
• I assume that you've taken an undergraduate software engineering course. It is not a significant handicap if you have not.

Course Structure

Class will meet twice a week. Some course material will be presented by the instructor, but the bulk of it will be presented by the students. Each class will consist of a lecture on the day's book or paper, followed by a directed discussion on the material. Students will also receive feedback on their teaching from the instructor and their classmates. Students must turn in a summary of every paper on the day that the paper is presented. Students will be expected to work in pairs on a project in one of the areas we will cover. This project will be "significant" in that it must have some nugget of research, but "small" in that it can be done in 2 months. The project will be conducted as a mini research endeavor:

• Prepare an NSF-like proposal (using LaTeX)
• Perform the work, providing status updates
• Write a research paper on the work (using LaTeX)
• Review each other's papers
• Present the work to peers

Grading

Point Distribution

• Class participation: 10%. If you do not participate in class discussions, I will assume you did not read the paper.
• Paper summaries: 5%
• Paper presentations: 20%
• Homework: 30%
• Project research paper: 20%
• Project presentation: 15%

Letter Grade

• 90% ≤ grade < +∞ → A
• 80% ≤ grade < 90% → B
• 70% ≤ grade < 80% → C
• etc.

... but the professor makes the final call on all grades.

Late Work Policy

20% of the points are lost per day (or portion thereof) that an assignment is late. Example: Due Monday at 5pm, and you turn it in 6pm Tuesday: -40%

Students Who Need Accommodation

Please see me after class or send email to set up a brief meeting.