Forum for Advancing Software engineering Education (FASE) Volume 11 Number 04 (135th Issue) - April 15, 2001 Note: If you have problems with the format of this document, try ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Table of Contents Call for Articles, Topics and Guest Editors May Issue Distribution Date Next Issue's Topic: Teaching a Software Engineering Project Course Upcoming Topics Software Engineering as a Profession in the United Kingdom Articles Working Group on SE Education & Training - February 2001 Minutes compiled by Nancy R. Mead So Let's Make That Software Project Course "Real-World"? by Thomas B. Hilburn News Items Message Traffic Increases at NSPE Forum on SE Licensing Calls for Participation ICSE Workshop on Global Aspects of SE Professionalism - NOTE APRIL 21 DEADLINE Contact and General Information about FASE ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From: The FASE Staff Call for Articles, Topics and Guest Editors The FASE staff is always interested in articles or topic suggestions in the areas of software engineering education, training and professional issues. You may suggest yourself as a guest editor for a particular topic. Send articles or topic suggestions to one of the editors, preferably by category: Articles pertinent to academic education to Tom Hilburn ; corporate and government training to David Carter ; professional issues and all other categories to Don Bagert . FASE submission format guidelines: All submissions must be in ASCII format, and contain no more than 70 characters per line (71 including the new line character). This 70-character/line format must be viewable in a text editor such as Microsoft Notepad WITHOUT using a "word wrap" facility. All characters (outside of the newline) should in the ASCII code range from 32 to 126 (i.e. "printable" in DOS text mode). ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From: Don Bagert May Issue Distribution Date Due to my travel plans to International Conference on Software Engineering, the May issue of FASE will be emailed to the distribution list on May 14. The deadlines for submissions will remain the same (see http://www.cs.ttu.edu/fase/#submissions or "Contact and General Information about FASE" at the end of this issue). ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Next Issue's Topic: Teaching a Software Engineering Project Course Guest Editor: Stan Jarzabek National University of Singapore stan@comp.nus.edu.sg Call for Contributions (Deadline: 1 May 2001) In recent years, project courses have become common at universities world-wide, in addition to industrial attachments. The objective of this special issue is to share experiences with teaching a project course, in areas such as: - skills training, - approaches to teaching a project course, - what works and what does not work, - problems in teaching a project course and solutions (e.g., high workload, lack of skilled supervisors, etc.) - the impact of the project course on the market value of graduates. We seek contributions from colleagues involved in teaching project courses. Send 1/2 - 2 pages describing your approach and experiences. We suggest that you take a look at the August 1999 issue of FASE (http://www.cs.ttu.edu/fase/v9n08.txt) that also dealt with project courses. We are looking for new approaches or new variations on old approaches. PLEASE SEND YOUR SUBMISSIONS TO: Stan Jarzabek Department of Computer Science, School of Computing National University of Singapore Singapore 117543 e-mail: stan@comp.nus.edu.sg WWW: http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~stan/ fax: 65-779-4580; tel: 65-874-2863 SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: On the front page, please write the following summary (If you do not have time to write a short paper, submit only the summary): Author: Institution: The type of your project course: 1. Industry involvement: yes no 2. Projects proposed and supervised by faculty members in areas of their expertise. 3. Project(s) formulated and conducted by a small number of faculty members specializing in Software Engineering, with faculty members and teaching assistants supervising student teams. 4. Other: please describe The project course is taught at: 1. undergraduate level 2. graduate level The objectives of your project course (add to or delete from the list below): 1. degree accreditation concerns 2. professional licensing concerns 3. better prepare students for industrial projects, 4. develop ability to work in a team, 5. enhance communication skills and writing skills, 6. enhance project planning skills, 7. other objectives - please describe. Your project course is offered in the: 1. general Computer Science degree 2. Software Engineering degree 3. other - please indicate. Indicate project workload: 1. project is a part of a general Software Engineering course 2. full-fledged project course with workload equivalent to: for example, a typical 1 term course (13 weeks, 3 lectures per week) Rate the impact of the project course on the market value of your graduates: 1 - low 5 - very high Submissions should be sent by e-mail in PDF or ASCII by 1 May 2001 to: stan@comp.nus.edu.sg ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Upcoming Topics ###################################################################### Software Engineering as a Profession in the United Kingdom Guest Editors for this Upcoming Topic: Barrie Thompson and Helen Edwards University of Sunderland barrie.thompson@sunderland.ac.uk, helen.edwards@sunderland.ac.uk For more information on this topic, please contact the guest editors. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Articles ###################################################################### Minutes from the Working Group on Software Engineering Education and Training Omni Hotel, Charlotte, NC February 17-18, 2001 Compiled by Nancy R. Mead Software Engineering Institute nrm@sei.cmu.edu Agenda Panel: Software Engineering Education outside the U.S. (Jocelyn Armarego, Murdoch University; Jurgen Borstler, University of Umea; Rick Duley, Edith Cowan University; Ana Moreno, Polytechnic University of Madrid) Reports from the Industry/University Collaboration Subgroup and the Software Engineering Education Curriculum Subgroup, and other reports of interest to the group Attendees: Jocelyn Armarego, Murdoch University, Jocelyn@eng.murdoch.edu.au Jurgen Borstler, University of Umea, Jubo@cs.umu.se Joe Clifton, University of Wisconsin, Plattsville, Clifton@am.uwplatt.edu Jorge Diaz, Southern Polytechnic State University, jdiaz@spsu.edu Rick Duley, Edith Cowan University, r.duley@ecu.edu.au Robert Dupuis, University of Quebec at Montreal, dupuis.robert@uqam.ca Heidi Ellis, Rensselaer at Hartford, heidic@rh.edu Tom Hilburn, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, hilburn@db.erau.edu Iraj Hirmanpour, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Iraj@db.erau.edu Greg Hislop, Drexel University, hislopg@post.drexel.edu Tom Horton, University of Virginia, Horton@cs.virginia.edu Pete Knoke, University of Alaska Fairbanks, ffpjk@aurora.alaska.edu Mike Lutz, Rochester Institute of Technology, mikelutz@mail.isc.rit.edu Paul MacNeil, Mercer University School of Engineering, Macneil_pe@Mercer.edu Jim McDonald, Monmouth University, Jamesmc@monmouth.edu Nancy Mead, Software Engineering Institute, nrm@sei.cmu.edu Susan Mengel, Texas Tech University, mengel@ttu.edu Ana Moreno, Polytechnic University of Madrid, Amoreno@asterix.fi.upm.es Fernando Naveda, Rochester Institute of Technology, jfn@cs.rit.edu Dawn Ramsey, Southern Polytechnic State University, dramsey@spsu.edu Michael Ryan, Dublin City University, Michael.Ryan@aep.ie Mark Sebern, Milwaukee School of Engineering, Sebern@msoe.edu Cindy Tanner, West Virginia University, Tanner@csee.wvu.edu From the Full Working Group Meeting Nancy Mead stepped down as chair of the WGSEET, to be replaced by Jorge Diaz-Herrera as chair and Tom Hilburn as vice chair. The next meeting will be held in conjunction with FIE in October at Reno, NV. Details will be forthcoming from the new chairs. From the Industry/University Collaboration Subgroup Heidi Ellis revised the short survey to more clearly define the types of collaborative efforts that we are trying to investigate; Mead resubmitted it to FASE. Mead also sent the survey to several people that she knew which resulted in contact with Ana Moreno. In late November/early December we brought Paul MacNeil and Ana Moreno on board. We had a conference call Jan. 11, 2001, to discuss our in-depth questionnaire and to get details on successful U/I collaborations. In attendance were Mead, Dawn Ramsey, MacNeil, and Ellis. At the beginning of the meeting, we discussed sending the interviewees the interview questions before setting up the actual interview as this would allow the interviewees to answer simple questions at their leisure and allow the phone interview to focus on the open-ended questions. Three collaborative efforts were identified and interviewers were selected for the efforts as follows: INTERVIEWER COLLABORATION MEMBER Nancy Mead Ana Moreno, Universidad Politecnica Paul MacNeil Christiane Differding, Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering Heidi Ellis Michael Saboe, U.S. Army Next Generation Software Engineering Technology Area We decided that we would get the interview results by the beginning of February. We will then evaluate the results in Charlotte before CSEET. Mead indicated that if the "quick" answers in the survey had been filled out by the interviewee in advance, the phone interview might take approximately an hour. Mead also indicated that getting a colleague to take part to take notes and perhaps ask a question or two might also be helpful. In early January, Ramsey submitted the in-depth questionnaire to the U/I group members for review. We suggested revisions and the finalized questionnaire was completed in mid-January. Interviews were held in late January and early February. So far, we have results from Moreno and Steve Seidman (Colorado State University). Attempted contacts with Christiane Differding and Michael Saboe have not yet come to fruition. Also pending are interviews with Ramsey's Lockheed-Martin Associates collaboration. Other suggestions included obtaining a list of all graduate and undergraduate programs in software engineering and emailing the initial survey to the contact people; publishing the initial findings in either the Cutter IT Journal or Crosstalk; tracking the answers over time to note changes and trends, specifically the lessons learned and benefits; and comparing content among the collaborations. We also added Clay Mims and James Burges of the Air Force, and Seidman to our group in January. From the Software Engineering Curriculum Subgroup Mike Lutz made a report on the SWENET (the Network Community for Software Engineering Education) project. The project has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for $500,000. Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is the lead institution and will subcontract a planning session for the project after the WG meetings. Tom Horton reported on the PSEEC (Prototyping a Software Engineering Educational Community) project, which is also NSF funded. Although the scope and content of PSEEC is different from SWENET, they have similar purposes (development and dissemination of SE education materials). Long term, it is hoped that these projects can form the basis for a more ambitious program for supporting SE education. Tom Hilburn discussed the "Ironman" version of CC2001 and the work of the SE knowledge focus group. The subgroup expressed strong interest in being involved in the development of the CC2001, Volume IV, on Software Engineering. The IEEE-CS/ACM committee SWEEP (Software Engineering Education Project) has been designated as the lead for Volume IV. There was an extensive discussion about the needs, nature, and content of the first-year SE curriculum. The following were some stated objectives for a first year program: appreciate SE; understand main SE issues; understand the "essence" of SE; learn programming fundamentals; learn to program in a high-level language; be introduced to engineering as a profession, understand the meaning of professional responsibility and the importance of SE to society; understand and appreciate the essence of SE; and have some fun. Discussion of specific content for the first year included the following: * a small team project with a simple design and familiar domain in which students would create/construct something, inspect other students' work, and get a feeling of success and accomplishment * a first-year design module that would expose students to a design model/methodology, would focus on design principles such as modularity, information handling, and coupling/cohesion, would include basic notations such as use cases and class diagrams, would provide criteria for judging good and bad designs, and would involve implementation of design in a programming language * communication and teamwork, including oral and written communication activities, small team activities, and user/client communication activities * the software process, which would introduce students to the use of a defined and measured process that could be used to measure, verify, and validate the quality of a product ###################################################################### So Let's Make That Software Project Course "Real-World"? Thomas B. Hilburn FASE Academic Editor Software project courses are becoming a staple in most computer science programs. There seems to be increasing interest in these courses and lots of debate about what they should and should not contain. In the latest draft of CC2001 (Volume II - CS Curriculum - Iron Man Version - http://www.computer.org/education/cc2001/ironman/cc2001/index.html) the following statements related to a project course are included: To ensure that students have the opportunity to acquire these skills as undergraduates, the CC2001 Task Force recommends that all computer science programs include the following: - Opportunities to work in teams beginning relatively early in the curriculum. - A significant project that involves a complex implementation task in which both the design and implementation are undertaken by a small student team. This project is often scheduled for the last year of undergraduate study, where it can serve as a capstone for the undergraduate experience. One of the most hotly debated issues is to what degree a project course should incorporate real world experiences. On one side you have the hard-line real-world types that advocate real projects, real customers, and real problems. That is - vague and unstable requirements, introduction of new technology without adequate training, and unrealistic (or unmanageable) schedule constraints. On the other side you have the soft ivory-tower types that promote project development in an idealistic world that is free from external problems that are not under the control of the project team. That is - toy projects, stable requirements, familiar development environment, schedules with built in slack time, and no users/customers. Of course, there are all kinds project courses that fit in between these two extremes. But, one of the key problems in designing and developing a software engineering course (or a curriculum) is determining the proper balance between exposing students to real world problems, and providing an environment that lets students learn and experience best practices and feel successful in their project work. In the March 2001 issue of Software Engineering Notes (Vol 26, No 2) there is a paper by Lawrence Berstein and David Klappholz, titled "Teaching Old Software Dogs, Old Tricks", that discusses a rather painless and efficient way to introduce real world experiences into a senior project course (They also had an article in the March issue of FASE). They describe the use of an innovative six-week process called "live-through case histories", in which student teams use a case study to guide them through experiences that involve a number of realistic team project problems (customer/user relations, life-cycle documentation, and risk planning). The process includes exercises and related activities that seem to provide students with good simulated real-world experiences and to be just the sort of preparation needed before starting an actual software project. Also, if you have some experience in this area you may want to respond to the call for contributions on next issue's topic: TEACHING A SOFTWARE ENGINEERING PROJECT COURSE. (See description elsewhere in this issue) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ News Items ###################################################################### Message Traffic Increases at NSPE Forum on SE Licensing As previously reported, the USA-based National Society of Professional Engineers last year started several discussion forums on its web site, including a thread on the licensing of software engineers ("NSPE Forum Topics on Software Engineering", August 2000 FASE.) Between the initial posting on 11 August 2000 and 22 September of that year, there were eight messages sent concerning the debate on SE licensing. However, between 23 March and 2 April of this year, 18 more messages were posted, spurred initially by an email by licensed Professional Engineer (PE) Adam Norwood entitled "Let's get down to essentials". In this message Norwood, states: "Programmers are programmers. What is all this talk about PE licensing of programmers? If an engineer decides to use a program (even a hand-held calculator for that matter), then the validity of that program is his responsibility..." In a message entitled "Response to Mr. Norwood", FASE Professional Issues editor Don Bagert explained his views concerning software engineering as a discipline, and on the complexity of software: "Sir, no one is talking about the licensing of programmers as PEs. There is a wide difference between those who practice programming and those who practice software engineering...Software [can] consist of millions of lines of source code (including that for the space shuttle) and the development of such software is as complex as that of any other engineered product..." Included in Norwood's response to Bagert: "..'software engineer' is a misnomer that seems to confuse many. There are engineers. There are programmers. Some engineers choose to do their own programming, others choose to direct subordinate programmers, and others buy programs off the shelf. The Engineer is still responsible for his designs and constructions, even if he designs/allows computing devices to do his calculations for him. A computing device is just a tool...An engineer may choose to use a computing device to do his calculations for him; or he may choose to do the calculations with pencil and paper...So my conclusion is that there is no such thing as a "software Engineer" and thus no licensing is necessary..." The discussion at this point was joined by a number of other people. For instance, Andy Winter addressed the licensing issue: "Years ago as people were dying because of the mistakes that 'professionals' like doctors, lawyers, and engineers [made...eventually] someone had the bright idea of licensing professionals to insure they had the competency required of their profession. Today people are dying because of mistakes being made in software...Therefore, why should we be exempt from the licensing and competency testing that other professionals have to do..." Frank Roth adds: "As a PE (Electrical) of over 10 years standing, and having an extensive experience with software development, I have developed a very strong opinion as to the need for a PE certification for software engineers. As software determines more of our lives, and our safety, from running the Air Traffic of our nation, to running the car that you drive...the projects are becoming more complex and the safety of the public is becoming more dependent on the products of this discipline. The sheer magnitude of some of the development efforts approach those of the engineering legends of the past (Panama Canal, Hoover Dam, etc)..." To look at the above messages in their entirety, and well as the rest of the 26 postings in the discussion thread on SE licensing, go to http://www.nspe.org/discuss.asp, click on the link labeled "Engineering in Industry Issues", and then click on the link entitled "Competent & Ethical Software Engineers" and "Debate on Licensing of Software Engineers". ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Calls for Participation ###################################################################### From: Barrie Thompson ICSE Workshop on Global Aspects of SE Professionalism - NOTE APRIL 21 DEADLINE We want your views on Software Engineering Professionalism! Until recently it appeared that substantial progress was being made towards establishing Software Engineering as a profession. In particular The IEEE-CS/ACM Software Engineering Coordinating Committee (SWECC) was actively coordinating, sponsoring and fostering all the various activities regarding SE within the IEEE-CS and ACM's sphere of operation such as: standards of practice and ethics, a body of knowledge, curriculum guidelines. Then, in the summer of 2000 ACM decided to withdraw from SWECC and, with this, much of the progress that had been made was thrown into question. However, not all is lost - there are ways forward including consideration of other initiatives that could be very relevant on a Global Level. Thus a workshop entitled " Workshop to Consider Global Aspects of Software Engineering Professionalism" is to be held on Monday 14th May 2001 during the 23rd International Conference on Software Engineering, Westin Harbour Castle Hotel, Toronto, Canada, May 12th-19th 2001. Full details of which can be found on: http://www.cet.sunderland.ac.uk/seis/icse2001workshop/ Position papers are still needed for this workshop, in particular relating to situations in the following geographic areas: Africa Arab States Australasia Eastern Europe Indian Subcontinent Mainland China Pacific Rim countries such as Japan (but excluding those in North America) South America Western Europe (but excluding the UK) Position papers should address one or more of the following areas: 1. Current situations regarding the licensing/certification of Software Engineering and IS/IT professionals in different countries (analogous to the Texas Licensing situation in the USA, or Chartered Engineering status in the UK). 2. What are the likely drivers and constraints regarding Software Engineering Professionalism within particular countries and/or globally. 3. The extent to which world-wide SE Professionalism is achievable and possible strategy(ies) that would assist in achieving such world-wide SE Professionalism. With regard to the latter we would particularly appreciate papers that address the applicability of IFIP's proposals regarding harmonisation to the development of a world-wide software engineering profession (as detailed on the web site referenced above). Position papers of a maximum length of 2 pages (formatted to IEEE-CS standards as detailed in sections 1-12 of the document IEEE-CSinstruct) should be submitted as soon as possible and no later than April 21st 2001: to J. Barrie Thompson (barrie.thompson@sunderland.ac.uk) with a copy to Helen M Edwards (helen.edwards@sunderland.ac.uk ). Note it is also likely that the author's of selected position papers will be asked to develop them into papers for a special issue of an international journal. For additional information about ICSE 2001 conference please see: http://www.www.csr.uvic.ca/icse2001/ This ICSE workshop is intended to complement a workshop that was held during the 14th IEEE Conference on Software Engineering Education & Training, February 19-21 2001, Charlotte, NC, USA. Relevant documents on web site are: ICSEworkshopW11details ICSEworkshopW11additionalinformation IFIP Harmonisation of Professional Standards IEEE-CSinstruct ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Contact and General Information about FASE FASE is published on the 15th of each month by the FASE staff. Send newsletter articles to one of the editors, preferably by category: Articles pertinent to academic education to Tom Hilburn ; corporate and government training to David Carter ; professional issues and all other categories to Don Bagert . If the article is for a FASE topic where there is a guest editor, the submission should instead be to that person. Items must be submitted by the 8th of the month in order to be considered for inclusion in that month's issue. Also, please see the submission guidelines immediately below. FASE submission format guidelines: All submissions must be in ASCII format, and contain no more than 70 characters per line (71 including the new line character). This 70-character/line format must be viewable in a text editor such as Microsoft Notepad WITHOUT using a "word wrap" facility. All characters (outside of the newline) should in the ASCII code range from 32 to 126 (i.e. "printable" in DOS text mode). _____ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Information (as of February 15, 2000) Everyone that is receiving this by email is on the FASE mailing list. If you wish to leave this list, send a message to and, in the text of your message (not the subject line), write: unsubscribe fase To rejoin (or have someone else join) the FASE mailing list, write to and, in the text of your message (not the subject line), write: subscribe fase For instance, if your name is Jane Smith, write: subscribe fase Jane Smith But what if you have something that you want to share with everyone else, before the next issue? For more real-time discussion, there is the FASE-TALK discussion list. It is our hope that it will be to FASE readers what the SIGCSE.members listserv is to that group. (For those of you that don't know, SIGCSE is the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education.) To subscribe to the FASE-TALK list, write to and, in the text of your message (not the subject line), write: subscribe fase-talk For instance, if your name is Jane Smith, write: subscribe fase-talk Jane Smith Please try to limit FASE-TALK to discussion items related to software engineering education, training and professional issues; CFPs and other such items can still be submitted to the editor for inclusion into FASE. Anyone that belongs to the FASE-TALK mailing list can post to it. As always, there is no cost for subscribing to either FASE or FASE-TALK! (Subscriptions can also be maintained through the Web via http://lyris.acs.ttu.edu. From there, click on "TTU Faculty Mailing Lists", and then either "fase" or "fase-talk", depending on which list you desire.) _____ Back issues (dating from the very first issue) can be found on the web (with each Table of Contents) at in chronological order, in reverse order, or through ftp at . _____ The FASE Staff: Tom Hilburn -- Academic Editor Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Department of Computing and Mathematics Daytona Beach FL 32114 USA Phone: 904-226-6889 Fax: 904-226-6678 Email: hilburn@db.erau.edu URL: http://faculty.erau.edu/hilburn/ David Carter -- Corporate/Government Editor 6212 Mil Mar Blvd Alexandria LA 71302 USA Phone: 318-767-2339 Email: dacarter@bayou.com Don Bagert, P.E. -- Professional Issues/Misc Editor and Web/Listmaster Department of Computer Science 8th and Boston Texas Tech University Lubbock TX 79409-3104 USA Phone: 806-742-1189 Fax: 806-742-3519 Email: Don.Bagert@ttu.edu URL: http://www.cs.ttu.edu/faculty/bagert.html Laurie Werth -- Advisory Committee Taylor Hall 2.124 University of Texas at Austin Austin TX 78712 USA Phone: 512-471-9535 Fax: 512-471-8885 Email: lwerth@cs.utexas.edu Nancy Mead -- Advisory Committee Software Engineering Institute 5000 Forbes Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA Phone: 412-268-5756 Fax: 412-268-5758 Email: nrm@sei.cmu.edu