Forum for Academic Software Engineering Volume 5, Number 12, Thu Apr 20 11:22:20 CDT 1995 Topics: University education versus training FREE Testing Techniques Newsletter Subscription ANNOUNCEMENT - Requirements Engineering Journal Working Conf on Reverse Engineering (WCRE) Formal Methods Home Page CFP: 9th Conference on Software Engineering Education CFP: Software Engineering: Education & Practice '96 A------------------------------------------------------- From: Keith Pierce Subject: University education versus training Capers Jones has written in IEEE Computer (April 95) a provocative article suggesting changes in how universities educate future software engineers. He raises some fundamental questions about the role of a university, and its responsibility to prepare students to enter the profession. To summarize his article: Because US and European universities have tended to "be oriented toward the fundamental theories of software engineering and computer science", rather than toward "a more practical curriculum of immediate relevance to ... job markets", students graduate with significant "gaps and deficiencies" in their background that prevent them from being immediately "entrusted with significant assignments." Large US corporations have traditionally trained newly hired employees to correct these "gaps and deficiencies," but small companies seldom offered such training, and therefore tend to seek experienced professionals rather than recent graduates. Due to significant recent changes in the software job market, the number of software jobs in large corporations is declining and funding for in-house training is being reduced. Thus there has been a significant reduction in demand for new graduates. In order to better serve their students, therefore, universities must revise their curriculum by providing "courses more relevant to commercial job requirements," and thereby increase the job prospects of its graduates. Jones recommends that universities require courses in maintenance and enhancement of aging software, software quality control, and software reusability. They should also offer electives in change management and configuration management, software requirements and specifications, user documentation (with on-line help text and icon design), and software sizing, estimating and planning. The details of course contents are revealing, often including tool skills, current "hot" topics (TQM, ISO9000, JAD) as well as underlying principles. I would be interested in hearing your reactions to this position. A------------------------------------------------------- From: sr@netcom.com (Software Research) Subject: FREE Testing Techniques Newsletter Subscription Software Research, Inc. offers a free subscription to its monthly on-line TESTING TECHNIQUES NEWSLETTER (TTN). The TTN On-Line features testing market trends, technical articles of general interest to the software testing com- munity, calendar of events, and various announcements. To request a FREE subscription, please E-mail "ttn@soft.com" and use the key- words "Request-TTN" or "subscribe" in the Subject line of your E-mail header. Note: To order back copies of the TTN On-Line (August 1993 onward), please specify the month and year when E-mailing requests to "ttn@soft.com". TESTING TECHNIQUES NEWSLETTER Software Research, Inc. 625 Third Street San Francisco, CA 94107-1997 Phone: (415) 957-1441 Toll Free: (800) 942-SOFT FAX: (415) 957-0730 E-MAIL: ttn@soft.com Information: info@soft.com A------------------------------------------------------- From: Peri Loucopoulos, UMIST Subject: ANNOUNCEMENT - Requirements Engineering Journal From INFOSYS v2 n12; Apr 14 95 Requirements Engineering Journal http://www.mac.co.umist.ac.uk/comp-isg/Requirements-Engineering/ RE-Journal.html The Requirements Engineering Journal, published by Springer-Verlag, will be launched in early 1996. The scope of the journal is to provide a focus for disseminating new results about the elicitation, representation and validation of requirements of software-intensive information systems or applications. Theoretical and applied submissions are welcome, but all submissions must explicitly address (i) the practical consequences of the ideas for the design of complex systems, and (ii) how the ideas should be evaluated by the reflective practitioner. The scope of the journal is motivated by a multi-disciplinary view that considers requirements not only in terms of software components specification but also in terms of activities for their elicitation, representation and agreement, carried out within an organisational and social context. To this end, contributions are sought from fields such as software engineering, information systems, occupational sociology, cognitive and organisational psychology, human-computer interaction, computer-supported co-operative work, linguistics, and philosophy, for work addressing specifically requirements engineering issues. Submissions are welcomed from practitioners and researchers. The Editors are: Peri Loucopoulos Colin Potts UMIST, Manchester, UK Georgia Inst of Technology, Atlanta, USA Original articles are invited and should be sent to: Professor P. Loucopoulos Department of Computation UMIST P.O. Box 88 Manchester M60 1QD Voice: +44 (0)161 200 3332 Fax: +44 (0)161 200 3364 E-mail: pl@sna.co.umist.ac.uk To facilitate speedy reviewing of papers, the editors strongly advise authors to submit papers in an electronic format. For further details please refer to Instructions for Authors at: http://www.mac.co.umist.ac.uk./comp-isg/Requirements-Engineering/ RE-Authors-Instructions.html OR send a request for instructions to: pl@sna.co.umist.ac.uk A------------------------------------------------------- From: Elliot Chikofsky Subject: Working Conf on Reverse Engineering (WCRE) 2ND WORKING CONFERENCE ON REVERSE ENGINEERING FRIDAY-SUNDAY 14-16 JULY 1995 TORONTO HILTON TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA in conjunction with CASE'95 PRELIMINARY PROGRAM as of 17 April 1995 Sponsored by: - Reengineering Forum - IEEE-CS TCSE Committee on Reverse Engineering (pending) - ACM SIGSoft (pending) To obtain the complete text of this preliminary program, send email to kpierce@d.umn.edu with SUBJECT line SEND WCRE95 A------------------------------------------------------- From: Keith Pierce Subject: Formal Methods Home Page This link provides hyperlinks to many world-wide repositories of information about formal methods, including some freely available tools. http://www.comlab.ox.ac.uk/archive/formal-methods.html -- Keith Pierce 726-7194 Department of Computer Science 327A Heller Hall A------------------------------------------------------- From: Nancy Mead Subject: CFP: 9th Conference on Software Engineering Education You are invited to participate in the 9th Conference on Software Engineering Education (CSEE) April 22-24, 1996, in Daytona Beach, Florida; tutorials are April 21, 1996. Educators, trainers, managers, and administrators gather to exchange ideas about how to enhance software engineering training and education. The CSEE attracts international participation from industry, academia, and government. The purpose of the CSEE is to influence educational directions, stimulate new approaches, promote collaboration, and generate interactive exchanges among all educational stakeholders. Conference topics include but are not limited to: * software engineering as a profession * software engineering curricula * innovative approaches for software engineering courses * industry-academia collaboration * alternative delivery methods * training and education management Submission Guidelines and Procedures We request papers that present new ideas or approaches or that describe practice and experience. We also encourage proposals for panels examining controversial topics and designed to facilitate audience participation. We welcome proposals for half- and full-day tutorials. We invite innovative suggestions for informal meetings such as workshops, poster sessions, or birds-of-a-feather sessions. Submit five copies of a paper or proposal. Put only the title and beginning text of the submission on the first page of a paper. Provide a separate cover sheet with title, all authors' names, affiliations, complete addresses, telephone numbers, and e-mail addresses. Accepted contributions will appear in the conference proceedings, published by IEEE. Important Dates All submissions (papers, panels, tutorials) are due by September 1, 1995. Notification of acceptance will be made by November 1, 1995. Final presentation materials must be received by January 1, 1996. Send submissions to: Charlene Rauber Software Engineering Institute Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 Phone 412 / 268-3007 FAX 412 / 268-5758 Internet education@sei.cmu.edu Program Committee General Chair Nancy Mead | Software Engineering Institute nrm@sei.cmu.edu Program Chair Neal Coulter | Florida Atlantic University neal@cse.fau.edu Committee Members Clark Archer | Winthrop College, Department of Computer Science and Quantitative Methods Maribeth Carpenter | SEI Doris Carver | Louisiana State University JoAnn Devory | AT&T, Business Communications Services Christopher Fox | James Madison University David Garlan | Carnegie Mellon University, School of Computer Science Helen Gill | National Science Foundation Soheil Khajenoori | Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Department of Computer Science Rick Linger | SEI/Loral Federal Systems Michael Lutz | Rochester Institute of Technology, Computer Science and Information Technology Michael McCracken | Georgia Institute of Technology John Miklos | Loral Federal Systems Linda Northrop | SEI Rebecca L. Smith | RebL Systems Mike Stinson | Central Michigan University, Department of Computer Science Stephen Thebaut | University of Florida, Software Engineering Research Center Dolores R. Wallace | NIST Computer Systems Laboratory Tutorial Co-Chairs John Werth | Laurie Werth | University of Texas, Austin, Department of Computer Science Sponsors Sponsored by the SEI. Sponsored by IEEE Computer Society In cooperation with the ACM The Software Engineering Institute is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense and operated by Carnegie Mellon University. A------------------------------------------------------- From: "Martin Purvis" Subject: CFP: Software Engineering: Education & Practice '96 Announcement and Invitation to Participate SE:E&P'96 6th Working Conference Software Engineering: Education & Practice University of Otago Dunedin, New Zealand 24-27 January 1996 GOALS The Conference is intended as a forum for discussion of new and emerging approaches to software engineering and how best to impart the knowledge of software engineering principles to students and existing practitioners. It provides an opportunity for exchanges of ideas and to report on achievements by experts active in the field. The proceedings from the conference will be published by the IEEE Computer Society Press. THEMES -Formal and informal software engineering methodologies and tools -CASE tool usage and its place in the education environment -New modelling paradigms for systems and software -Distributed and multi-agent systems across the network -Curriculum design and reviews of delivery methods/approaches DISCUSSION SESSIONS As in the past, workshop sessions will be held to discuss these themes, as well as wider issues in software engineering. Applicants with appropriate expertise and interest are invited to suggest specific topics and may volunteer to lead appropriate discussion groups. DATES Deadline for submission of papers: 1 August 1995 Notification of acceptance: 1 October 1995 Early registration: 8 December 1995 CONFERENCE ORGANIZATION CONFERENCE SECRETARIAT Chair: Martin Purvis (NZ) SE:E&P'96 Co-Chairs: Bernd Bruegge (USA) Information Science Dept John Hughes (Australia) University of Otago Philip Sallis (NZ) Dunedin, New Zealand Phone: +64-3-479-8180 REGISTRATION Fax: +64-3-479-8311 Regular NZ$ 425.00 Email: seep96@otago.ac.nz Students (full time) NZ$ 95.00 (A late registration charge of 20% JOINT SPONSORS will apply for registration packets NZCS, ACS posted to the Conference Secretariat after 8 December 1995.) E------------------------------------------------------------------- FASE Volume 5 Number 12 Send newsletter articles to fase-submit@d.umn.edu or fase@d.umn.edu Send requests to add, delete, or modify a subscription to fase-request@d.umn.edu Send problem reports, returned mail, or other correspondence about this newsletter to fase-owner@d.umn.edu or kpierce@d.umn.edu You can retrieve back issues by anonymous FTP from from ricis.cl.uh.edu. You can access them through WWW at URL http://ricis.cl.uh.edu/FASE/ Keith Pierce, Editor Laurie Werth, Advisory Committee Department of Computer Science Dept. of Computer Science University of Minnesota, Duluth Taylor Hall 2.124 Duluth, MN 55812-2496 University of Texas at Austin Telephone: (218) 726-7194 Austin, Texas 78712 Fax: (218) 726-6360 Telephone: (512) 471-9535 Email: kpierce@d.umn.edu Fax: (512)471-8885 Email: lwerth@cs.utexas.edu David Eichmann, FASE Archivist Asst. Prof. / RBSE Director of R & D Web: http://ricis.cl.uh.edu/eichmann/ Software Engineering Program Phone: (713) 283-3875 University of Houston - Clear Lake fax: (713) 283-3810 Box 113, 2700 Bay Area Blvd. Email: eichmann@rbse.jsc.nasa.gov Houston, TX 77058 or: eichmann@cl.uh.edu RBSE on the Web: http://rbse.jsc.nasa.gov/eichmann/rbse.html