Forum for Advancing Software engineering Education Volume 6 Number 8 April 3, 1996 Contents: Reminder: Early registration deadline for CSEE96 is April 8 Announcing FASE-Talk Summary: 3rd Int'l Workshop on Software Engineering Education Minutes of the Spin DC Training Group (Washington DC Area) LifeLong Learning Workshop: Making Requirements Measurable MSc in Software Engineering, University of Teesside CFP: 10th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training CFP: Third Int'l Conf on Ethical Issues of IT ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kpierce@d.umn.edu (Keith Pierce) Subject: Reminder: Early registration deadline for CSEE96 is April 8 April 8 is the deadline for discounted registration for the 1996 Conference on Software Engineering Education, April 21-24, 1996 Daytona Beach, FL. See FASE Volume 5 number 28 for a complete preliminary program and registration form, or write to fase-request@cs-server.d.umn.edu with the words SEND CSEE96 in the SUBJECT field. A copy of the preliminary program and registration form will be returned. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kpierce@d.umn.edu (Keith Pierce) Subject: Announcing FASE-Talk FASE-Talk is an electronic mailing list service that permits subscribers to carry on interactive discussions about software engineering education and training. Messages sent to this service's address are forwarded to all members of the list. Regular (non-digest) subscribers receive each message as soon as it is received by the service. Digest subscribers receive a single message daily that includes all of the previous day's mail. To subscribe, send a message to fase-talk-request@cs-server.d.umn.edu placing the word SUBSCRIBE in the SUBJECT field of your message. To subscribe for digests only, send a message to the same address with the words SUBSCRIBE DIGEST in the SUBJECT field. You will receive a welcome message that describes how to use the list service. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ludewig@informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Jochen Ludewig) Subject: Summary: 3rd Int'l Workshop on Software Engineering Education Dear participant of IWSEE3, Hope you all returned safely from Berlin! after the workshop last Saturday (which I really enjoyed), I would like to make the pleasant and productive spirit last longer than just for a day. Electronic discussions are certainly appropriate for this. Therefore, I would like to distribute the electronic list of participants. Please note that we have not got an e-mail-address for Fabrizio Riguzzi (University of Bologna, Italy). Hossein Saiedian is included in the list though he was unable to attend. When I summarised the presentations and discussions, James Cross asked me to distribute the summary via e-mail. Here it is. Please note that Tony Cowling, Pankaj Jalote, John Werth and I will write a summary for the SEN. - - Methods first, tools second. Tools cause problems, but students should have that experience. - - Teaching SE takes time. If it is done within CS, _all_ teachers must contribute to the SE education. If not ... Could it really be taught separately? - - Projects are essential. We need more of them, though it is difficult to press them into the short period of time we have. - - Students need to learn some lessons the hard way; but their project experience should -- eventually -- be positive. - - Tutoring takes much time. Few of us have sufficient manpower to allow for intensive tutoring. - - Real projects have the advantages of real projects. But toy projects are necessary, too. - - Modern means of communication will influence the style of teaching, and the jobs our students will get. I am looking forward to your feedback, and ideas for the 4th IWSEE next year at Boston! As long as you wish, I will serve as a coordinator for this activity. yours sincerely, Jochen Ludewig Inst. f. Informatik, Universitaet Stuttgart Breitwiesenstr. 20-22, 70565 Stuttgart Tel. 0711-7816-354, Fax -380 ludewig@informatik.uni-stuttgart.de http://www.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/ifi/se/se.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: sdmce@access.digex.net (Kathy Beckman) Subject: Minutes of the Spin DC Training Group (Washington DC Area) The March meeting celebrated the third anniversary of the group and planned the fourth year. Dinner will continue to be provided. The meeting time was moved up to 6:30 PM because most people are waiting around at the office for the meeting to start. Informal attire is now strongly recommended. Some of the meetings will be dinner meetings at the Ft. Belvoir Officer's Club. There will be a mailing to all group members during the summer break. It will be a foldable reply sheet (pre-addressed). Each member will be asked if their contact information is current and if they wish to continue to be on the mailing list. The following topics were selected for this year: - planning the first free seminar at DSMC - training for certification exams - a presentation by the SEI - CBT lessons learned - a video on what it really takes for people to change, followed by a discussion - 5 minute madness The training group is going to start sponsoring FREE informational seminars at the Defense Systems Management College. Each seminar will have a theme selected because of the need in this area for that kind of information. Some topics under consideration include Process Improvement Lessons Learned, and resources available locally (e.g. networking groups). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kpierce@d.umn.edu (Keith Pierce) Subject: LifeLong Learning From Edupage: GINGRICH URGES TOP-TO-BOTTOM CHANGE OF EDUCATION Suggesting that the quality of elementary and secondary education is dragging down the quality of higher education, House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich challenged a group of university presidents by saying: "None of you would accept from your suppliers what public education sends you. You would fire them, or you would sue them, or you would insist on a new standard." Tinkering won't work, because "the problem you are trapped into is that you can't change anything unless you change everything." The Speaker also urged the presidents to sharpen their focus on "lifetime learning," because of the increasing need for people to re-educate themselves to accommodate multiple career changes. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution 19 Mar 96) This applies to college and professional education. How well are we (software engineering educators) doing in teaching life-long learning? In my case, not well. When my institution focusses on teaching complex tools (UNIX, C++, make,...) we neglect to pass on general principles, so that students can adapt to new tools when these inevitably fall out of favor. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: olly@soi.city.ac.uk (Orlena "Olly" Gotel) Subject: Workshop: Making Requirements Measurable The Requirements Engineering Specialist Group of the British Computer Society presents... MAKING REQUIREMENTS MEASURABLE - A WORKSHOP Workshop chair: Suzanne Robertson (Atlantic Systems Guild) Date: Wednesday 15th May 1996 Time: 2:00pm - 5:30pm Venue: Room 418, Department of Computing, Imperial College, London INTRODUCTION Requirements traceability and quality assessment depends on requirements measurability. This workshop explores the idea that a requirement is measurable provided there is an unambiguous way of determining whether a given solution fits that requirement. Participants in this workshop examine requirements measurability by building a requirements specification for a familiar system. A requirements template will be used as a guide for the workshop. The workshop finishes with a discussion of how measurable requirements can be used to build a requirements quality filter. WHO SHOULD ATTEND? This is an interactive, participative workshop. Attendees must have a genuine interest in practical solutions to requirements specification. Practitioners involved in doing requirements engineering are particularly welcome. A limited number of student places are available, but the workshop will only be relevant to students who have had reasonable exposure to the problems of requirements engineering. The workshop is aimed at people who are interested in acquiring practical requirements engineering skills. Applicants for places at the workshop are encouraged to summarise their requirements engineering background and to explain why they wish to attend the workshop. To receive a complete description and registration form, write to: Dr Orlena Gotel (contact details below) Email: olly@soi.city.ac.uk Or visit the group's web page at: http://www.OiT.co.uk/resg/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "JONES D ALAN" Subject: MSc in Software Engineering, University of Teesside Keith -I follow your newsletter and would like to tell you about our MSc programme in Software Engineering here at University of Teesside in NorthEast England. Our grand aim is to produce graduats who can make critical choices from alternatives in the topic area of software engineering. We run projects with software developers, because our ethos is 'no-one writes serious software for fun'. We have a good success rate of high-quality jobs for our graduates, and some have progressed into reserach, particularly methods integration. Let me tell you briefly about the curriculum. MSc SOFTWARE ENGINEERING AN ADVANCED COURSE, REQUIRING COMPUTING EXPERIENCE/QUALIFICATIONS TO BCS Pt2 (EQUIVALENT) EMPHASIS OF TAUGHT SUBJECTS IS ON EARLY-LIFE CYCLE DESIGN NOTATIONS - YOURDON, WARD-MELLOR, RUMBAUGH, Z, B INFRASTRUCTURE - PROJECT MANAGEMENT, QUALITY ASSURANCE, FRAMEWORKS AND ENVIRONMENTS STRONG ENGINEERING ETHOS SUPPORTED BY TOOLS B TOOLKIT innovative state-of-the-art tool support for Formal Methods ASCENT a CASE tool with support for Ward-Mellor, ourdon, Rumbaugh, process modelling MS-PROJECT tool for project planning POET O-O tool CCS ANIMATOR for verification and test of formal scripts about real-time modelling TBK WORKBENCH for building CASE tools WIDE RANGE OF INDUSTRY-SUPPORTED PERSONAL PROJECTS RECENT WORK ON SAFETY KERNELS, PROOF TREE NAVIGATORS, PLANT PROCESS CONTROL, HYBRID FORMAL METHODS, CHAZOPS/HAZOPS, MULTIMEDIA......... FUNDING SUPPORT FROM CLEVELAND TEC TO APPROPRIATE APPLICANTS SUPPORTED WITH PROJECT PRIZE MONEY BY BRITISH TELECOM Alan Jones, University of Teesside, School of Computing and Mathematics, Cleveland TS1 3BA Tel 01642 342681 fax 01642 230527 email alan.jones@tees.ac.uk ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charlene Rauber Subject: CFP: 10th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training Call for Participation 10th Conference of Software Engineering Education and Training Theme and topics You are invited to participate in the 10th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEE&T) April 13-16, 1997, in Virginia Beach, Va. The theme of the conference is Transitions to the 21st Century. Educators, trainers, executives, managers, and administrators gather to exchange ideas about how to enhance software engineering training and education. The CSEE&T attracts international participation from industry, academe, and government. The purpose of the CSEE&T is to influence educational directions, stimulate new approaches, promote collaboration, and generate interactive exchanges among software engineering stakeholders. Government, business, and academe are changing rapidly as emerging technologies create possibilities that were unheard of ten years ago. New platforms have shifted the emphasis from centralized systems, to distributed environments, to the Internet. Advances in telecommunications and networking have changed the focus from proprietary systems to data and information. Satisfying customer requirements quickly and accurately within this framework of profound change has resulted in new software engineering approaches, methodologies, and tools. Education and training need to evolve to meet the challenges ahead. The question for the future is how and in what way we educate and train software engineers and their managers. Conference topics include The future of software . predictions for the future . the emergence of true artificial intelligence . technology challenges ahead . the changing role of software in business management . changes to the software engineering organization The software engineering profession . competencies that will be needed in the future . the impact of new life cycles, methodologies, and tools . the people side of software engineering The effects of change on software engineering curricula . software engineering education and the customer's voice . new education and training philosophies and paradigms . how to measure the return on investment from education and training . how to create a "learning" academic institution Innovative approaches for software engineering courses . cutting-edge programs in software engineering . examples of high-performing curricula . motivations for educators and trainers to explore new learning approaches . the Internet as a tool for educators and trainers Industry-academia collaboration . the current state of collaborative efforts . lessons learned from the collaborative model . examples of highly successful collaborations . how to measure the effect of collaboration on companies and communities . the effect of collaboration on software engineering education and training . how much collaboration is necessary Alternative delivery methods . new tools and techniques available to educators . the classroom setting versus learning online in the office or at home . comparative studies of different delivery methods Advanced training and education management methods . total quality management applied in an academic setting . how educators can be trained to be better teachers . the role of the student in education management . compensation and reward systems for educators . how to apply statistical process control to education . whether or not students are empowered to learn Submission guidelines and procedures We request papers and proposals for workshops, panel discussions, experience reports, and presentations. We welcome proposals for half- and full-day tutorials. We invite innovative suggestions for informal meetings, such as poster sessions or birds-of-a-feather sessions. Submissions should relate to the conference theme and topics, though this is not mandatory. 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, workshops, presentations, experience reports, tutorials) are due by September 1, 1996. Notification of acceptance will be made by November 1, 1996. Final presentation materials must be received by January 1, 1997. There will be a limited number of exhibit tables available at the CSEE&T. The tables will be provided at no charge to conference participants and will be distributed in the order requests are received. Preliminary Program Committee Kathy Beckman, Computer Data Systems, Inc. Neal Coulter, Florida Atlantic University Jorge Diaz-Herrera, SEI Chuck Engle, Defense Information Systems Agency Bernice Folz, University of St. Thomas Gary Ford, SEI Dennis Frailey, Texas Instruments Michael Lutz, Rochester Institute of Technology Karl Reed, La Trobe University Laurie Werth, University of Texas, Austin Karl Williams, Motorola, Inc. Send submissions to Charlene Rauber Software Engineering Institute Carnegie Mellon University 4500 Fifth Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 Phone 412 / 268-3007 FAX 412 / 268-5758 Internet education@sei.cmu.edu Larry Tobin General Chair Lawrence Tobin Associates ltatrain@erols.com Keith Pierce Program Chair University of Minnesota, Duluth kpierce@d.umn.edu Sponsored by the SEI. Co-sponsorship with the IEEE Computer Society is pending. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) cooperation is pending. The SEI is a federally funded research and development center funded by the U.S. Department of Defense and operated by Carnegie Mellon University. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kpierce@d.umn.edu (Keith Pierce) Subject: CFP: Third Int'l Conf on Ethical Issues of IT ETHICOMP96: The Third International Conference on Ethical Issues of Information Technology 6-8 November 1996 Madrid, Spain ETHICOMP96 aims to bring together international scholars to consider current and future developments of IT and resulting social and ethical issues. The overall theme of ETHICOMP96 will be the value of IT to society and the likely impacts upon society's values. The intention is to include papers which provide practical guidance on socially and ethically sensitive applications of IT -- the social benefits and drawbacks of using IT. In parallel to this will be the presentation of case studies which raise or illustrate significant ethical problems of IT usage (1) in the workplace, (2) in education, (3) at home and (4) in leisure. Papers and case studies are invited from relevant disciplines such as philosophy, computer science, information systems, law, social sciences, business and government. Papers and case studies with a multi-disciplinary perspective are particularly welcome. Example areas of interest are: - --Organisation and society structure and the location of work - As powerful change agents, computer technologies change organisations and social structures. The global community raises many issues relating to ethnic, cultural and economic differences. - --Privacy and monitoring - Issues relating to information held on individuals. What can be or has to be revealed and what safeguards should be in place to ensure privacy. - --Value and accuracy of data and information - Issues of authenticity, fidelity and accuracy and how information can be cultivated for general good. - --Software and data as intellectual property - --Security and computer misuse - Issues of misuse and the impact of misuse of this invasive technology. - --Developing information systems now and in the future - How to ensure social value issues are properly addressed and how to ensure future advances can be catered for and used in a socially beneficial way. Important dates 19 April 1996 Deadline for submission of 500 word abstract 07 June 1996 Deadline for paper or case study submission 23 August 1996 Notification of acceptance/rejection of submission 30 September 1996 Deadline for receipt of electronic/camera ready versions See full details in English or Spanish by accessing http://www.cms.dmu.ac.uk/CCSR/ccsr/conf/ccsrorgconf.html For further information contact: Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility School of Computing Sciences De Montfort University The Gateway Leicester LE1 9BH UK Voice: +44 116 257 7475 Fax +44 116 254 1891 E-mail: ccsr@dmu.ac.uk E------------------------------------------------------------------- FASE Volume 6 Number 8 Send newsletter articles to one of the editors, preferably by category: Articles pertinent to corporate and government training to Kathy Beckman, sdmce@access.digex.net; Academic education, and all other categories, to Keith Pierce, kpierce@d.umn.edu (Messages routed to fase-submit@d.umn.edu still go to Keith) 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 kpierce@d.umn.edu You can retrieve back issues by anonymous FTP from from ricis.cl.uh.edu or through WWW at URL http://ricis.cl.uh.edu/FASE/ Keith Pierce -- Academic/Misc Editor and ListMaster University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, MN 55812-2496 USA Phone: 218- 726-7194 Fax: 218-726-6360 Email: kpierce@d.umn.edu Kathy Beckman -- Corporate/Government Editor Computer Data Systems One Curie Ct., Rockville MD 20850 USA Phone: 301-921-7027 Fax: 301-921-1004 Email: sdmce@access.digex.net David Eichmann -- FASE Archivist University of Houston - Clear Lake Box 113, 2700 Bay Area Blvd., Houston, TX 77058 USA Web: http://ricis.cl.uh.edu/eichmann/ Phone: 713-283-3875 Fax: 713-283-3810 Email: eichmann@rbse.jsc.nasa.gov or eichmann@cl.uh.edu Laurie Werth -- Advisory Committee Taylor Hall 2.124 University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 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