Forum for Advancing Software engineering Education Volume 6 Number 9 April 26, 1996 Contents: Opening - SREC Newsletter Editor Validation of CMM Global Issues in IS Educ (Web site; e-mail list) Professional/Educational Thoughts from Innovation US versus Eastern European engineering education Book Offer: An Integrated Approach to Software Engineering IWSEE Workshop and PSP RE: IWSEE Workshop and PSP SIGCSE Award Nominations Sought CFP: 8th Conf. on Tools with AI ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "W. W. Everett" Subject: Opening - SREC Newsletter Editor The Software Reliability Engineering Committee (SREC) of the IEEE-CS Technical Council on Software Engineering (TCSE) has an opening for NEWSLETTER EDITOR. The SREC Newsletter Editor will work with the Chair of SREC in soliciting articles from other SREC members and workers in the field of SRE and directly writing material for the SRE Newsletter (eg. letters from the chair, conference/meeting/workshop announcements). The SRE Newsletter is distributed 3 times a year as part of the TCSE Newsletter. Circulation of the TCSE Newsletter is 25,000. Each edition of the SRE Newsletter is 4 pages. The SRE Newsletter Editor must also coordinate with the TCSE Newsletter editor in submitting materials. The SRE Newsletter Editor will coordinate submission of time-sensitive material (eg. Call-for-papers, workshop/symposia announcements) on the SRE electronic mail bulletin board. This is an opportunity to get into the "mainstream" of work in the field of Software Reliability Engineering (SRE). If you are interested in this position, please submit your name and a few words on relevant experience. Please email to w.w.everett@computer.org by May 1st. - -- Bill Everett Chair, SRE Committee of IEEE TCSE ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kpierce@d.umn.edu (Keith Pierce) Subject: Validation of CMM At the Conference on Software Engineering Education last week, the issue of validation of process effectiveness was brought up. Here's a reference I ran across; I am sure there are more: A correlational study of the CMM and software development performance / Lawlis, Patricia K. ; Flowe, Robert M. ; Thordahl, James B. -- In: SOFTWARE PROCESS, QUALITY & ISO 9000, 5(1) Jan. 1996 p. 4-12 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: eli_cohen@acm.org (Eli Cohen) Subject: Global Issues in IS Educ (Web site; e-mail list) I invite you to visit the Web site on Global Issues in IS Education that Betty Boyd and I have established. Its purpose is to promote collaborative research into IS education, to share information about conferences and findings, and to promote the stature of research into IS education and training within the IS academic community. The page address is http://www.acm.org/~eli_cohen/globalis.htm. Currently it is updated weekly. A listserv complements the web site. The purpose of this list is to help advance IS education globally by creating a virtual community of IS educators. The listserv is moderated so you will not be inundated with messages. The list moderators, Betty Boyd and Eli Cohen, understand that your time is valuable and will endeavor to send you digests of conference announcements and discussions related to IS education. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to majordomo@uow.edu.au with the following message: subscribe iseducation your_e-mail_address <-- not your real name If you are interested in taking a more pro-active role in this project, please contact me directly at eli_cohen@acm.org. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kpierce@d.umn.edu (Keith Pierce) Subject: Professional/Educational Thoughts from Innovation WHAT IS THE SYSTEM FOR AND WHAT ARE THE PEOPLE FOR? The director of the information management program at the University of Texas at Austin advocates the creation of specialists he calls "social systems analysts," to be communicators and change-agents who can both talk to the technologists and understand corporate strategy. Some of the tasks for the social systems analyst: learn what managers and workers really need from systems and what they will really do with them; work with systems designers to make sure that the design truly fits the organizational structure, culture and behavior; work with the users to make sure they are part of the system; and take a hard look at the new system and make any changes that are necessary so that it actually performs as promised. (Tom Davenport, "Software As Socialware," CIO 1 Mar 96 p24) WHAT REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERS SHOULD BE REQUIRED TO KNOW: Requirements engineering -- which is the attempt to incorporate an engineering orientation into systems analysis -- needs to be revised to account for organizational context, incompleteness of information, and the evolutionary nature of the process of understanding requirements in the real world. Instead of thinking of requirements engineering as the development of a "contract" representing a precise, unambiguous statement of what a development will build, you should think of it as something that will realistically support the organization's overall market /product strategies; clarify the relative importance of different "requirements" (i.e., necessary or "nice"); and tolerate the inevitable "incompleteness" of requirements definitions in real-life environments. (Jawed Siddiqui & M. Chandra Shekarian, "Requirements Engineering: The Emerging Wisdom," IEEE Software Mar 96 p15) Innovation offers a weekly summary of trends, strategies, and innovations in business and technology. This is an abbreviated list of news items of interest to the IS community from the March 4, 11, and 18, 1996 issues. Subscriptions are available at $15 a year. For a trial copy of Innovation, type the word "subscribe" in the body (not subject) of a message to innovation- request@newsscan.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Apr 1996 07:22:17 -0600 From: kpierce@d.umn.edu (Keith Pierce) Subject: US versus Eastern European engineering education [From EduPage, 4/7/96] THE WHOLE ENGINEER A new book, "The Whole Engineer" by Samuel C. Florman, says Eastern European universities are doing a better job of integrating the humanities and social sciences into the engineering curriculum than universities in the U.S. "Programs at U.S. universities concentrate on blending engineering disciplines such as electrical engineering and computer science, or at most on combining engineering with other allied fields such as chemistry and manufacturing... The new European thrust, by contrast, is broader and more ambitious, reaching beyond the technical to emphasize the auspicious effect of humanistic studies on the engineer-citizen." (Technology Review Apr 96 p67) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 Apr 1996 12:07:02 -0600 From: jalote@iitk.ernet.in (pankaj jalote) Subject: Book Offer: An Integrated Approach to Software Engineering OFFER FOR COMPLIMENTARY COPY OF A TEXT BOOK I am in the process of finishing the 2nd edition of my Software Engineering Text (An Integrated Approach to Software Engineering, Pub: Springer Verlag New York). The publisher has agreed to give out complimentary copies, or an offer for it, to the list of faculty members that I provide. I am now trying to compile this list. If you are interested in getting a complimentary copy when the book comes out, please send me an email with your name and postal address. A very brief description about the text is given below. If you want more information, kindly contact me. Please feel free to pass this message to collegues who also might be interested in this offer. Many apologies if you get more than one copies of this. This book is intended primarily as a text for the first course in Software Engineering. The book has nine chapters - Introduction, Software Processes, Requirements analysis and specification, Project Planning, Function oriented design, Object Oriented Design, Detailed Design, Coding, and Testing. Metrics and validation methods for each phase are discussed in the chapter for that phase. A running case study is employed, which is used through out the book, illustrating the different activities of software development. All the the major documents that are produced for the case study are given in the book - SRS, project plan, function oriented design specification, object oriented design specification, test plan, testcase specification, etc. The C implementation of the structured design, the C++ implementation of the OO design, some design documents of the case study, and some tools developed for metrics based analysis of code and design will also be available (on web) for the readers. The first version got good reviews in American Scientist (Sept, 92), ACM Computing Reviews (June 92), and IEEE Computer (Dec 92). Pankaj Jalote (jalote@iitk.ernet.in) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: michael@cs.adelaide.edu.au (Michael Oudshoorn) Subject: IWSEE Workshop and PSP I would like to thank the organizers of the recent workshop for their efforts. I enjoyed the workshop and got quite a lot out of it. To continue/generate some discussion, I would like to ask people if they incorporate the personal software process (PSP) by Watts Humphries in their courses in any formal manner? If so, how do you do it and how well does it work? When I returned to Adelaide after the workshop in Berlin, we continued curriculum development and decided to vertically integrate the PSP into our undergraduate degree. In annutshell, this means introducing the students to the process in one course, developing it further in another etc, until the final levels of the process are revealed at the end of their degrees. The hope is that self improvement and self assessment will become a habit for the students over that period of time. Students will also be asked to record information in a database which will help them track their own progress and allow them to compare themselves to the best in class, worset in class and the class average (anonymously obviously). The statistics gathered will also allow staff to see how well the class as a whole is going and to get a measurment of where the students have difficulty etc so that improvements to the course can be targetted. The extra time required to teach each layer of the PSP in different courses is fairly minimal and can be handled within the current course structure. The PSP is supported by practical work which should, in theory, make the students more productive and hence should not cost the students any extra time if it is all done properly. I was just curious if anyone had any ideas, thoughts or comments on such a proposal which they might like to air. Michael Oudshoorn ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: KNOKE PETER J Subject: RE: IWSEE Workshop and PSP I'd like to join Michael in his sentiments regarding the IWSEE workshop and its benefits, and I also thank the organizers for their very considerable efforts. The proposed PSP idea sounds good to me. I'm planning to offer a PSP course at a graduate level in Spring 1997 semester, and I've been worrying about the 400 hours per student that is reportedly required to cover the material in one semester (our full time graduate students take 3 courses). Introducing the material at the undergraduate level over several courses sounds like an idea that might work well. I think I'll try discussing it with my colleagues at University of Alaska Fairbanks. Maybe we'll have to first offer PSP as a standalone course at least once. Thanks again to both organizers and attendeed for a memorable workshop. Pete Knoke ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: schneider@macalstr.edu (Michael Schneider) Subject: SIGCSE Award Nominations Sought Dear SIGCSE Members, This letter is to remind you of the two major awards given out by SIGCSE each year and to invite you to submit the names of candidates worthy of recognition. The two awards are: 1. The SIGCSE Outstanding Educator Award. This award is given to an individual who has made significant contributions to computer science education. These contributions can take many forms, such as curriculum development, course design, textbooks, software, teaching tools, or important new approaches to teaching. 2. SIGCSE Award For Lifetime Service. This award is given to an individual who has contributed a great deal of time and effort to organizations dedicated to improving computer science education. Of course this includes SIGCSE and ACM, but can also include other organizations such as IFIP and IEEE/CS. Both winners will receive a plaque and a cash award of $1000. In addition, the winner of the Outstanding Educator Award will be invited to be the keynote speaker at the opening session of our annual convention next February. The winner of the Lifetime Service Award will be presented the plaque and check at the Convention Luncheon. To nominate an individual for either award, simply write a letter giving the name of the individual whom you wish to nominate and a description of why you feel that he or she is worthy of this award. It need not be an extremely long letter, a page or two is more than enough. Also include the names of 1 or 2 other individuals who can write a letter in support of your nominee. Send your nominations, either by email or surface mail, to me at the following address: G. Michael Schneider Vice-Chair, SIGCSE Dept. of Mathematics and Computer Science Macalester College 1600 Grand Ave. St. Paul, Minnesota 55105 USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: McCauley Renee A Subject: CFP: 8th Conf. on Tools with AI Call for Papers that focus on Artificial Intelligence in Software Engineering for the 8th IEEE International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence (ICTAI'96) November 16-19, 1996 Toulouse, France The annual ICTAI conference is an international forum for the exchange of ideas relating to artificial intelligence (AI) among academe, industry, and government agencies. It fosters the creation and transfer of such ideas, and promotes their cross-fertilization over all AI application domains and AI paradigms through a unifying theme: AI Tools. ICTAI focuses on both theory and development methodologies and encompasses all aspects of specifying, developing, implementing, and evaluating theoretical and applied frameworks that may serve as tools for developing intelligent systems and pursuing AI applications. The conference always includes several paper sessions related to AI in Software Engineering. Submission deadline for papers and panels: May 10, 1996 The detailed Call for Papers and other conference information can be found at: http://www.tai96.tulane.edu E------------------------------------------------------------------- FASE Volume 6 Number 9 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 fase@cs-server.d.umn.edu, or to Keith Pierce, kpierce@d.umn.edu. 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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