Forum for Advancing Software engineering Education Volume 6 Number 19 November 25, 1996 Contents: FASE Editorship Preliminary Program -- 10th CSEE&T Survey, Software Engineering as a Profession Request: Information on Software Engineering courses Need: Individual Assessment Instrument CFP: CAiSE 97 Doctoral Consortium Faculty Position, University of Hawaii at Hilo Faculty Position: University of Northern Iowa CFP: JSS Special Issue on Formal Methods Technology Transfer Faculty Positions, University of Nebraska at Omaha ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Nov 1996 10:19:53 -0600 From: kpierce@d.umn.edu (Keith Pierce) Subject: FASE Editorship I will be leaving academe for an IS position at the St. Paul Companies in St. Paul, Minnesota, at the end of this month. Most likely, I will be unable to continue editorship of this newsletter. Most of you have been subscribers for many years, so the newsletter must be serving a useful purpose in the software engineering education community. In order to continue the service, we must find a new editor. Please contact me if you would be willing to assume editorship. Keith Pierce ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Nov 1996 10:19:53 -0600 From: kpierce@d.umn.edu (Keith Pierce) Subject: Preliminary Program -- 10th CSEE&T Preliminary Program 10th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training April 13-16, 1997 The Cavalier Hotel Virginia Beach, Va. For further details on the program and registration information, surf to http://www.d.umn.edu/~kpierce/CSEET97/ 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. The purpose of the CSEE&T is to influence educational directions, stimulate new approaches, promote collaboration, and generate interactive exchanges among software engineering stakeholders. Educators, trainers, executives, managers, and administrators gather at the CSEE&T to exchange ideas about how to enhance software engineering training and education. The CSEE&T attracts international participation from industry, academe, and government. The Challenges Ahead 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. The CSEE&T is an opportunity for you to meet with colleagues to discuss these issues and share experiences. The program includes * Distinguished keynote speakers who will present their vision of the future of the software engineering profession and its impact on education. * Presentations that discuss transitions to the 21st century in two areas: process and university/industry collaboration. * Refereed papers that address issues of teaching process and process-based curricula. A workshop and several presentations that focus on Watts Humphrey's personal software process. * Papers, panels, and facilitated discussion groups that explore recent developments in university/industry collaborations. The keynote presenters are ** Michael Jackson, MLJ Consulting, Inc. ** Ravi Ganesan, Bell Atlantic ** David Parnas, McMaster University Birds-Of-A-Feather Sessions Birds-of-a-feather sessions will be held Sunday, April 13, from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. and Tuesday, April 15, from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Workshops In parallel with paper and panel sessions, the following workshops will be offered ** Introduction to the Personal Software Process, Monday afternoon, April 14 ** Empowerment Paradigms in Education and Training, Tues afternoon, April 15 Tutorials Participants have the opportunity to participate in one or two of the following half-day tutorials on Sunday, April 13. ** Developing Formal Specifications via Z ** Cleanroom Software Engineering ** Distance Education: Making the Web, CD-ROMs and Other Stuff Work for You ** Research Methods in Computer Science Education University/Industry Collaboration Discussion Groups You will have the opportunity to participate in facilitated discussion groups to propose strategies for university/industry collaborations, on Tuesday evening, April 15. Results of working groups will be presented on Wednesday afternoon, April 16. Other Activities There will be opportunities to organize additional meetings, workshops, or birds-of-a-feather sessions while you are at the conference. Proceedings published by the IEEE Computer Society Press will be distributed to attendees. Table-Top Exhibits Table-top exhibits will be offered throughout the conference. The exhibits will be open during registration hours. Security will not be provided; each exhibitor is responsible for monitoring their area. For additional information, contact SEI Conference Administrator Charlene Rauber Phone 412 / 268-3007 email car@sei.cmu.edu For further details on the program and registration information, surf to http://www.d.umn.edu/~kpierce/CSEET97/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Nov 1996 14:40:00 -0600 From: Nancy Mead Subject: Survey, Software Engineering as a Profession The IEEE Computer Society and the ACM have established a Joint Steering Committee for the Establishment of Software Engineering as a Profession. One of the initial activities has been to develop a USABILITY PILOT of a survey designed to help define the occupation of Software Engineer. For this first experiment, we have selected topics of interest to real-time and safety critical system developers. We would appreciate if you took the time to respond to this pilot survey and send us your comments. The survey is available on the World Wide Web at http://notes.computer.org/se/ You should be able to complete the survey in less than 30 minutes. On behalf of the ACM and the IEEE Computer Society we thank you for the time and effort you dedicate to this task. It is important to our profession. - -- Mario Barbacci, IEEE-CS President Elliot Chikofsky, IEEE-CS TCSE liaison ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kasi Periyasamy Subject: Request: Information on Software Engineering courses This is a request for information on software engineering courses, related to the following topics: Requirements Engineering Requirements Specifications Introduction to Formal Methods System/Software Verification and Validation We are teaching courses which cover most of these topics in senior undergraduate courses and in graduate courses. For example, the course System Requirement Specification (COMP 648) at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada covers requirements modeling, and formal specification methods. Software Verification and Validation (COMP 748) is taught following this course. The course Formal Specifications and Design taught at University of Manitoba covers formal methods and their refinements. The software engineering courses at the undergraduate level introduce formal methods and their applications in requirements modeling. At this point, we would like to gather information from other schools on courses taught on the above topics so that we can share our experience and ideas. We appreciate if you could respond to the following questionnaire. We will summarize all the responses and make it available for everyone. QUESTIONNAIRE ------------- 1. Your Department/University/Address 2. Courses in which the above topics are covered in part or in full. Please indicate the level of the courses (undergraduate, graduate). 3. What books you use currently for these courses? 4. Do you use any tools to support these courses? 5. How much (percentage) emphasis is given to formal methods in each course? If you teach formal methods, do you teach one techniqure or or more than one formal technique/method? 6. Name the text book(s) you use for teaching formal methods? 7. Do you prefer to use a text devoted to one formal method or a book which discusses more than one method? 8. Additional comments/suggestions. We thank you for investing your time in responding to this questionnaire. Sincerely, Kasi Periyasamy | V.S. Alagar Department of Computer Science | Department of Computer Science University of Manitoba | Concordia University Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 2N2 | 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W Ph: (204) 474-8682 | Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3G 1M8 Fax: (204) 269-9178 | Ph: (514) 848-3022 email: kasi@cs.umanitoba.ca | Fax: (514) 848-2830 | email: alagar@cs.concordia.ca ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ruth Ravenel Dameron Subject: Need: Individual Assessment Instrument Individual Assessment Instrument in Software Engineering available? I have what I call a high class problem. There is a company in our area that has asked me for a test (gack, the t-word!) they could give their software staff (about 600 people) every year to assess software engineering fundamentals knowledge. They are beginning a software engineering technical education curriculum with required application to their projects. Being tired of training classes that come and go, they want to measure the value of this program in various ways. One of those is to establish a baseline of software engineering knowledge and reassess periodically. I do not know of such an assessment instrument. Do you? I guess the next best thing would be to get several copies of final exams from software engineering courses and create something. Will you send me a copy of a final exam if it is not essay-oriented? (This has to be gradable in an objective fashion.) The ACM was publishing assessments in various areas of computer science but I have not found one on software engineering. Help? Ruth (Ravenel) Dameron reply to dameron@colorado.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Nov 1996 14:49:26 -0600 From: Andreas Winter Subject: CFP: CAiSE 97 Doctoral Consortium CALL FOR PAPERS CAiSE'97 4th Doctoral Consortium on Advanced Information Systems Engineering Barcelona June 16-17, 1997 The Doctoral Consortia on Advanced Information Systems Engineering are intended to bring together PhD students within the information systems engineering field and give them the opportunity to present and to discuss their research in a constructive and international atmosphere. The workshop in Barcelona will be the 4th Doctoral Consortium of a series held in conjunction with the CAiSE conferences in Utrecht (1994), in Jyvaskyla (1995), and in Heraklion (1996). The two first days of the CAiSE'97 conference (June 16th and 17th) have been reserved for the Doctoral Consortium. The CAiSE Doctoral Consortia deal with the topics of the main Conference. In 1997 these topics include but are not restricted to - Business process reengineering - CASE - Conceptual modelling - Distributed IS design - Enterprise modelling - Information systems procurement - Internet-based IS design - Internet-based world-wide IS - Inter-organizational IS - IS support for virtual organizations - IT product definition and competitive advantage - Legacy systems reengineering - Methods engineering - Mobile computing - Object-oriented and rule-based application design - Quality management - Requirements engineering - Reverse engineering - Workflow management The workshop language is english. To apply for participation at the consortium, you have to provide 5 copies of an abstract of your doctoral work to the workshop organizers. Electronic submissions are strongly encouraged (Postscript only). The abstract (restricted to 5000 words) should: - clearly identify the research question, - outline the significant problems in the field of research and the current solutions, - present the preliminary ideas and state the proposed approach clearly, and - present the contributions of the applicant and the results of the work. Submissions will be judged on orginality, significance, correctness, and clarity. Admission is limited to 20 students. The CAiSE'97-Doctoral~Consortium is accompanied by three prominent scientists in the field of information systems which will actively participate and contribute to the discussions. Peri Loucopoulos University of Manchester Institute of Science & Technology, Department of Computation. Arne Sølvberg Norwegian Institute of Technology, Department of Computer Science. Roel Wieringa Vrije Universiteit De Boelelaan, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science. IMPORTANT DATES Deadline for submission : January 30th, 1997 Notification of acceptance : March 15th, 1997 Camera-ready paper due : April 15th, 1997 CAiSE'97 : June 16th-20th, 1997 Contact Address Andreas Winter Juha-Pekka Tolvanen University of Koblenz-Landau University of Jyvaskyla Institute for Software Technology Department of Computer Science Rheinau 1, D-56075 Koblenz, and Information Systems Germany P.O. Box 35, SF-40351 Jyvaskyla Finland email: winter@uni-koblenz.de email: jpt@hyeena.jyu.fi Electronic mail concerning the Doctoral Consortium and submissions should be sent to caise97DC@informatik.uni-koblenz.de The Doctoral Consortium's web-pages are located at http://www.uni-koblenz.de/~ist/CAiSE97DC/caise97DC.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Nov 1996 15:02:28 -0600 From: Judith Gersting (by way of kpierce@d.umn.edu (Keith Pierce)) Subject: Faculty Position, University of Hawaii at Hilo The Computer Science Department at the University of Hawaii at Hilo invites applications for a tenure-track position at the Assistant Professor level beginning August, 1997. Candidates should have a Ph.D. in Computer Science or closely related discipline, show evidence of commitment to excellence in teaching and ongoing scholarship in computer science, and be able to communicate clearly in written and spoken English. All areas of specialization will be considered, but preference will be given to candidates in software engineering, artificial intelligence, networks, or parallel processing. Responsibilities include teaching a variety of undergraduate computer science courses. Salary commensurate with qualifications. The University of Hawaii at Hilo is a small (2500 students) state-supported undergraduate institution located on the Big Island of Hawaii, a setting noted for its spectacular diversity of both geography and population. The department offers a B.S. in Computer Science within a liberal arts setting. Computing facilities include laboratories with networked NT workstations and NT and UNIX servers. Review of applications will begin January 15, 1997, with the position remaining open until filled. To apply, submit vita, statement of teaching philosophy, and three letters of recommendation to: Dr. Judith Gersting, Chair Computer Science Department University of Hawaii at Hilo 200 W. Kawili Street Hilo, HI 96720-4091 The University of Hawaii at Hilo is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Nov 1996 15:18:16 -0600 From: John McCormick Subject: Faculty Position: University of Northern Iowa The Department of Computer Science invites applications for a tenure-track position in software engineering at the Assistant Professor level effective August 1997. Applicants must have a Ph.D. with specialization in software testing or verification & validation. Primary teaching responsibilities will consist of software engineering and theory courses, but a willingness and ability to teach a variety of core courses is required. Applications received by Feb. 1, 1997 will receive full consideration. For submission criteria and further information, contact: Search Committee, Computer Science, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0507 or see our web page at: http://www.cs.uni.edu/ The University of Northern Iowa is an inclusive academic community, hospitable to all. The University is an Equal Opportunity Employer with a comprehensive plan for affirmative action. John W. McCormick mccormick@cs.uni.edu Computer Science Department voice (319) 273-2618 University of Northern Iowa fax (319) 273-7123 Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0507 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Nov 1996 15:24:42 -0600 From: Hossein Saiedian Subject: CFP: JSS Special Issue on Formal Methods Technology Transfer Journal of Systems and Software (North-Holland) Special Issue on Formal Methods Technology Transfer The purpose of this special issue of Journal of Systems and Software is to address the technology transfer issues, that is, why, in spite of many research results claiming the practical applications of formal methods for increased reliability, we do not see wide usage. The objective is to explore ways in which the benefits of formal methods - whatever constitutes the most important benefits of formal methods - can be transitioned into practice and how the gap between the expectations of industrial practitioners and the research results of academia can be narrowed. We are inviting experts from both industry and research institutions to share their ideas and expertise. Areas of interest include: * initiatives to narrow the chasm between practitioners and researchers, * empirical results in applying formal methods to large systems, * evaluative explorations of the costs and benefits of formal methods, * integration of formal methods with non-formal ones, * formal methods light and partial applications, * strategies for formal methods that can scale to large systems, * initiatives intended to increase and improve practitioners' interests and confidence in formal methods, and * initiatives intended to increase and improve researchers' understanding of the role of formal methods in large systems. Submission Requirements and Due Dates Submitted articles are limited to 6,000 words. Long submissions will be returned without review. Article title, author name(s), affiliation(s), e-mail addresses, an abstract and up to five keywords should appear on the first page. Due Date for Submissions: March 1, 1997 Evaluation Notification: June 15, 1997 Due Date for Final Version: July 15, 1997 Publication Date: January 1998 Send submissions to: Hossein Saiedian, Guest Editor Journal of Systems and Software Department of Computer Science University of Nebraska at Omaha Omaha, NE 68182-0500 USA hossein@cs.unomaha.edu Additional and updated details available at: http://cs.unomaha.edu/jss ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Nov 1996 15:24:55 -0600 From: Hossein Saiedian Subject: Faculty Positions, University of Nebraska at Omaha The newly established College of Information Science and Technology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha invites applications for multiple tenure track positions at all professorial ranks in the areas of computer science and engineering. The College will be housed in a new, 188,000 sq. foot building starting in mid 1999 with state-of-the-art facilities and excellent computing resources. Qualifications include a Ph.D. in computer science, computer engineering or related area and expertise in software engineering, client server technology and information systems engineering and technologies. Consideration will be given to those candidates with knowledge in object-oriented modeling and software architecture. Prospective individuals should have a strong record in research and teaching, and experience in industry outreach and applied research/grant writing. Applications, including a curriculum vitae and a list of publications should be sent to: Chair, Search Committee (CS) Department of Computer Science University of Nebraska at Omaha Omaha, Nebraska 68182--0500 Please arrange to have three letters of references sent directly to the same address. Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the positions are filled. The preferred employment start date will be Fall 1997. In accordance with the U.S. immigration requirements, qualified applicants must be eligible to legally work in the U.S. The University of Nebraska at Omaha encourages applications from qualified women, members of minorities, and persons with disabilities. E------------------------------------------------------------------- FASE Volume 6 Number 19 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. Send requests for information or to add or delete a subscription to fase-request@cs-server.d.umn.edu with one of the words HELP, SUBSCRIBE, or UNSUBSCRIBE in the SUBJECT line. 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