Forum for Advancing Software engineering Education (FASE) Volume 8 Number 05 (100th Issue) - May 15, 1998 822 subscribers Note: If you have problems with the format of this document, try ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Table of Contents Letter from the Academic Editor This Month's Topic: 100th Issue - FASE: Past and Future Next Month's Topic: Software Metics Upcoming Topics Departments FASE Archive Web Page News Items Texas Board of Professional Engineers Board Statement Concerning Software Engineering on Web Page Articles Concerning the Texas Board Activities Calls for Participation CSEE&T 99 Reviewer Classification Form IEEE Software Engineering Standards Survey PSP(SM) Summer Workshop for Faculty - Second Notice Advance Programs IWPC '98: Sixth International Workshop on Program Comprehension Faculty Positions Oregon Master of Software Engineering Program Contact and General Information about FASE ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ By: Don Bagert Letter from the Academic Editor There's something about milestones with round numbers that people either like or dislike. The 100th episode of a prime-time television series is usually a special one. The college retreat program that I was in at Texas A&M had a big celebration on both its 10-year anniversary and later at its 50th retreat. The world is starting to become obsessed with the upcoming millenium. On the other hand, people usually dread the coming of their 30th, 40th, or 50th birthday. The computing field is not immune. In 1996, Al Gore was at a special ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first public display of ENIAC. ACM and IEEE-CS also recently celebrated 50 years as professional socities. This year is the 30th anniversary of the "birth" of software engineering at the first of the two seminal NATO conferences on the subject. Of course, there is the Year 2000 problem... That brings us to FASE. A hundred issues may not seem like much, until one realizes that FASE is the only international publication dedicated to software engineering education and training (SEE&T) that is published on a regular (monthly) frequency. It is a tribute to people like Pen-Nan Lee, Keith Pierce, Kathy Beckman, Laurie Werth, Nancy Mead, and David Eichmann that have made FASE a leader in the industry. To commemorate the occassion, Keith Pierce, Nancy Mead, Jorge Diaz-Herrera, and others will be providing their insights on FASE, and SEE&T publishing in general (see This Month's Topic). I hope you'll enjoy reading their comments as much as I did. Here's to the next 100 issues! ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ By: Don Bagert (Academic/Misc Editor) This Month's Topic: 100th Issue - FASE: Past and Future Before hearing from this month's participants, a short history of FASE is in order. FASE originally stood for Forum for Academic Software Engineering. The first issue, dated December 1991, stated that "The purpose of the mailing list is to provide a forum for communication among academic educators in software engineering." The idea behind FASE was discussed in that first issue: "At the 5th Annual SEI Conference on Software Engineering Education held this past October in Pittsburgh, participants met in a birds-of-a-feather session titled "The Community of Academic Software Engineering Programs: Building an Organization." The purpose of the session was to discuss the feasibility of beginning to organize academic institutions engaged in software engineering education, and to begin plans for the startup of such activities. "The session produced strong sentiment for building an organization and fostering a forum for communication. In order to initiate this forum and to continue the discussion, the participants favored an electronic forum. It was felt that no electronic forum currently existed that coincided with the interests of this group (for example, electronic newsgroups comp.edu and comp.software-eng). Thus an ad hoc organizing committee was formed to prototype a mailing list, with the conference participants forming the initial list of subscribers." The editor (then called managing editor) for the first 13 issues was Pen-Nan Lee of the University of Houston. Other members of the Editorial Board (then called the Organization Committee) were Keith Pierce of the University of Minnesota-Duluth, and Laurie Werth of The University of Texas at Austin. Laurie remains on the editorial board to this day. As reported in Volume 3, Number 4 of FASE (18 October 1993) Dr. Lee accepted a faculty position Feng Chia University in Taichung, Taiwan, and had to leave the editorship. [Note: Pen-Nan Lee has apparently left Feng Chia University, and I have not been able to locate him. If you have any contact information for him, please let me know.] Keith Pierce then took over as editor, a tenure that lasted 77 issues. While the previous editor had published 13 issues in an 18-month period, Keith published his 77 issues in only 38 months, an astounding volume of output. [Keith discusses his tenure as FASE editor in an article that follows.] As of Volume 4, Number 21 (2 December 1994), David Eichmann of the University of Houston at Clear Lake took over as FASE archivist, a position he held through the end of Keith's tenure. After a user survey, Volume 5, Number 27 (10 November 1995) saw a change in name and direction for FASE. The acronym now stood for Forum for Advancing Software engineering Education (as it still does today), and started to give increased emphasis on training issues. To that end, Kathy Beckman joined Corporate/Government Editor, a position she keeps to this day. Keith's new titles were Academic/Misc Editor and ListMaster. Nancy Mead of the Software Engineering Institute joined the Editorial Board with the next issue (17 November 1995). All of the 1996 issues were available in both text and HTML format. The team of Pierce, Beckman, Werth, Mead, and Eichmann remained until Volume 6, Number 19 (25 November 1996). At that time, Keith had accepted a job in industry, and had to step down as FASE co-editor. FASE then went on hiatus until Don Bagert was appointed as Academic/Misc Editor and ListMaster (and later, Archivist) in May 1997. Don and Kathy decided on a slightly new format for FASE. Issues would be on a monthly schedule (which started in August 1997), and there would be a "special topic" for each issue (which started in September). Starting with Tom Hilburn in the February 1998 issue, these topics often have guest editors for that month's topic. Last month, the FASE readership was asked to address any or all of the following questions for this month's discussion: 1. What are your thoughts and memories (good and bad) about FASE as it reaches issue 100? 2. What's your opinion about the past and current state of software engineering education and training publication? (e.g. journals, proceedings, newsletters, special issues, books, technical reports) 3. What do you see FASE evolving into over the next several years? 4. What's your opinion on the future of software engineering education and training publication? ###################################################################### From: Keith Pierce (former FASE editor) When Pen-Nan Lee decided that he couldn't continue as FASE editor, the opportunity to serve the community of software engineering educators fell into my lap. I hope that the issues that I edited had some impact on the community. During my term as editor, the subscriber list grew from under 100 to over 600. Obviously, the newsletter was filling a need for communication among educators. I am happy that it continues to grow under Don Bagert's leadership, and wish him and the advisory board well. Thanks especially to Nancy Mead who wouldn't let it die after my abrupt departure. Don's invitation to write something for this issue made me reminisce, and reflect on software engineering education. Perhaps the most remarkable issue was sent out on March 31 a few years back. It was a few hours too early, but the effect of one of its articles ("President Clinton Cancels All Software Engineering Programs") far exceeded my light-hearted attempt at an April Fool's joke. One subscriber -- a professor at a military college -- called the Pentagon, and another emailed the president in a state of severe indignation. A faculty member, about to attend an important university meeting to defend a proposed software engineering program, received the newsletter and entertained a state of high panic. The joke even became an urban legend: Years later, a candidate for the chair of a computer science department announced straight-faced to the search committee that software engineering education was dead because our country's president had declared it to be so. To those of you still holding a grudge for being taken in, I belatedly apologize. [Editor Note: I was one of the ones that was taken in, but have never had any hard feelings about it =] I can't resist writing a few words about software engineering education -- some of which go against current wisdom. Having now spent a year and a half in the "real world" of software development, my views have changed a little. First, it is satisfying to observe that many of my exhortations to my students are valid: - think before coding - do incremental development - find the critical requirements, and focus early increments on them (a la Tom Gilb) - design for change - design for change - design for change It's amazing how profoundly a project is affected by failing to follow the last three maxims. Large efforts fail because their brittleness prevents them from adapting to the inevitable evolution of business requirements. An example very close to home: we just threw away a 20 million dollar (yes, that's right, twenty followed by 6 zeroes) effort and are starting over, in large part because of this. Yet I hear designers of the new effort saying "we don't have time to develop a flexible solution". Egad. I hope that my former students resist such nonsense. Harvey Hallman of the SEI once wrote in FASE that "education is not training, and training is not education". I now agree. The objectives of each are poles apart. The painful struggles of the CSEE conference to wed the two may reflect this disparity between the two poles. Universities must focus on education, and industry on training. It concerns me that many academic programs are bowing to pressures from the corporate world to "train" graduates to hit the ground running. But universities must focus on giving students technical, mathematical, and scientific fundamentals, a strong liberal education, business sense, and a commitment to continuous learning. Without that, students have nothing to fall back on when the latest "fad" dies (Java, RAD, OO, ...). Perhaps most important of all is the development of "people" skills - communicating, negotiation, collaborating. There is too much emphasis on the process fad in academic programs, and it is egregious when such emphasis drives out education in fundamentals. Yes, students must be aware of how process controls and manages large engineering efforts, but let them learn fundamentals and design skills formost. Then let the corporate world train them in how to apply their skills within an engineering process. Thanks to Don for letting me spout off. I hope to be asked again for the bicentennial issue. ###################################################################### From: Nancy Mead (FASE Editorial Board Member) The evolution of FASE over its lifetime is a reflection of the evolution of software engineering education. We have seen a steady growth in Master's degrees in software engineering, and the introduction of Bachelor's degrees. We have seen evolution of the concept of software engineering as a profession, and some initial actions on licensing of software engineers. A truly international community has formed in this area. FASE has been unique in its evolution to fit the changes and in its growth both in readership and quality. I would have to say that for me the low point occurred when we had a hiatus in the publication of FASE, after Keith Pierce has to step down and before Don Bagert took over. For me, the high point has been the introduction of 'theme' issues by Don and the very interesting discussions that have taken place in that context. We do not yet have a journal of software engineering education, but we have seen the IEEE Software Special Issue, and there will be a Special Issue of Annals of Software Engineering on the subject. FASE itself has taken on more and more of a professional appearance. FASE has broadened its scope to have more appeal to those delivering continuing education, not just academic education, thanks to the efforts of Kathy Beckman. In short, FASE has exhibited the best and worst of volunteer efforts, with the best far overshadowing the worst! Keep up the good work! ###################################################################### From: Jorge L. Diaz-Herrera SEEd: a New Periodical Publication ------------------------------------------ Jorge L. Diaz-Herrera, Ph.D. Chair, Software Engineering Department Monmouth University, New Jersey (Professor and Department Head, Department of Computer Science Southern Polytechnic State University, Marietta, GA, as of July 1, 1998) jdiaz@sei.cmu.edu INTRODUCTION AND MOTIVATION ------------------------------------------------ A new periodical, with international reach, is proposed. This international journal of software education is aimed at the emerging software engineering education and research community. The fact that degree granting programs with increasing support for software engineering research are beginning to emerge in the U.S. and abroad provides not only an opportunity to establish a needed publication to serve the community better, but also timely leadership for shaping and promoting the emerging profession. Mature scientific and engineering disciplines disseminate their research results and practical experiences through professional and scholarly publications. Several of these disciplines have specialized journals on education. Some software engineering applied research and practice results are finding their way into specialized publications. However, software engineering educational and training issues, strong scholarly writings, and empirical studies are either not being published or are getting lost in the myriad of mostly trade-oriented publications. Although there are some publications on computers and education, there are no publications oriented toward software engineering education. Currently, the majority of such articles are published in a multitude of journals with disjoint readerships. Many consider software engineering as a sub-area of computer science (and even some of these publications have treated software engineering as subspecialization of other fields such as systems engineering). As a result, scholarly work does not necessarily reach the right audience for advancing the state of software engineering education. There is a clear need for specialized journals in specific areas such as software engineering education. For example, an examination of abstracts in a publications database covering the past seven years resulted in more than 5000 articles with thesaurus category "computer science education". On another database I found an additional 461 related articles (with some overlap with the previous list). I noticed that no articles are ever classified as "software engineering education" (not a thesaurus category yet!). A quick analysis of this 5000-plus hit list yielded very encouraging results for software engineering education. Out of more than 5000 articles classified as computer science education, more than 3600 entries represent potential software engineering education articles. These are distributed as follows: -- 1607 articles contained the phrase "Software Engineering." -- 989 articles contained the word "programming." -- 587 articles contained the word "design." -- 459 articles contained the word "process." The fact that there are institutions committed to the improvement of software engineering practice seems indicative of the magnitude of the nterest in software engineering education. An incomplete list of these institutions include the Software Engineering Institute, the Software Productivity Consortium, and other organizations in the U.S. and abroad (such as HP's software group, MITRE's Software Center, DEC's oftware research centers, IBM's software engineering institute and other software research centers, the uropean Software Institute, and the software institutes of Germany, Italy, and other countries). In this nvironment, a high-quality international journal with appropriate information dissemination departments ought to be a smashing success! A journal such as the one proposed will fulfill national and international readership needs and provide valuable assistance in these national efforts. As a specialized periodical, the proposed publication, at present, has noperiodical competitors either from commercial publishers or professional societies. Thus we have an excellent opportunity to establish a presence in, and indeed, to shape this emerging educational discipline of software engineering. AIMS AND SCOPE ------------------------ The proposed periodical will address educational concerns related to software engineering, from the points of view of both research and software technology transfer. The goal of the proposed periodical is twofold, as follows: (1) To disseminate results from empirical studies and practical experiences on software engineering education. (2) To promote high-quality scholarly articles about software engineering education. A primary goal is to actively solicit contributions on experimental results on educational approaches to the discipline of software engineering, within the framework of formal education and continuing professional training. Here I really mean experiment in the scientific and archival sense. It has been argued that very few of us actually engage in these kinds of activities (see W. Tichy's article in IEEE Computer, April 1998). Although this may be true, it does not mean that we should not continue to encourage hard, empirical evaluations of our teaching methods. Someone has suggested (Don Bagert) that the current situation might be attributed to the lack of suitable places for publishing results (a catch-22, chicken-and-egg, situation). I have found several articles of this kind reporting on results on such experimental evaluation of teaching approaches/methods/tools. What is interesting is that they were found not in publications related to computer science education, but in human factors and educational research publications. The writings under this category will provide answers to important educational research questions as they relate to software engineering education, such as: -- Do we know what to teach and how to teach it (i.e., effectiveness of both the technology taught and the teaching of the technology)? -- What drives our continuous changes in the software engineering curricula? Are we perpetuating the problem that causes the massive retraining programs (as described above)? -- How can we justify a particular set of courses or even an approach? For example, do we have empirical support for the "studio" approach? Based on the students' evaluations? Our intent is also to provide readers with topical information as software engineering develops into a full-fledged formal discipline. The periodical will emphasize articles that would help define the discipline. Our approach would be to try to secure a few good seminal papers to establish the publication scope and quality standards. (Imagine titles like "statistical analysis of architectural idioms ... a comparison of the effect of visualization on comprehension ... students beliefs about ... effective use of measurement and experimentation in ..."). Technical and research articles will be complemented with articles covering current developments and educational practices as well as policies and curricula development. Articles describing educational programs, especially related to their application and experiences learned, will also be encouraged. Articles analyzing the gap between education and practice, again accompanied by experimental evidence, will also be sought. JOURNAL CONTENTS ------------------------------ The publication will provide a unique forum for the dissemination of experimental research results on the technology of software engineering education and on teaching experiences. Feature articles will be complemented with reports on training and educational developments; reviews on national and international policies (e.g., on certification and licensing) and programs; selected standardization issues; forum and book reviews columns; model curricula and programs reviews (what works what does not work), including course announcements, readers forum, etc. The following is a list of tentative regular features and columns for the periodical: -- Editor's overview of this issue (and letters to the editor) -- Academic forum -- Feature articles (refereed) -- Columns: > Show and tell: mining the internet for software engineering education resources. > I learned about students from...: graphic lessons from failures in the classroom or studio. > On time and under budget: the professional trainer (professional education). > The undergraduate advisor: exercises and techniques that work for fledgling software engineers. > Graduate and upper division education. > For the journeyman (practicing software engineer): political and professional issues with implications on the training (educational qualifications) of professional software engineers. > Between the lines: short book and resource reviews. -- Event calendar and calls for papers. The idea is to publish topics related to high-quality software engineering education and training, which are not currently found in one magazine or journal. More importantly, the proposed periodical will become a recognized forum for educational issues related to software engineering education. The potential readers of the new publication are primarily educators and trainers, as well as researchers and professionals involved in the research and the practice of software engineering education. We also think that a great deal of the material should be of interest to the practitioner. A quality journal depends primarily on the quality of authorship, the publisher, and the readership. To obtain high-quality submissions, the proposed periodical will have both theme and non-theme issues solicited through a published call for papers (in sister magazines), postings on electronic bulletin boards, and targeted mailings to potential authors worldwide. Submissions for non-theme issues can be directly solicited from invited distinguished educators and researchers. There will also be special issues on specific workshops and conferences (e.g., selected papers) devoted totally or partially to software engineering education. The editorial board and department/columns editors will consist of educators, researchers, and practitioners having an interest on software engineering education. Editorial members will be selected and appointed following the corresponding policy from the sponsoring publisher. There are three additional aspects that need final discussion with regards to publication. These are: (1) The possibility of making the publication a joint IEEE/ACM journal. (2) The option of making the publication available electronically. (3) reconstitution of a "new" steering committee. We have proposed an international journal on software engineering education. I welcome your active participation to make this happen. Please, send me a note to either jdiaz@sei.cmu.edu, or seed@starbase.monmouth.edu I would like to express my gratitude to the many colleagues that have read versions of this proposal for their many useful comments in improving this proposal and their words of encouragement for me to continue this enterprise. Also, I would like to thank all those caring colleagues that have responded to my initial call and have given me their strong support and unselfish advice. Don, thank you for suggesting this submission to FASE. ###################################################################### From: Kenneth Magel I believe the largest and most critical problem facing software engineering education is the chasm between practitioners and academics. This chasm has grown wider in recent years. FASE can be a factor in reducing this problem in two ways: 1. The internet periodical should contain dialogs between academics and practitioners in every issue. Each issue should have a dialog of three pages or longer about a particular issue. These dialogs should illuminate the differing views of practitioners and academics and demonstrate to both groups the substantial common ground between them; 2. More importantly, the web site should serve as a repository for actual artifacts from real software development efforts. A major impediment to software engineering education in universities is the lack of realistic examples. My students often ask to see a real requirements document or a full scale test plan. Practitioners could provide such documents. These documents would not have to compromise any company secrets or competitive advantages. The documents could be from failed projects or from projects done several years ago whose result is no longer a strategic company product. University teachers of software engineering could access these artifacts and provide them to their students. The documents could be used as examples, analyzed by the instructor and/or the students, and form the basis for all sorts of more realistic projects. Companies would benefit by gaining access to software engineering graduates with more realistic experiences and expectations. There is a third way that FASE could work to improve communication between and appreciation of practitioners and academics. FASE could act as a clearing house for three month to one semester to one year faculty-company exchanges of personnel. If a company has a valued employee who is temporarily burned out from software development, the company could loan that employee to a university for this period. The employee would teach some software engineering courses and consult with the software engineering faculty at that university. Then, when the period of this sabbatical ended, the employee could return to the company recharged and with some new perspectives. The reverse exchange would be valuable as well. The University could send a faculty member to work for the company in its software development efforts for a period. I believe FASE and its web site can be most valuable by coordinating and encouraging efforts like these. I would like to see the editors of FASE apply for one or more grants to help fund these activities. ###################################################################### From: Katsuhiko Hirai I think that FASE is useful for us to know the educational trend of the world. In paticular, I was encouraged by the editor's invitation by e-mail for me to provide my opinion and participate into the FASE issue. However, as the FASE e-mail has a bunch of volume on each issue, it is tough for me to select the article of my interest. I am happy to get the categorized editing issue. For example, a. define the month of subject based on the quarterly cycle which each co-editor has the own subject, differently. or b. define the categorized subject into the fixed item and the special item, monthly. Then, each subscriber would be able to estimate the issue of future and provide their opinion timely. There are many publications to introduce how to develop the software and manage the project. However, there is few one to let us notice the difference between the knowledge about the technical method and the understanding how to use the knowledge timely. I am thinking that it is significant to grow the capability of putting the knowledge to practical use for the software engineer, comparing with putting the knowledge. I would like to get the publication to introduce us the follows: a. Why and What kind of our professional thought & value we should move to the software engineer who create the exact future of the software business in 2000's. b. What kind of problems would be provided into the process for the software engineer to master the knowledge of the technical method. c. How should the educator attend to their practice and what should the educator focus. d. How should the software engineer and the educator correct each misunderstanding to master the knowledge of the technical method. In the 1970s, I am trained by the elder systems designer of the online banking system on the job training when I was a junior systems engineer, as follows: We the engineer should have the philosophy on the designing. We the engineer do not only live in the world of thinking how to do. We the engineer should coarch the beginner through we think as if they were our son and daughter, with the love. We the engineer should not only teach the syntax of the language, but the reason why such a syntax has been defined. We the engineer should trust the other, but should not rely on the result of their job without reviewing by ourselves. I am always teaching our freshmen with my understanding of his doctrine. Sincerely yours, Katsuhiko Hirai a Japanese industrial educator e-mail: katsu@yok.mse.mei.co.jp ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From: Susan Mengel Next Month's Topic: Software Metrics The area of software metrics is uniquely positioned to help students see how they are programming and learn to evaluate themselves so that they can improve their work. It also goes beyond the realm of programming into people issues, project management, system architectures, software evolution, and software life cycles (requirements, specification, planning, design, implementation, integration, maintenance). Please send contributions on how you use metrics in a computing curriculum to improve the ability of students to program and to perform better in the areas listed above. Experimental results are particularly welcome as are case studies, surveys, descriptions of commercial metrics packages' use in a software-related course, and descriptions of the use of metrics in a software-related course. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ By: Don Bagert (Academic/Misc Editor) Upcoming topics July 1998: Licensing of Professional Engineers in SE Editor: Don Bagert, Texas Tech University bagert@ttu.edu Aug 1998: To be scheduled Sept 1998: Graduate SE Program Survey Results and Evaluation Guest Editor: Pete Knoke, University of Alaska Fairbanks ffpjk@aurora.alaska.edu Oct 1998: SEE&T Outside of the U.S. Guest Editor: Michael Ryan, Dublin City University mryan@compapp.dcu.ie TBD: Software Engineering Ethics Education and Training Guest Editor: Don Gotterbarn, East Tennesse State gotterba@etsu.edu All dates are subject to change. For more information about a particular issue's topic, please contact the corresponding guest editor. Here are some of the other topics planned for future issues: * Accreditation * CASE Tools * Curriculum Models * Distance Learning * Object Technology Education and Training * Software Process Improvment Education * Software Survivability Education * Student Team Projects Please send any suggestions for future topics to bagert@ttu.edu. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Departments ###################################################################### By: Don Bagert (Academic/Misc Editor) FASE Archive Web Page All previous issues of FASE are now available through . This web page also contains the Table of Contents for each issue. Also, as announced last issue, there is now an ftp archive of all previous issues of FASE available via anonymous ftp at . ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ News Items ###################################################################### Texas Board of Professional Engineers [Editor's Note: These articles are the latest of a continuing series on the efforts of the Texas Board of Professional Engineers in the area of software engineering. Please refer to the December 1997, January 1998, March 1998, and April 1998 issues of FASE for a summary of previous events.] ###################################################################### By: Don Bagert (Academic/Misc Editor) Board Statement Concerning Software Engineering on Web Page The Texas Board of Professional Engineers has placed a statement concerning their intentions regarding software engineering at http://www.main.org/peboard/softweng.htm. At stated in this page, on June 17 in Fort Worth, the Board "will discuss and possibly enact rules that will recognize software engineering as a distinct engineering discipline." ###################################################################### By: Don Bagert (Academic/Misc Editor) Articles Concerning the Texas Board Activities Three articles have recently appeared concerning the activities of the Texas Board of Professional Engineers regarding the possible licensing of professional engineers in software engineering. "Texas Poised to License Professional Engineers in Software Engineering" by Don Bagert appeared in Volume 23, Number 3 (May 1998) of ACM's "Software Engineering Notes", on pages 8-11. This article is an expansion of items that have previously appeared in FASE. "Engineering Times" is a newspaper-style periodical published by the (U.S.) National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE). A news article concerning the Texas Board's activities titled "Board Votes on Software License" (by David Siegel) appeared on page 2 of the May 1998 issue. On page 4 of this same issue, an editorial titled "Licensing Software Engineers" appeared. The editorial ends by saying "...the time has come to bring the debate [about software engineering] into the open and to use NSPE, its state societies, and its chapters as a forum to hone ideas." ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Calls for Participation ###################################################################### By: Don Bagert (CSEE&T 99 Program Chair) The 12th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training will be held at New Orleans, Lousiana, USA on 22-24 March 1999. The conference web page is at http://cs.unomaha.edu/cseet99. If you are interested in being a reviewer, please fill out the form below. [If you have recently reviewed for CSEE&T, you will likely receive a form with your current information via email on May 16, and may wish to wait to receive that form.] _____ CSEE&T 99 Reviewer Classification Form 12th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training Reviewer Classification Form Name (Appropriate Title, First, Middle, Last, Suffix): Department: Institution: Street Address and/or Box Number: City: State/Province: Zip Code: Country: Phone Number: Fax Number: Email Address: If there is a limit, please state the maximum number of papers that you can review: Please put an X to the left of each of the broad categories you prefer to review: Undergraduate and Graduate Curricula Training Curricula and Distance Learning Professional Issues (e.g. ethics and professional practices, body of knowledge, licensing, accreditation) For each of the subject areas below, please put a X to the left of each subject area in which you would prefer to review submissions. Accreditation Issues Body of Knowledge Formulation Courses with Innovative Approaches or Audiences Curriculum Issues Distance Education Issues Ethics and Professional Practices Future of Software Engineering Education & Training Industry-Academic Collaboration Licensing and Certification Issues Technology Transition in Software Engineering Education & Training Please email to: Don Bagert, CSEE&T 99 Program Chair, bagert@ttu.edu Thank you! ###################################################################### From: Kathy Land IEEE Software Engineering Standards Survey Participate at www.isess99.org/Survey IEEE Technical Council on Software Engineering has initiated a strategic review of IEEE Software Engineering standards. Standards are the backbone of industry and trade. Software related products and services are present in all industries; they are one of the fastest growing segments of the world's economy. Practically all IEEE Software Engineering standards are adopted as the U.S. national (ANSI) standards. IEEE is world's largest professional organization, with over 300,000 members. Its largest part is the Computer Society; in turn, CS's largest part is Technical Council on Software Engineering - a body that stands behind all IEEE Software Engineering Standards." As a part of this strategic review software engineering user's are being canvassed for their opinions on what works and what needs to be improved for existing software engineering standards. The first survey was conducted January 1 - March 31, 1997. Results of this survey were be presented at the 'Users of Software Standards' workshop at the Third International Symposium and Forum on Software Engineering Standards (ISESS '97), June 1-6, 1997, at the Mariott Hotel in Walnut Creek, CA. Recommendations from the workshop were be presented to the IEEE Software Engineering Standards Committee (SESC). These recommendations also served as input to the ISO/IEC SC7 plenary meetings and the strategic planning sessions of SC7. A second users survey has been commissioned and you are being asked to participate at www.isess99.org/Survey. The results from this survey will be presented at ISESS '99 in Curitiba, Brazil. ###################################################################### From: Thomas Hilburn PSP(SM) Summer Workshop for Faculty - Second Notice A Personal Software Process (PSP)* Workshop for Faculty will be held June 22-26, 1998 in Daytona Beach, Florida at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. It is jointly sponsored by the SEI and Embry-Riddle. For more information on the workshop and for application from the Web go to: http://erau.db.erau.edu/~hilburn/psp * Personal Software Process and PSP are service marks of Carnegie Mellon University. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Advance Programs ###################################################################### From: Panagiotis K. Linos IWPC '98: Sixth International Workshop on Program Comprehension Sixth International Workshop on Program Comprehension IWPC '98 June 24-26, 1998 Ischia, Italy ADVANCE PROGRAM, REGISTRATION, AND HOTEL INFORMATION WEB SITE: http://cds.unina.it/~iwpc98 http://www.csc.tntech.edu/~iwpc98 Comprehending programs is one of the core software engineering activities. Program comprehension is needed when one maintains, reuses, migrates, reengineers, inspects, or enhances software systems. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ This workshop will gather practitioners and researchers from academia, industry, and government, to review the current state of the practice, to report on program understanding experiments, and to present issues and solutions in the general area of program comprehension. The main novelty of this is year workshop consists of having 8 parallel paper sessions (24 papers presented) to leave room for 2 exciting working interactive sessions. The workshop program will also include a tool demonstration session, a tutorial, and a keynote speech. All workshop events will be included in the registration fees. The workshop proceedings will be published by IEEE Computer Society Press. IWPC '98 will be held in spectacular Ischia, Italy at the Hotel Continental Terme. Ischia is the largest island in the gulf of Naples. The island's beautiful landscapes, beaches, luxuriant pine forest, vineyards, and lemon and orange orhards have earned it the name "The Green Island". The hotel is a famous holiday resort and is situated in a park covering 30,000 square meters. Ischia is connected with the City of Naples by hydrofoil or ferry. Naples Airport is reached directly by national and international airlines. For more information please consult the Web pages. GENERAL CO-CHAIRS Ugo De Carlini Department of Informatica e Sistemistica University of Naples "Federico II" Via Claudio 21 Naples, I-80125, Italy E-mail: decarl@unina.it Phone: +39 81 768 3199 Fax: +39 81 768 3186 Panagiotis K. Linos Department of Computer Science Tennessee Technological University Box 5101 Cookeville, TN 38505-0001, USA E-mail: linos@csc.tntech.edu Phone: +1 615 372 6178 Fax: +1 615 372 6353 PROGRAM CO-CHAIRS Scott Tilley Software Engineering Institute Carnegie Mellon University 4500 Fifth Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890, USA E-mail: stilley@sei.cmu.edu Phone: +1 602 485 7626 Fax: +1 412 268 5758 Giuseppe Visaggio Department of Informatica University of Bari Via Orabona Bari, I-70126, Italy E-mail: visaggio@di.uniba.it Phone: +39 80 544 3270 Fax: +39 80 561 6756 LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS CHAIR Andrea De Lucia Faculty of Engineering University of Salerno Palazzo Bosco Lucarelli, Piazza Roma Benevento, I-82100, Italy E-mail: delucia@ingbn.unisa.it Phone: +39 824 305839 Fax: +39 824 21866 STEERING COMMITTEE Stephen Eick, Bell Laboratories/Lucent Technologies, USA Aniello Cimitile, University of Sannio, Italy Hausi A. Muller, University of Victoria, Canada Vaclav Rajlich, Wayne State University, USA Spencer Rugaber, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA Anneliese von Mayrhauser, Colorado State University, USA PROGRAM COMMITTEE Giulio Antoniol, IRST, Italy Keith Bennett, University of Durham, UK Cornelia Boldyreff, University of Durham, UK Gerardo Canfora, University of Sannio, Italy Robin Chen, AT&T Research, USA Cristina Cifuentes, University of Queensland, Australia Aniello Cimitile, University of Sannio, Italy Jean-Marc DeBaud, Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering, Germany Andrea De Lucia, University of Sannio, Italy Prem Devanbu, University of California, Davis, USA Stephen Eick, Bell Laboratories/Lucent Technologies, USA Harald Gall, Vienna University of Technology, Austria Kostas Kontogiannis, University of Waterloo, Canada Bogdan Korel, Illinois Institute of Technology, USA Arun Lakotia, University of Southwestern Louisiana, USA Paul Layzell, UMIST, UK Ettore Merlo, Ecole Polytechnique, Canada Hausi Muller, University of Victoria, Canada Malcolm Munro, University of Durham, UK Alex Quilici, University of Hawaii, USA Vaclav Rajlich, Wayne State University, USA Spencer Rugaber, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA Dennis Smith, Software Engineering Institute, USA Harry Sneed, Software Engineering Services GmbH, Germany Marie Vans, Hewlett-Packard, USA Anneliese von Mayrhauser, Colorado State University, USA Linda Wills, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA Steve Woods, Efective 1998: Software Engineering Institute, USA Hongji Yang, De Montford University, UK Sponsored by: The Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers, Inc. IEEE Computer Society IEEE Computer Society - Technical Council on Software Engineering In cooperation with: University of Naples "Federico II" University of Bari University of Sannio - Faculty of Engineering ********************************************************************** IWPC'98 ADVANCE PROGRAM Day 1, June 24 8:30a - 9a Welcome 9a - 12p Tutorial: The Year 2000: Leveraging Lessons Learned, Mike Olsem (SAIC) 12p - 1:30p Lunch 1:30p - 3p Paper Session 1: Visualization, Chair: P. Linos (Tennessee Technological University) # Pattern Visualization for Software Comprehension, R. Keller (University of Montreal) # Visualizing Year 2000 Program Changes, S. Eick (Lucent) # Visualizing Software in Virtual Reality, P. Young and M. Munro (University of Durham) Paper Session 2: Architecture, Chair: D. Smith (Software Engineering Institute) # Developing an Approach for the Recovery of Distributed Software Architectures, N. Mendonca and J. Kramer (Imperial College) # An Analysis Framework for Understanding layered Software Architectures, B. Lague (Bell Canada) # Using Automatic Clustering to Produce High-Level System Organizations of Source Code, B. Mitchell (Drexel University) 3p - 3:30p Break 3:30p - 5p Paper Session 3: Integration Frameworks, Chair: S. Tilley (Software Engineering Institute) # An Architecture for interoperable Program Understanding Tools, S. Woods (Software Engineering Institute) # Managing a Multi-file, Multi-language Software Repository for Program Comprehension Tools, M. Kamp (University of Koblenz) # DIME: A direct Manipulation Environment for Evolutionary Development of Software, A. Lakhotia (University of Southwestern Louisiana) Paper Session 4: Comprehension Strategies, Chair: G. Canfora (University of Sannio) # The Effect of Object-Oriented Programming Expertise in Several Dimensions of Comprehension Strategies, J. Burkhardt and F. Ditienne (Ergonomic Psychology Group, INRIA), and S. Wiedenbeck (University of Nebraska) # Rapid System Understanding: Two COBOL Case Studies, A. van Deursen and T. Kuipers (CWI) # Partial Comprehension of Complex Programs, K. Erdos and H. Sneed (Software Engineering Services GmbH) 6:30p Reception Day 2, June 25 8:30a - 10a Keynote: Human cognition of complex thought patterns - how much is our perception of the present determined by our experience of the past, Harry Sneed (Software Engineering Services GmbH) 10a - 10:30a Break 10:30a - 12p Paper Session 5: Parsing, Chair: G. Antoniol (IRST) # Current Parsing Techniques in Software Renovation Considered Harmful, M. van den Brand (CWI), A. Sellink, and C. Verhoef (University of Amsterdam) # Parsing Minimization when Extracting Information from Code in the Prescence of conditional Compilation, T. Lethbridge (University of Ottawa) # Specifying the Semantics of Machine Instructions, C. Cifuentes (University of Queensland) Paper Session 6: Decomposition, Chair: C. Boldyreff (University of Durham) # Decomposing Legacy Programs: A First Step Towards Migrating to Client-Server Platforms, G. Canfora, A. Cimitile, A. De Lucia (University of Sannio), and G.A. Di Lucca (University of Naples) # Program Slicing in Understanding of Large Programs, B. Korel (Illinois Institute of Technology) # Design Pattern Recovery in Object-Oriented Software, G. Antoniol, R. Fiutem, and L. Cristoforetti (ITC- IRST) 12p - 1:30p Lunch 1:30p - 3p Working Session 1: Cognitive Aspects, Chair: K. Kontogiannis (University of Waterloo) Working Session 2: Support Mechanisms, Chair: G. Antoniol (IRST) Working Session 3: Maturing the Practice, C. Boldyreff (University of Durham) 3p -3:30p Break 3:30p - 5p Tool Demonstrations 8p Social Dinner Day 3, June 26 830a - 10a Paper Session 7: Empirical Studies, A. Quilici (University of Hawaii at Manoa) # Program Understanding Behavior during Adptation of large Scale Software, A. von Mayrhauser (Colorado State University) # Studying Work Practices to assist tool Design in Software Engineering, J. Singer (NRC) # Archetypal Source Code Searches: A survey of software developers and maintainers, S. Sim (University of Toronto) Paper Session 8: Program Analysis, C. Cifuentes (University of Queensland) # On Building A Toolset for Dynamic Analysis of Concurrent Java Programs, Alessio Bechini (University of Pisa), and Kuo-Chung Tai (North Carolina State University) # The Feedback Compiler, D. Binkley (Loyola College) # Automatic Detection of Interaction Patterns for Parallel Program Analysis and Development, B. Di Martino, A. Mazzeo, N. Mazzocca (University of Naples), and U. Villano (IRSIP, CNR, Naples) 10 a - 1030a Break 1030a - 12p Working Session 4: Leveraging the Web, M. Vans (Hewlett-Packard) Working Session 5: Black-Box Understanding, B. Korel (Illinois Institute of Technology) Working Session 6: The Year 2000 Problem, P. Linos (Tennessee Technological University) 12 p - 130p Lunch 130p - 3p Working Session Reports 3 p Close ********************************************************************** IWPC'98 Registration Form Return this registration form to: IEEE Computer Society IWPC'98 Registration 1730 Massachusetts Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20036-1992 Fax: 202-728-0884 Phone: 202-371-1013 (sorry, no phone registrations) Name__________________________________________________________________ Affiliation___________________________________________________________ Mailing Address_______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ Daytime Phone Number_________________________________________________________ Fax Number__________________________________________________________ E-mail address_______________________________________________________________ IEEE/CSMembership Number:_________________________________ Do not include my mailing address on: __Non-society mailing lists __Meeting attendee lists Workshop Registration Fees (Please check appropriate fee) Advance (received by June 8) On-Site (received after June 8) Member __US $260 __US $300 Nonmember __US $320 __US $370 Student __US $100 __US $100 Workshop registration fee includes admission to the workshop, refreshment breaks, the workshop luncheon, and one copy of the workshop proceedings. Student fee does not include the luncheon. Total Enclosed (in US dollars): $_________ Method of Payment (All payments must be in US dollars, drawn on US banks.) __Personal Check __Company Check __Traveler's Check (Please make checks payable to IEEE Computer Society). __Purchase Order (U.S. organizations only) __VISA __Mastercard __American Express __Diners Club Card Number:_________________________________ Expiration Date:_____________________________ Cardholder Name:_____________________________ Signature:___________________________________ Written requests for refunds must be received in the registration office no later than June 17 1998. Refunds are subject to a $50 processing fee. All no-show registrations will be billed in full. Students are required to show current picture ID cards at the time of registration. Registrations after June 8 1998 will be accepted on-site only. ********************************************************************** IWPC'98 June 24-26, Ischia, Italy, **** HOTEL RESERVATION FORM Please send this form not later than June 5, 1998 to: Hotel Continental Terme Via M. Mazzella, 74 80077 ISCHIA (NA), ITALY phone: + 39 81 991588 - ax: + 39 81 982929 Name: ............................................................ Affiliation: ..................................................... Address: ......................................................... City: ............................................................ ZC: ...................... Country: .............................. Phone: ........................................................... Fax: ............................................................. E-mail: .......................................................... Please reserve the following rooms: from (in): .................. to (out): ..................... Double single use n. .............. Twin / Double n. .............. to be shared with: .......................................... PRICES (per room, per day, taxes and VAT 10% included) Hotel Continental Terme (****) Double Room (two people) Lit. 300,000 Double Room single use Lit. 200,000 Prices include half board (room, breakfast, and dinner) The first night will be charged if advance reservation is not cancelled 24 hours before the arrival date. Payment is possible (please tick one): __ by international cheque made out to Continental Terme srl __ by credit card __ VISA __ AMEXCO __ DINERS __ MASTERCARD Card #: ....................................................... Exp. Date: .................................................... Card owner: ................................................... Date: ......................................................... Signature: .................................................... ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Faculty Positions ###################################################################### From: Bruce Schafer Oregon Master of Software Engineering Program The Oregon Master of Software Engineering (OMSE) Program is a cooperative, professional master's program in support of the rapidly growing software industry in the Portland, OR metropolitan area. The OMSE Program has been under development for more than two years by a committee representing the Portland software industry and four Oregon universities: Oregon Graduate Institute, Oregon State University, Portland State University, and the University of Oregon. The OMSE curriculum is innovative both in content and in delivery, intended to attract working professionals who wish to acquire and hone up-to-date skills in software engineering. The program is now offering pilot courses, and plans to accept degree students beginning in fall 1998. Faculty positions are open at all levels and at each of the four participating schools. Some positions are primarily devoted to teaching in the OMSE program; others carry research or other responsibilities at the school. Considerable flexibility exists in crafting positions to meet the needs of highly qualified individuals. Appointments will be made starting immediately, through fall 1999, although it is expected that many positions will begin in fall 1998. Funding is available for about six full-time positions. OMSE is administered under the Oregon College of Engineering and Computer Science, an association of the four Universities. Its courses will initially be offered in conventional classrooms in the Portland metropolitan area, with eventual expansion to a state-wide distance-learning program. Portland is one of the most livable cities in the United States, situated in a region justly famous for its low-key lifestyle and unparalleled recreational opportunities. Each university maintains an internet website, linked to the OMSE site at http://www.cs.pdx.edu/omse. If you have questions, you can contact the program at omsep@cs.pdx.edu, or (503)725-2901, or any of the individual universities through their websites. We invite you to join Curt Cook, Dick Fairley, Stewart Faulk, Dick Hamlet, Warren Harrison, Dick Kieburtz, John McHugh, Greg Rothermel, Zary Segal, and Michal Young in OMSE in Oregon. Applications should be sent to: Bruce Schafer, Interim Director OMSE, 250 Mill Street Building Portland State University Box 751 Portland, OR 97207 Please explain in detail your particular interest in the program, including the kind of position for which you are applying, and the school(s) where positions interest you. Include a curriculum vitae and the names of three professional references. We prefer hardcopy applications by conventional postal mail. The participating Departments are described below. OREGON GRADUATE INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (OGI) Located in the Portland suburbs and in Oregon's high tech corridor, the Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology offers MS and PhD degrees and conducts internationally acclaimed research (external funding close to to $8M annually). The Computer Science Department is the most succesful department at OGI; our educational programs tailored for professional engineers are influenced by our research, and the department is increasingly being recognized as having significant impact on regional industry. OGI is a private graduate school with no undergraduate programs. Faculty do not have tenure, but are instead awarded term contracts. Each member of faculty is responsible for and rewarded for their contributions to our educational and research programs. PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY (PSU) PSU is the urban campus of the Oregon university system, located in the heart of downtown Portland close to cultural and community resources. PSU is noted for its innovative general-education program and its varied, non-traditional student body. The Computer Science Department emphasizes research, teaching, and interaction with industry. It offers the B.S. (CSAB accredited) and M.S. degrees. Computer Science faculty have substantial opportunities for cooperation with other schools and campuses, for example, PSU's School of Business Administration, and the nearby State medical school, Oregon Health Sciences University. The teaching load for tenure-track faculty has traditionally been the lightest in the state system. OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY (OSU) Portland-Area Faculty The CS Dept. at OSU is looking for excellent teachers with outstanding interpersonal skills, initiative, and resourcefulness to help build a first-class program meeting the needs of Oregon's working professionals. Responsibilities include developing and teaching courses in the Portland metropolitan area and serving as a liaison between the Department and local industry. The teaching load will be two courses per term. Applicants must have a master's degree in CS, computer engineering, or software engineering; a Ph.D. in one of these fields is desirable. Applicants must have at least three years' industrial experience working as a software engineer. Instructors will be appointed to renewable fixed-term contracts at highly competitive salaries, based upon qualifications and experience. OSU is an AA/EEO employer and has a policy of being responsive to dual-career needs. UNIVERSITY OF OREGON (UO) The University of Oregon is located in Eugene, a community rated among the most livable in the nation. The University is a member of the prestigous Association of American Universities, houses the largest research library in the state, and has been cited by national publications as one of the six most "wired" campuses in the country. The Department of Computer and Information Science offers B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees. It is located in its own recently constructed building on the UO campus. The Department emphasizes interdisciplinary research and is associated with the NSF-funded Software Engineering Research Center (SERC), the Computational Intelligence Research Laboratory (CIRL), the Cognitive and Decision Sciences Institute, and the Computational Science Institute (CSI). ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Contact and General Information about FASE The Forum for Advancing Software engineering Education (FASE) is published on the 15th of each month by the FASE editorial board. Send newsletter articles to one of the editors, preferably by category: Articles pertinent to corporate and government training to Kathy Beckman ; Academic education, and all other categories to Don Bagert . 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). Everyone that is receiving this is on the FASE mailing list. If you wish to leave this list, write to and, in the text of your message (not the subject line), write: signoff 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 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 Please try to limit FASE-TALK to discussion items related to software engineering education and training; 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. FASE-TALK is also used by the editors for "breaking stories" i.e. news that we feel that you would want to hear about before the next issue of FASE comes out. (We do this sparingly, though.) As always, there is no cost for subscribing to either FASE or FASE-TALK! Send requests for information problem reports, returned mail, or other correspondence about this newsletter to If it is a LOC (letter of comment) that can be included as such in a future issue of FASE, please put "letter of comment" (without the quotes) as the subject. Back issues (dating from the very first issue) can be found on the web (with each Table of Contents) at or through ftp at . The FASE Staff: Don Bagert -- Academic/Misc Editor, ListMaster, and Archivist Dept. of Computer Science 8th and Boston Texas Tech University Lubbock TX 79409-3104 USA Phone: 806-742-1189 Fax: 806-742-3519 Email: bagert@ttu.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: Kathy.Beckman@cdsi.com 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