Forum for Advancing Software engineering Education (FASE) Volume 9 Number 04 (111th Issue) - April 15, 1999 825 subscribers Note: If you have problems with the format of this document, try ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Table of Contents Next Month's Topic: Software Process Improvement Education Upcoming Topics News Items ACM Forms Blue Ribbon Panel on Licensing in Software Engineering Licensing Articles Calls for Participation CSEE&T 2000 PSP(SM)-TSPi Summer Workshops for Faculty ICSE BOF on Software Engineering Education SWEBOK Call for Reviewers and Review Captains Advances in Software Specification and Verification Minitrack Contact and General Information about FASE ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ By: Don Bagert (Academic/Misc Editor) Next Month's Topic: Software Process Improvement Education Software process improvement (SPI) is an essential topic for a software engineering curriculum. Many degree programs have a specific course in software process improvement, while others intersperce it throughout the curriculum. Some SPI courses focus on a particular method (such as ISO 9000), while others discuss several methods. Articles on how software process improvement is and should be taught are sought for publication. If interested, please contact Don Bagert . Submissions are due by May 8; please follow the format for articles outlined at the end of each issue. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ By: Don Bagert (Academic/Misc Editor) Upcoming Topics Sept 1998: Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (Update) Robert Dupuis Pierre Bourque Universite du Quebec a Montreal TBA: Clients, Students, and Projects Guest Editor: Susan A. Mengel Texas Tech University For more information about a particular issue's topic, please contact the corresponding guest editor. Please refer to the article format provided at the end of each issue when making submissions, which are always made directly to the guest editor. Here are some possible topics for future issues: * Accreditation * CASE Tools * Distance Learning * The Relationship Between SE and Other Disciplines If you are interested in being a guest editor for any of these topics, or have any suggestions for future topics, please contact me at bagert@ttu.edu. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ News Items ###################################################################### From: Dennis J. Frailey ACM Forms Blue Ribbon Panel on Licensing in Software Engineering The ACM Council has formed a blue ribbon panel to advise it on the subject of software engineering licensing. Below are the members of the panel and its charter. Regards, Dennis J. Frailey ___ Members of the ACM Advisory Panel on Professional Licensing in Software Engineering 1. Fran Allen, co-chair 2. Barry Boehm 3. Fred Brooks 4. Jim Browne 5. Dave Farber 6. Sue Graham 7. Jim Gray 8. Paula Hawthorn, co-chair 9. Ken Kennedy 10. Nancy Leveson 11. Dave Negal 12. Peter Neumann 13. Dave Parnas 14. Bill Wulf The goal of ACM's Advisory Panel on Professional Licensing in Software Engineering is to make recommendations to ACM Council regarding the role that ACM, as a professional computing society, should take on pressing issues related to the licensing of software engineers. The panel has been formed in part because of the recent decision by the State of Texas to license software engineers and in part because of a set of concerns expressed by ACM Council regarding ACM's present involvement in these issues. The panel is charged * with assessing the current role of ACM as part of a joint effort with the IEEE Computer Society to oversee and actively participate in the development of professionalism and licensing guidelines through the Software Engineering Coordinating Committee (SWECC); * with recommending an appropriate role for ACM to take with respect to these issues; and * with providing a relatively brief final report to ACM Council by its next meeting, which will be held on May 16, 1999. There are no restrictions whatsoever on the recommendations that the panel might make. The bulk of the panel's work will be done via email and conference calls. The panel may also choose to meet. ACM will provide whatever financial and staff support is required. While the panel is free to determine its course, we expect it to consult with the representatives of the areas of ACM that have an interest in the topic of software engineering. These include relevant SIGs, especially SIGSOFT (David Notkin, Chair), the Ed Board (Peter Denning, Chair), and the ACM representatives to SWECC (Dennis Frailey is the lead representative). [For more information, contact Paula Hawthorn at pbhawthorn@mindspring.com.] ###################################################################### By: Don Bagert (Academic/Misc Editor) Licensing Articles An article entitled "Taking the Lead in Licensing Software Engineers" was published in the April 1999 Communications of the ACM, pages 27-29. A "Viewpoint" page of the March 1999 Engineering Times, published by the (U.S.) National Society of Professional Engineers, was devoted to responses to the previously-published statement "Software engineers should be licensed in the same way as engineers in the traditional disciplines". Readers had been asked to agree or disagree with the statement. Fifteen letters were published that agreed with the statements, while nine letters appeared that disagreed. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Calls for Participation ###################################################################### From: Peter J. Knoke CALL FOR PAPERS 13th Conference on Software Engineering Education & Training March 6-8 2000 * Renaissance Hotel, Austin, Texas USA Special Theme: SOFTWARE ENGINEERING'S COMING OF AGE Sponsored by IEEE Computer Society Supported by SEI ----------------------- Software Engineering has come of age. In recent years there has been much progress in areas such as software development processes and tools, the area of reuse is being vigorously pursued, and we now have licensed Software Engineers in Texas with other states expected to follow soon. Software Engineering has also received much public attention because of the well known Y2K problem. It has already resulted in very large software maintenance costs (estimated at $300 billion in the US alone), and much larger Y2K-related legal costs have been predicted. However, Software Engineering educators and trainers have an unprecedented opportunity to show the interested and watching public how they will help to avoid such problems in the future. Please join a host of educators and trainers in the Software Engineering discipline for the premier international conference on the education and training of professional software developers. The 13th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEET 2000) continues a tradition of offering guidance, promoting innovation and collaboration, and stimulating new instructional approaches to SE education and training. It is the only conference devoted entirely to improvement in these areas. CSEET2000 conference will coordinate and synchronize its schedules with the co-located ACM SIGCSE (Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education) conference (3/9-3/12). Joint workshops are planned to provide an opportunity for both Software Engineers and Computer Scientists to exchange ideas on how their activities can be more effectively integrated. Submissions: You are invited to submit research papers, experience reports, posters, proposals for workshops, and panel discussions. Research papers should present new ideas, approaches, perspectives, empirical results or concepts that stimulate new ways of thinking about SE education and training. Practice and experience papers should describe education and raining experiences, outcomes, insights gained, and lessons learned. You are also invited to suggest innovative topics for informal meetings and birds-of-a-feather sessions. Accepted contributions will appear in the conference proceedings. Themes include Software Engineering as a Profession, Industry Education and Training Issues, and University Curricula. For additional details, please contact the Conference Chair or the Program Chair or check the www address below. http://www.se.cs.ttu.edu/CSEET2000 Conference Chair Susan A. Mengel (Texas Tech University) mengel@ttu.edu Program Chair Pete Knoke (University of Alaska Fairbanks) ffpjk@uaf.edu Submission Due Dates Workshop proposals: May 27, 1999 All other submissions: September 17, 1999 ###################################################################### PSP(SM)-TSPi SUMMER WORKSHOPS FOR FACULTY Dates: PSP Workshop 13-17 July 1999 TSPi Workshop 19-21 July 1999 Location: University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC Sponsors: Software Engineering Institute and the University of South Carolina The workshops will provide Personal Software Process(SM) (PSP)(SM) and Team Software Process for Education (TSPi) training for faculty who plan to use the PSP and/or TSPi in an academic computing program, e.g., computer science, information science, software engineering, computer engineering, etc. The PSP, developed by Watts Humphrey at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), is designed to help students and engineers to organize and plan their work, track their performance, manage software quality, and analyze and improve their personal process. The TSPi, also developed by Humphrey and based upon the Team Software process(SM) (TSP)(SM), guides students through the steps of a team software project course. The pre-defined TSPi process enables students to reduce time spent on process definition and planning, allowing more time for design of a quality product. The PSP workshop includes instruction and discussion of PSP concepts, techniques and process elements. PSP exercises and programming assignments are used to reinforce lecture topics. In addition, the workshop will provide information and guidance on how to introduce PSP into a curriculum. The PSP is proving to be an excellent way to introduce good software engineering practices into a computing curriculum and prepare students to work in an industrial setting where planning and quality are critical. Participants must be conversant with a high-level language (preferably C, C++, Ada, Java, or Pascal). The TSP workshop will concentrate upon planning, organization, and execution of a TSPi course. It will examine the objectives of the TSPi and then introduce the TSPi process, student roles in the process, and the forms and scripts required for it. Group exercises will emphasize the role of the instructor in working with students as they follow the TSPi process. An automated tool used for planning and task and schedule tracking will be made available to workshop participants. TSPi assumes that all students are familiar with the PSP. Similarly, the TSPi workshop will assume that faculty are already familiar with the PSP. Faculty may attend the TSPi workshop only if 1) they have attended one of the PSP summer faculty workshops in 1997, 1998, or 1999; or 2) present evidence that they have already taught a PSP course. PSP workshop participants are expected to bring a laptop with a compiler or development system for the language in which they will do their PSP assignments. The TSPi workshop will not require any code development. The TSPi support tool uses MS Excel. Instructors Dan Burton is a senior Member of the Technical Staff in the Software Process Program at the SEI. Dan has extensive industrial experience in teaching and consulting about PSP. Tom Hilburn is a Professor of Computer Science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Tom has been a leader in efforts to integrate software engineering and the PSP into academic computing programs. Tom has used preliminary versions of the TSPi for two courses at Embry-Riddle. Bob Cannon is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of South Carolina. As a Visiting Scientist at the SEI, Bob has worked in technology transfer for PSP and TSP and also in PSP course development. He has taught PSP courses for the SEI, the South Carolina Research Authority, and at USC. Course Fee PSP Workshop $500 for Faculty from U.S. Schools $700 for International Faculty TSP Workshop $300 for faculty from U.S. schools $400 for international faculty Both workshops $700 for faculty from U.S. schools $900 for international faculty (The fee does not cover transportation, meals or lodging.) How to Apply Apply online at http://cs.sc.edu/~cannon/psp or download the application form and send by mail to: PSP-TSPi Workshop Department of Computer Science University of South Carolina Columbia, SC 29208 Application by: May 14, 1999 Notification by: May 21, 1999 Phone or email questions about the workshop may be addressed to: phone: 412-268-3947 email: psp-TSPi@sc.edu For more information on the workshop go to the World Wide Web: http://www.cs.sc.edu/~cannon/psp (SM) Personal Software Process, PSP, Team Software Process, and TSP are service marks of Carnegie Mellon University ###################################################################### [This is a repeat item from an earlier issue of FASE.] From: Pierre Bourque Call for Reviewers and Review Captains Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge Project Since 1993, the IEEE Computer Society has been actively promoting software engineering as a profession and a legitimate engineering discipline notably through its involvement in the Joint ACM-IEEE Computer Society Software Engineering Coordinating Committee (http://www.computer.org/tab/swecc/). This committee aims to foster and maintain software engineering as a professional computing discipline. The current chair of this committee is Leonard Tripp, 1999 President of the IEEE Computer Society. Gathering consensus by the profession on a core body of knowledge is a key milestone in all disciplines and has been identified as crucial for moving software engineering toward professional status. The purpose of the Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge is therefore to: - characterize the contents of the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge; - provide a topical access to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge; - promote a consistent view of software engineering worldwide; - clarify the place of, and set the boundary of, software engineering with respect to other disciplines such as computer science, project management, computer engineering and mathematics; - provide a foundation for curriculum development and for individual certification and licensing material. In 1998, a Straw Man version of the Guide was written to define the project's strategy and rationale, to gather momentum in the profession and to jumpstart the Stone Man phase by proposing a draft list of Knowledge Areas of software engineering and a draft list of Related Disciplines. Based on the results of this first phase, a Stone Man version is currently being developed with the corporate support of the ACM, Boeing, Comerica, the IEEE Computer Society, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Research Council of Canada and SAP Labs (Canada). The project is managed by the Universite du Quebec a Montreal. All final and intermediate deliverables of this project are or will be available free at www.swebok.org. Currently available are the Straw Man version of the Guide and a number of working and intermediate deliverables of the Stone Man phase. The specific deliverables of the Stone Man version are a: - Consensus on a list of Knowledge Areas; - Consensus on a list of topics and relevant reference materials for each Knowledge Area; - Consensus on a list of Related Disciplines; To be successful, the Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge project requires the contribution of a large number of people. An underlying principle of this project is consensus-building within the international software engineering community, which of course implies a large number, and a wide spectrum, of contributors. We are currently seeking Reviewers and Review Captains for the following Knowledge Areas: - Software Requirements Analysis - Software Design - Software Construction - Software Testing - Software Evolution and Maintenance - Software Configuration Management - Software Engineering Infrastructure - Software Quality Analysis - Software Engineering Management - Software Engineering Process ----------------------Reviewers--------------------------------------- Reviewers are responsible for: - Reading the Knowledge Area description and consulting the reference material provided by the KA Specialist - Providing comments from one specified viewpoint The criteria for selecting Reviewers are: - Knowledge in the Area; - Availability; - Ability to give articulate, constructive comments; - Representative of one of the viewpoints that we will identify: software engineering practitioners, academia, standards developers, regulators, etc. Schedule The plan is that the Reviewers will be called upon to contribute in the May and June 1999 timeframe as well as during the October 1999 timeframe. To submit your candidacy as a Reviewer, please complete and submit the electronic form available at www.swebok.org. For further information, please visit www.swebok.org or contact Robert Dupuis (robert.dupuis@uqam.ca) or Pierre Bourque (pierre.bourque@uqam.ca). All Reviewers will be recognized by having their name on the list of contributors. ----------------------Review Captains-------------------------- The reviewers will be grouped by viewpoint within each Knowledge Area. These groups of 5-10 reviewers will be assigned a Review Captain who will be responsible for compiling the reviewer comments for the Knowledge Area Specialist. The criteria for selecting Review Captains are: - Knowledge in the Area; - Availability; - Ability to synthesize various opinions. Schedule. The plan is that the Review Captains will be called upon to contribute during the June and July, 1999 timeframe. To submit your candidacy as a Review Captain, please complete and submit the electronic form available at www.swebok.org. For further information, please visit www.swebok.org or contact Robert Dupuis (robert.dupuis@uqam.ca) or Pierre Bourque (Pierre.Bourque@uqam.ca). All Review Captains will be recognized by having their name on the list of contributors. ************************************************** Pierre Bourque Directeur de la recherche appliquee Laboratoire de recherche en gestion des logiciels http://www.lrgl.uqam.ca/ Director of Applied Research Software Engineering Management Research Laboratory Co-editor, Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge http://www.swebok.org Departement d'informatique Universite du Quebec a Montreal Case postale 8888, succursale Centre-Ville Montreal (Quebec) Canada H3C 3P8 mailto : bourque.pierre@uqam.ca Telephone: (514) 987-3000 poste 0315 Fax : (514) 987-8477 ###################################################################### From: Nancy Mead BOF on Software Engineering Education at ICSE There will be a BOF on Software Engineering Education at ICSE this year. It is scheduled for Wednesday May 19, 7-8:30 PM. The tentative plan is to have a discussion of the big education issues, which will be voted on in advance by the attendees. A few folks will present their views on each issue, and others will respond. We'll cover as many as we can, and a summary of the session will appear in FASE. If you are planning to attend ICSE and would like to help out, please contact me at nrm@sei.cmu.edu . Double check the schedule once you get there to find the room location AND to confirm the date/time. I hope you can join in the festivities. ###################################################################### From: Ann Sobel Call for Papers for Advances in Software Specification and Verification Minitrack Part of the Emerging Technologies Track of the Thirty-third Annual Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences (HICSS) Maui, HI - January 4 - 7, 2000 Modern society is increasingly dependent on complex software systems in its critical infrastructures, including communication, finance, transportation, energy, and healthcare. As a result, the consequences of failures are becoming increasingly severe. The Advances in Software Specification and Verification minitrack focuses on research, development, and case studies that will help drive widespread use of rigorous specification and verification technologies, particularly for systems that exhibit severe consequences of failure, including mission- and safety-critical embedded systems and large-scale critical infrastructure systems. General topic areas include methods for scale up of specification and verification techniques to large systems, methods for complexity reduction in specifications, designing specifications for ease of verification, development of engineering practices and tools, and industry case studies. Papers are encouraged in the following areas: New techniques for specification of software systems Trace- and sequence-based approaches to specification Cleanroom methods for specification and verification Complexity reduction methods for scaling up specification and verification Developing specifications for effective verification Specifying and verifying non-functional properties such as survivability Specification and verification of legacy and component-based systems Model-checking approaches to verification Industrial case studies in software specification and verification Engineering practices and tools for specification and verification Minitrack Co-chairs: Ann Sobel Systems Analysis Department 230 J Kreger Hall Miami University Oxford, OH 45056 513-529-7541 (voice) soblea@muohio.edu Rick Linger Software Engineering Institute Carnegie Mellon University 4500 5th Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213 301-926-4858 (voice) rlinger@sei.cmu.edu Deadlines: April 15, 1999: 300-word abstract submitted to track chairs or minitrack chairs for guidance and indication of appropriate content. June 1, 1999: Full papers submitted to the appropriate minitrack chair Aug. 31, 1999: Minitrack Chair sends notice of accepted papers to Authors. Oct. 1, 1999: Accepted manuscripts, camera-ready, sent to minitrack chair; one author MUST register by this time. Nov. 1, 1999: Registration and payment for all others. Registrations received after this deadline may not be accepted due to space limitations. HICSS-33 consists of eight tracks: Collaboration Systems and Technology Track Decision Technologies for Management Digital Documents Track Emerging Technologies Track Information Technology in Health Care Track Internet and the Digital Economy Organizational Systems and Technology Track Software Technology Track For more information about these tracks and a list of minitracks each consist of, please check the HICSS web page for full listing of the minitracks: http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu Or contact the Track Administrator, Eileen Dennis, at edennis@uga.edu ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 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 . If the article for a FASE topic where there is a guest editor, the submission should instead be to that person. 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). [NEW SUBSCRIBE/UNSCRIBE INFORMATION - September 15, 1998] 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: unsubscribe fase To rejoin (or have someone else join) the FASE mailing list, write to subscribe fase For instance, if your name is Jane Smith, write: subscribe fase Jane Smith 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 For instance, if your name is Jane Smith, write: subscribe fase-talk Jane Smith 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! 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, P.E. -- 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