Instructor

• Michael Grasso, MD, PhD
• About the Instructor
• Home Page: MichaelGrasso.com
• Office Hours - M/W, 4:30pm - 5:30pm, ITE 225, by appointment

Time and Location

• M/W 5:30pm- 6:45pm in Sondheim 107
• August 31st through December 12th

Description

This course is an introduction to the basic concepts of software engineering including software lifecycle, requirements analysis, design, coding, testing  and documentation.  Professional ethics in computer science and the social impact of computing are discussed.  Additional topics may include tools for software development, software metrics, and software maintenance. The objectives of the course are met using classroom presentations, guest lecturers, and a semester-long project developed in a team setting. Prerequisite: CMSC 341.

Objectives

The major objective of this course is to give the student a real-life software development experience. This objective is accomplished through the student's participation on a team that will develop a single software product over the course of one semester.  Product development will follow the full software development lifecycle from requirements analysis through product delivery. More specific objectives are:

• To understand the software development process
• To learn the definition, goals, and principles of software engineering and how to apply them
• To experience working in a software development team
• To experience taking a leadership role in a software development team
• To enhance verbal and written communication skills
• To learn about professional ethics in computer science

Textbook (all are on one-day reserve in the UMBC library)

• Software Engineering, Ian Sommerville, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, or 9th edition, Addison Wesley (on reserve)
  • Lecture slides are online at the www.SoftwareEngineering-9.com
• Writing Effective Use Cases, Alistair Cockburn (on reserve)
  • Lecture slides and other information at Cockburn's website
• Mythical Man-Month (on reserve)

Grading

Your final grade will be broken down as follows.

• Lecture Grades (40%)
  • 10% Exam 1
  • 10% Exam 2
  • 10% Exam 3
  • 2.5% Silver Bullet Essay
  • 2.5% Mythical Man-Month Essay
  • 5% Attendance
• Project Grades (60%)
  • 5% Status Reports
  • 10% Software Requirements Specification
  • 10% Software Design Document
  • 10% Test Plan and Code Inspection Report
  • 15% Final Product - Software and Documentation
  • 10% Project Demonstration and Final Project Delivery
• Other requirements
  • To pass the course, you must have at least a C average on your exams, attendance, project demonstration, and final product.
  • Each student is required to participate in every phase of the group project, and write a portion of every document that is developed by the team.
  • Attendance is mandatory on days when there is an invited speaker, for the project demonstration, and at the Post Mortem exercise.

Academic integrity.

• Academic honesty is expected at all times in order to pass this course.
• Any incident of given or receiving aid on an exam or assignment, plagiarizing, falsifying, infringing on the rights of others to fair access, failing to report violations that are witnessed, failing to seek clarification when proper boundaries are unclear, or violating any other commonly understood principle of academic honesty may result in a grade of 'F' for the course.
• Refer to the UMBC site for academic integrity: http://www.umbc.edu/integrity/students.html.

Student responsibilities.

• You are expected to attend all classes and be on time. If you miss a class, you are responsible for getting the notes, handouts, and any verbal information given during class from a fellow classmate or the course web site. Habitual absences or tardiness may be factored into your final grade. In addition, students who compromise the integrity of  the class through talking or other disruptive behavior may be asked to leave and may have their final grades reduced accordingly.
• You are responsible for all material covered in class, even if it is not in the textbook. You are responsible for all material in the readings, even if they are not covered in class. You are responsible for completing all assigned reading before it is covered in class.
• Late work may be accepted, at the instructor's discretion, with prior permission, and with a grade penalty of 10% a day. No makeup exams will be given, except for unforseen emergencies (with documentation of the emergency provided upon request), an unavoidable conflict such as the birth of a child (with prior approval given by the instructor), or conflict with a sanctioned UMBC event (with prior approval given by the instructor).
• Grades are not rounded up. However, borderline grades may be resolved by class participation, customer satisfaction, other intangibles, and whether all requirements were completed on time.

Final letter grades will be determined as follows.

• A = 90% or better
• B = 80% or better
• C = 70% or better
• D = 60% or better
• F = below 60
• P = 70% or better (for Pass/Fail students)
• Audit = Credit only given for students who fully participated in the class

Schedule

Lectures are based on readings from Sommerville and Cockburn. Links to slides and other information is provided. However, this is not a substitute for reading the material from the text.

• SP - Software Engineering Process (Sommerville Ch 1 Text, Sommerville 1, Sommerville 2)
• RA - Requirements Analysis (Sommerville 4, Sommerville 5)
• UC - Use Cases and System Modeling (Sommerville 5)
  • Susan Mitchell's PowerPoint Slides
  • Use Case Fundamentals
  • Structuring Use Cases With Goals
  • CRaG Use Case Tutorial
• SD - Software Design (Sommerville 6, Sommerville 7)
• TR - Software Testing (Sommerville 8, Sommerville 24)
• ST - Special Topics (TBD)

Documents

Essays

For each paper assigned, you will write a one-page paper that summarizes the article. You should ue a 12-point font, one-inch margins, and single spacing. Your should summarize the salient points of the assigned paper, and explain how you might use this information on the group project.

• No Silver Bullet
• Mythical Man-Month

Project

• Project Description
• Project Availabilty Form
• Job Descriptions
• Interim Review
• Final Delivery
• Student Grade
• Team Grade

Document Templates

• SRS
• SDD
• UI
• CIR
• TR
• Admin
• Use Case

Reports

• BiWeekly Status
• Coding Summary
• User Satisfaction

Examples

• BiWeekly Status
• Nonfunctional Requirements
• Team Charter
• User Manual
• Use Case 1  Use Case 2  Use Case 3