Informatics211

Office hours: After class, or by appointment

Time: Tuesday and Thursday 12:30–1:50PM

Web site: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~jajones/Informatics211.html

Class files: https://eee.uci.edu/toolbox/dropbox/index.php?op=openfolder&folder=282348

Catalog Description:

Study of the concepts, methods, and tools for the analysis, design, construction, and measurement of complex software-intensive systems. Underlying principles emphasized. State-of-the-art software engineering and promising research areas covered, including project management. Formerly ICS 221.

Detailed Description:

This class has two objectives: (1) provide a useful overview of the state of the art (2) introduce some of the research frontiers of the field. It accomplishes this through a mix of presentations and assignments focused on the state of the art, and readings from the research literature.

Grading:

There are four elements to your grade: a final exam, a research proposal project, short paper summaries, and class attendance and participation.

The final exam will entail your writing an evaluation of some sub-area(s) of software engineering and identifying what you believe to be promising, or at least necessary, research directions. You'll be able to choose, in advance, the sub-area(s) you'll write about. The purpose here is to demonstrate that you've thought substantively about an area of software engineering, to the point where you can identify some important needs, trends, opportunities, insights, ...

The proposal project will require you to explore some avenue of possible research. You’ll write a proposal for possible research much in the same way that proposals are written for research grants. When attending class and hearing our outside lecturers and when reading your reading assignments, you should be thinking of possible research projects that can take a new direction, or continue in their current direction, of research. Your proposal will be at most 10 pages (11 point font, Times New Roman). It should explain the motivation of why this area of research is needed and interesting, what has been done in the past (background section), why the existing research is not sufficient to produce your desired effects, your proposed approach, any evidence that supports that this is a good direction, and the people with which you intend to collaborate to perform this research. I recommend that you start thinking of possible projects early in the course, and when we have guest speakers, ask them questions to help shape that direction. You may schedule a meeting with them to discuss whether certain of your ideas have already been explored, what good background papers you should cite, etc.

The short paper summaries "allow you" to demonstrate that you've read and thought about the assigned readings. Readings are assigned, as shown in the schedule, each week of the class. You are obliged to write a short summary and analysis of each week's papers. I am not interested in only reading a paraphrase of each paper's abstract. I am interested in reading your assessment of each paper: what points do you believe to be the important ones? Do you believe those points? Why or why not? What points did the author(s) not address that they should have? Since multiple papers are assigned you'll have to learn how to present incisive, cut-to-the-chase (CTTC) analyses in few words.

Your CTTC's on each topic are due the night before class at midnight (i.e., the night before the discussion of those papers). They will then be “graded” by you the next morning before class — details will be given in class.

They must be submitted as follows:

•EEE dropbox --- use the dropbox for the particular assignment
•as a PDF (Adobe Acrobat) document
•by midnight Pacific time on the due date

Summary of Assessment:

Cut-to-the-chase summaries: 25%

Proposal project: 30%

Final exam: 25%

Class attendance and participation: 20%

No grades of incomplete (I) will be given for this course.

Course Evaluations

The window for fall quarter online evaluations will be open near the end of the quarter. Once the dates for evaluations are known, this information will be posted here.

Cheating

The UCI academic honesty policy applies. Consequences of cheating in this class: a letter in your UCI file, and the course grade is lowered, most likely to F. Material that is copied from books or Web pages needs to be quoted and the source must be given. If you plagiarize, you run the severe risk of failing the class, in a most disgraceful manner.

Disabilities

If you need an accommodation because of a disability, please contact the instructor and the Disability Services Center as soon as possible.

The majority of the readings in the course will be papers available through the IEEE or ACM Digital Libraries.

If you did not study software engineering as an undergraduate, the following books are recommended for background and reference.

•Software Engineering: Theory and Practice, by Hans van Vliet, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2000.
•The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering (Anniversary Edition), by Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., 1995, Addison-Wesley.

For additional coverage of software engineering research, consult the reading list for the Phase II exam in software.