ICS 280 Winter 2004

ICS 280: Seminar in Information and Computer Science
Research Methodology for Software

Winter Quarter 2004

Instructor:	Susan Elliott Sim (ses at ics [dot] uci [dot] edu)
Office hours:	Tuesday 2:00-3:00pm in ICS2 217 or by email appointment
Lectures:	Tuesday and Thursday 12:30-2:00pm in ...
Web site:	http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ses/teaching/ics280/

Description - Schedule - Assignments - Resources

Description

Research methodology is the study of how to perform scientific research. This course looks at strategies for performing research in software engineering, from problem formulation to validation of a proposed solution. It will discuss some basic questions about the nature of science and of software engineering, and it will also give students experience with forming a research plan and with specific validation methods.

Schedule

The class will meet twice per week and meetings will be a combination of lectures, student presentations and discussion. We will be reading literature from a wide range of disciplines as well as looking at informal knowledge about software and research. The format of the students presentations will be discussed further in the section on Grading and Assignments.

	Tuesday	Thursday
Week 1	January 13 Course Orientation (Lecture) Lecture slides	January 15 Definitions of Software Engineering Readings Mary Shaw, "Prospects for an Engineering Discipline of Software," IEEE Software, Volume 7, Number 6, November 1990, pp.15-24. (Presenter: Lihua) Doug Comer, How to criticize computer scientists. NRC Collection of Definitions Lihua's slides
Week 2	January 20 Philosophy of Science Readings Bruce I. Blum, Beyond Programming, Oxford University Press, 1996. Chapter 2 (Presenters: Ping and Chris) George Johnson. "Who created the big bang?", The National Post, November 17, 2003. Ping and Chris' slides	January 22 Sociology of Science Readings C. James Goodwin, "Chapter 1: Scientific Thinking in Psychology", in Research in Psychology: Methods and Design, Third Edition. John Wiley and Sons, 2003. (Presenter: Fei) Susan Leigh Star. "Cooperation Without Consensus in Scientific Problem Solving: Dynamics of Closure in Open Systems," in CSCW: Cooperation or Conflict? edited by Steve Easterbrook, Springer Verlag, London, 1993. (Presenter: Jigar) Jigar's slides
Week 3	January 27 No Meeting	January 29 Library Skills Interactive Learning Center, Science Library
Week 4	February 3 Scientific Paradigms Readings Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The University of Chicago Press, 1996. (Presenters: Jim and Joanna) (Optional) Paul Hoyningen-Huene, Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions: Thomas S. Kuhn's Philosophy of Science, translated by Alexander T. Levine, The University of Chicago Press, 1993. Chapters 4 and 5 Jim's slides on first half of Kuhn Joanna's slides on second half of Kuhn	February 5 Research Strategies in Software Readings Steve Easterbrook. Research Idioms. Mary Shaw, "Writing Good Software Engineering Research Papers," Position paper - Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Software Engineering, Portland, Oregon, IEEE Computer Society, 2003, pp. 726-736. (Presenter: Hazel) Hazel's slides
Week 5	February 10 Finding a Problem (Lecture) Readings Steve Easterbrook, How Theses Get Written: Some Cool Tips Joan Grusec, Robert S. Lockhart, and Gary C. Walters, Foundations of Psychology, Copp Clark Pitman Ltd, 1990, pages 428-435. Michael Ashcraft, Human Memory and Cognition, Scott, Foresman and Company, 1989, pages 630-640.	February 12 Finding a Result (Discussion- no presentations) Readings Dan Berry, My Advice on How to Finish your Ph.D. Doug Comer, How To Write A Dissertation. Spencer Rugaber, Thoughts on the Structure of CS Dissertations.
Week 6	February 17 Research Ethics Readings Andrea V. Spata, Chapter 4, "Ethical Considerations in Research," in Research Methods: Science and Diversity, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2003. Janice Singer and Norman G. Vinson, "Ethical Issues in Empirical Studies of Software Engineering," IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Vol. 28, No. 12, December, 2002. (Presenter: Leila) Leila's slides Lecture slides	February 19 Models and Theory (Lecture) Readings Will H. Moore, "Evaluating Theory in Political Science." Hubert M. Blalock, "Can We Move from Many Facts to Fewer Propositions?" in Basic Dilemmas in the Social Sciences, Sage Publications, 1984. Karl Marx, "31. The Method of Political Economy," in The Essential Writings, edited by Frederic L. Bender, Harper and Row, New York, 1972. Lecture slides
Week 7	February 24 Building Evidence Readings Norman Fenton, Shari Lawrence Pfleeger, and Robert L. Glass, "Science and Substance: A Challenge to Software Engineers," IEEE Software, pp. 86-95, July, 1994 (Presenter: Alex) Shari Lawrence Pfleeger and Winifred Menezes, "Marketing Technology to Software Practitioners," IEEE Software, pp. 27-33, January/February, 2000. (Presenter: Alex) (optional) Samuel T. Redwine and William E. Riddle, "Software Technology Maturation," Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Software Engineering , London, England, pp. 189-200, 1985. Alex's slides on Science vs. Substance Alex's slides on Marketing Technology	February 26 Overview of Empirical Methods (Lecture) Readings Walter F. Tichy. "Should Computer Scientists Experiment More?" IEEE Computer, Volume 31, Issue 5, May 1998, pp. 32-40. (Presenter: Hazel) Joseph E. McGrath, "Methodology Matters: Doing Research in the Behavioral and Social Sciences," in Readings in human-computer interaction : toward the year 2000, edited by Baecker et al., Morgan Kaufmann, 1995, pp. 152-169. Hazel's slides Lecture slides
Week 8	March 2 Data Analysis (Lecture) Readings Christopher J. Wild and George A. F. Selber, "Chapter 1. What is statistics?" in Chance Encounters: A First Course in Data Analysis and Inference, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 2000. Brian D. Haig, Grounded Theory as Scientific Method. W.S. Robinson, "The Logical Structure of Analytic Induction," American Sociological Review, Vol. 16, Issue 6, pp. 812-818, December, 1951.	March 4 Action Research and Benchmarking Readings Gerald I. Susman and Roger D. Evered, "An Assessment of the Scientific Merits of Action Research," Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 582-603, 1978. (Presenter: Scott) Susan Elliott Sim, Steve Easterbrook, and Richard C. Holt. "Using Benchmarking to Advance Research: A Challenge to Software Engineering, Proceedings of the Twenty-fifth International Conference on Software Engineering, Portland, Oregon, pp. 74-83, 2003. (Presenter: Wenhui) Scott's slides Wenhui's slides
Week 9	March 9 Case Studies Readings Robert K. Yin, Case Study Research, Third Edition, Sage Publications, 2003. (Presenter:) (Optional) Barbara Kitchenham, Lesley Pickard, and Shari Lawrence Pfleeger, "Case Studies for Method and Tool Evaluation," IEEE Software, July, 1995. Lecture slides	March 11 Surveys and Ethnography Readings Shari Lawarence Pfleeger and Barbara A. Kitchenham, "Principles of Survey Research," Software Engineering Notes. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. (Presenter: Justin) Robert S. Weiss, Learning from Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies, The Free Press, 1995. Chapter 1. Bob Anderson, "Work, Ethnography, and System Design," in The Encyclpedia of Microcomputers, Vol. 20, pp. 159-183, edited by A. Ken and J.G. Williams, Marcel Dekker, New York, 1997. (Presenter: Ryan) Justin's slides Ryan's slides
Week 10	March 16 Publishing Readings Rober K. Merton, with Hariett Zuckerman, "Institutionalized Patterns of Evaluation in Science," in The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations, edited by Norman W. Storer, The University of Chicago Press, 1973,pages 460-496. Murray S. Davis, "That's Interesting: Towards a Phenomenology of Sociology and a Sociology of Phenomenology", Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Vol.1, pp.309-344, 1971. (Presenter: Olga) Olga's slides	March 18 Course Summary (Lecture) Readings Bruce I. Blum, Beyond Programming, Oxford University Press, 1996. Chapter 3 (Presenter: Jigar) Jigar's slides Lecture slides

Recommended Textbook:
C. James Goodwin, Research in Psychology: Methods and Design, Third Edition, John Wiley and Sons, 2003.

Grading and Assignments

Grading.
Assignments 30%
Micro Thesis 50%
Discussion 10%
Participation 10%

Assignments.

Due Date Grade Value

1. Research Statement Tuesday, January 20 5%

2. Categorizing Papers Thursday, February 26 20%

3. Abstracts Thursday, March 4 5%

Micro Thesis.
The term project for this course is a Micro Thesis.

There is a Plan B available as an alternative to those who do not wish to do a Micro Thesis.

Discussion.
During the term, each of you will be asked to lead a discussion on one of the course readings. For this, you should prepare an oral summary (10-15 minutes) of the paper, and create some discussion points to lead the class discussion (e.g. one slide). The discussion points could be any thoughts you have about the paper, such as anything you think is controversial in the paper, comments about research methodology, questions about things that are unclear in the paper, ideas for follow up research, strengths and weaknesses of the paper, etc. Try to choose open ended questions/issues that will provoke some class discussion.

Resources

Dave Patterson, How to have a bad career in research/academia. [slides] [multimedia]

(C) University of California 2004.

	Due Date	Grade Value
1. Research Statement	Tuesday, January 20	5%
2. Categorizing Papers	Thursday, February 26	20%
3. Abstracts	Thursday, March 4	5%

ICS 280: Seminar in Information and Computer Science Research Methodology for Software

Description

Schedule

Grading and Assignments

Resources

ICS 280: Seminar in Information and Computer Science
Research Methodology for Software