COMP SCI 7036 - Software Engineering in Industry

North Terrace Campus - Semester 1 - 2020

This course will involve lectures and research into advanced topics concerning current software engineering methodologies and techniques. The course will include lectures on the advanced topics in software engineering and guest lectures by software engineering practitioners from local industry on how software engineering methodologies are implemented. Lectures will be accompanied by site visits where students will gain a better understanding of the sort of products produced and the challenges involved in producing these products. There will also be an opportunity to talk with members of actual development teams who are responsible for particular software engineering related roles. Students will be guided to conduct preliminary research on selected topics relevant to software engineering industry practice. Students will be asked to produce two research reports which present their understanding, findings, and critical assessment of software engineering practices in industry.

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Course Details

Course Code	COMP SCI 7036
Course	Software Engineering in Industry
Coordinating Unit	Computer Science
Term	Semester 1
Level	Postgraduate Coursework
Location/s	North Terrace Campus
Units	3
Contact	Up to 2 hours per week
Available for Study Abroad and Exchange	Y
Corequisites	COMP SCI 7096A
Restrictions	Available to M Software Engineering students only. Enrolments must be approved by Head of School
Assessment	Written exam and/or assignments

Course Staff

Course Coordinator: Dr Christoph Treude

Course Timetable

The full timetable of all activities for this course can be accessed from Course Planner.

Course Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this course students will be able to:

1	Understand advanced software engineering concepts, principles and best practices applicable to software industry.
2	Improve students’ skill in presenting their idea and findings to their peers by studying, researching, and reflecting on software engineering theory and practice.
3	Apply knowledge gained in the course to guide the software requirements engineering, analysis, design, and testing processes.
4	Acquire analytical skill needed to conduct preliminary research to solve problems in the software engineering.

The above course learning outcomes are aligned with the Engineers Australia Stage 1 Competency Standard for the Professional Engineer.
The course is designed to develop the following Elements of Competency: 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4

University Graduate Attributes

This course will provide students with an opportunity to develop the Graduate Attribute(s) specified below:

University Graduate Attribute	Course Learning Outcome(s)
Deep discipline knowledge informed and infused by cutting edge research, scaffolded throughout their program of studies acquired from personal interaction with research active educators, from year 1 accredited or validated against national or international standards (for relevant programs)	1
Critical thinking and problem solving steeped in research methods and rigor based on empirical evidence and the scientific approach to knowledge development demonstrated through appropriate and relevant assessment	3-4
Teamwork and communication skills developed from, with, and via the SGDE honed through assessment and practice throughout the program of studies encouraged and valued in all aspects of learning	2
Career and leadership readiness technology savvy professional and, where relevant, fully accredited forward thinking and well informed tested and validated by work based experiences	1-3

Learning Resources

Required Resources

There is no set textbook for this course. Material will be drawn from a wide range of sources - students will be directed to resources as appropriate. Most of these resources will be put onto the course website as either documents or as links.

Recommended Resources

1) A set of books, papers and reports has significant impact to the software engineering domain will be recommended to students as study or reading materials. They are generally called the classical reading materials of Software Engineering. These reading materials are normally available on the internet. The course website provides some links and sources of a subset of such reading materials under the heading “Classical Software Engineering Reading List”.

2) Other recommended reading materials or resources that are available from the university library or through its portal are:

E-book: Software Engineering, Domains, Requirements, and Software Design, ISBN:978-3-540-21151-8, 978-3-540-33653-2 (Online)

Software Engineering. Addition Wesley, 8/e, Ian Sommerville,

Electronic Resource (Conference proceedings): International Symposium on the Foundations of Software EngineeringInternational Conferences on Software EngineeringVarious SE Journal and/or Transaction articles.

Online Learning

The resources for the course is also presented together in an online learning environment called a Moodle. The Moodle has an area called forums. Students are expected to register on the forums created for the course. Students are required to check the news forums on a regular basis for announcements and extra learning materials relating to the course and students’ research projects.

Students are also requested to participate the learning process through the two discussion forums. The detailed information about the course and the course related material can be found on the course web site: https://cs.adelaide.edu.au/users/honours/sei/
Learning & Teaching Activities

Learning & Teaching Modes

The course will run throughout Semester 1. The timeframe for the course is shown in the table below. Starting in the first week of the semester, students will be asked to do a diagnostic assignment in which students are asked to read two recommended papers and presents their reading notes (a template is provided for writing the notes). The aim of the diagnostic assignment is to understand the level of the students’ research ability such that lecturers can measure the improvement of the students’ research ability during the course.

Guest lectures and/or industrial visiting are scheduled on Week 6 and 10 respectively. During the industrial visit or guest lectures, students are able to talk to professional software engineers of local organisations, and get good knowledge of how the software engineering theories being applied in the industry.

In Week 3, two research lectures are given to students which include research processes, research skill development, skill of writing research report, and skill of making a presentation. These lectures are very important to get students ready to start their research projects.

Starting from Week 3, students are requested to attend two milestone meetings with lecturers in which students are asked to present the progress in their research projects and get advices on how to select proper papers and how to write a good research report.

From Week 7, students are required to present their research report to lecturers and the rest of students in the class. Feedback of the research reports will be given to students within two weeks and the feedback of the presentation will be given immediately after the presentation. Additionally, students are requested to initiate and engage in online discussions on Moodle. The discussion topics can be any interesting topics of software engineering such as Agile methods, Testing, Reuse, Web Engineering etc.

Workload

The information below is provided as a guide to assist students in engaging appropriately with the course requirements.

The information below is provided as a guide to assist students in engaging appropriately with the course requirements.

Software Engineering in Industry is a 3 unit course. The expectation is that students will be spending 10 hours per week working on the course. Students are required to attend all the lectures and students’ presentation. Students are requested to meet with the lecturer at minimum 10 minutes every fortnightly starting from Week 3. In these meetings, students have to report their progress
and consult lecturers about writing research reports. Four assignments are required to be submitted: two research reports and two industrial visiting/guest lecture reports. Students are asked to spend at minimum 46 hours on each of the two research projects; 4 hours on each of the two industrial visiting/guest lecture reports.

NOTE: the nature of the course means that it is very easy for students to spend more than the allotted 10 hours per week at the first 8 weeks of the course, and much less hours in the later stage of the course. The onus is on students to plan their tasks and time carefully to ensure they balance their time effectively. Students should start preparing for the research project from Week 1.

Learning Activities Summary

The detailed activities can be accessed from the course website.

Specific Course Requirements

There will be two guest lectures (or onsite visits). Attendance is compulsory.

Small Group Discovery Experience

Students have the opportunity to form a small group of 3 or 4 to investigate advanced software engineering topics and present their findings.

The University's policy on Assessment for Coursework Programs is based on the following four principles:

Assessment must encourage and reinforce learning.
Assessment must enable robust and fair judgements about student performance.
Assessment practices must be fair and equitable to students and give them the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned.
Assessment must maintain academic standards.

Assessment Summary

Assessment Task	Weighting (%)	Individual/ Group	Formative/ Summative	Due (week)*	Hurdle criteria	Learning outcomes	CBOK Alignment**
Research reports (2)	40	Individual	Summative	Weeks 6-12	Min 40%	1. 4.	1.1 1.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 4.1 4.2 4.3
Guest lecture reports (2)	20	Individual	Summative	Week 5-12		2. 3.	2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6
Presentations (2)	30	Group	Summative	Week 5-12		2. 3.	2.2 2.4
Forum participation	5	Individual	Formative	Week 2-12		1. 3.	2.2 2.3 2.5 2.6 4.2
Site report	5	Individual	Summative	Week 6-12		1. 3.	2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 4.2
Total	100

* The specific due date for each assessment task will be available on MyUni.

This assessment breakdown complies with the University's Assessment for Coursework Programs Policy.

This course has a hurdle requirement. Meeting the specified hurdle criteria is a requirement for passing the course.

**CBOK is the Core Body of Knowledge for ICT Professionals defined by the Australian Computer Society. The alignment in the table above corresponds with the following CBOK Areas:

1. Problem Solving

1.1 Abstraction

1.2 Design

2. Professional Knowledge

2.1 Ethics

2.2 Professional expectations

2.3 Teamwork concepts & issues

2.4 Interpersonal communications

2.5 Societal issues

2.6 Understanding of ICT profession

3. Technology resources

3.1 Hardware & Software

3.2 Data & information

3.3 Networking

4. Technology Building

4.1 Programming

4.2 Human factors

4.3 Systems development

4.4 Systems acquisition

5. ICT Management

5.1 IT governance & organisational

5.2 IT project management

5.3 Service management

5.4 Security management

Due to the current COVID-19 situation modified arrangements have been made to assessments to facilitate remote learning and teaching. Assessment details provided here reflect recent updates.

We will replace in-person guest lectures by industry speakers with video guest lectures by the same speakers and live chat with them (video or text, depending on Zoom), and we will replace the industry on-site visit with another video guest lecture and live chat (video or text, depending on Zoom). The assessments related to this remain unchanged: handing in an essay.

On top of that, the course originally had two in-person presentations by each student on current software engineering research topics (software reuse, project management). These in-person presentations will be replaced by students submitting videos, and I'll give interactive feedback on the videos via Zoom. The detailed assignment descriptions will be available over the next few weeks -- these changes only affect the second half of the semester after the mid-semester break.

Assessment Related Requirements

Each of the two research reports is a hurdle requirement. If a student fails to achieve this, the maximum mark he or she can get will be capped at 44% (A fail grade!)

Assessment Detail

(1) Research Reports
Students are required to complete two research projects (assignments) in which students have to produce two research reports. It is expected that students spend 46 hours on each research report. Students are required to select minimum 6 papers to read on the selected topic under the guidance of the course lecturers. The format of the research report has to follow the giving instructions posted on the course website. There is a well-developed assessment rubric for research report assessment that is available on the course website. Lecturers will be available to students at the time when the consultation is needed.

(2) Two Guest Lecture Reports
Students are required to complete two guest lecture reports (assignments) based on the contents of guest lectures. It is expected that students spend 4 hours on each report. The format of the guest lecture report has to follow the giving instructions posted on the course website. There is a well-developed assessment rubric for visiting report assessment that is available on the course website. Lecturers will be available to students at the time when the consultation is needed.

(3) Two presentations
Students are required to give two presentations based on the research reports that they have completed. These presentations will show their understanding of the research topics and the contents that they presented in the reports. For each student, several questions related to the contents of the presentation will be asked by lecturers and student’s peers once the presentation is finished. These presentations will give students a good chance to improve their presentation skill which is essential to all engineering students.

(4) Participation of the discussion forum
Students are required to participate in the online discussion forum on the selected topics guided by the course lecturer. Students are encouraged to study some software engineering theory and practices that are relevant to the course by themselves and provide findings and critical thinking to their peers through the forum. Students will be assessed based on the number of times they participate in
the discussion activities and the contents presented on the forum. Details of the assessment will be available in the course web site.

(5) Site report
Students are required to complete a report based on the industry visit. In the report, students are required to demonstrate their capability in:

* understanding the major SE practices in the visited company explicitly and precisely,
* obtaining software engineering knowledge from the visits explicitly and thoughtfully,
* presenting their critical thinking with regard to the pros and cons of the software engineering practices in the visited companies, and presenting the comparison of the theory and practices explicitly and clearly.

Submission

All reports should be submitted to the course web site.

Course Grading

Grades for your performance in this course will be awarded in accordance with the following scheme:

M10 (Coursework Mark Scheme)
Grade	Mark	Description
FNS		Fail No Submission
F	1-49	Fail
P	50-64	Pass
C	65-74	Credit
D	75-84	Distinction
HD	85-100	High Distinction
CN		Continuing
NFE		No Formal Examination
RP		Result Pending

Further details of the grades/results can be obtained from Examinations.

Grade Descriptors are available which provide a general guide to the standard of work that is expected at each grade level. More information at Assessment for Coursework Programs.

Final results for this course will be made available through Access Adelaide.

Student Feedback

The University places a high priority on approaches to learning and teaching that enhance the student experience. Feedback is sought from students in a variety of ways including on-going engagement with staff, the use of online discussion boards and the use of Student Experience of Learning and Teaching (SELT) surveys as well as GOS surveys and Program reviews.

SELTs are an important source of information to inform individual teaching practice, decisions about teaching duties, and course and program curriculum design. They enable the University to assess how effectively its learning environments and teaching practices facilitate student engagement and learning outcomes. Under the current SELT Policy (http://www.adelaide.edu.au/policies/101/) course SELTs are mandated and must be conducted at the conclusion of each term/semester/trimester for every course offering. Feedback on issues raised through course SELT surveys is made available to enrolled students through various resources (e.g. MyUni). In addition aggregated course SELT data is available.
Student Support
Policies & Guidelines
This section contains links to relevant assessment-related policies and guidelines - all university policies.
Fraud Awareness

Students are reminded that in order to maintain the academic integrity of all programs and courses, the university has a zero-tolerance approach to students offering money or significant value goods or services to any staff member who is involved in their teaching or assessment. Students offering lecturers or tutors or professional staff anything more than a small token of appreciation is totally unacceptable, in any circumstances. Staff members are obliged to report all such incidents to their supervisor/manager, who will refer them for action under the university's student’s disciplinary procedures.

The University of Adelaide is committed to regular reviews of the courses and programs it offers to students. The University of Adelaide therefore reserves the right to discontinue or vary programs and courses without notice. Please read the important information contained in the disclaimer.

Authorised by:	Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Academic)
Maintained by:	Course Outlines Administrator