COMP SCI 4000 - Software Architecture
North Terrace Campus - Semester 2 - 2020
The following are the main topics to be covered in this course:
Introduction to the fundamentals of software architecture.
Software architecture and quality requirements of a software system.
Fundamental principles and guidelines for software architecture design, architectural styles, patterns and frameworks.
Methods, techniques and tools for describing software architecture and documenting design rationale.
Software architecture design and evaluation processes.
Rationale and architectural knowledge management in software architecting.
Approaches and tools for designing and evaluating software architectures for the state of the art technologies such as cloud-computing and service-operation and mobile computing.
Future challenges and emerging trends in software architecture discipline.
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General Course Information
Course Details
Course Code COMP SCI 4000 Course Software Architecture Coordinating Unit Computer Science Term Semester 2 Level Undergraduate Location/s North Terrace Campus Units 3 Contact Up to 2 hours per week Available for Study Abroad and Exchange Y Prerequisites COMP SCI 2201 Incompatible COMP SCI 4100 Assessment Written exam and/or assignments Course Staff
Course Coordinator: Professor Ali Babar
Course Timetable
The full timetable of all activities for this course can be accessed from Course Planner.
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Learning Outcomes
Course Learning Outcomes
- Argue the importance and role of software architecture in large scale software systems
- Design and motivate software architecture for large scale software systems
- Recognise major software architectural styles, design patterns, and frameworks
- Describe a software architecture using various documentation approaches and architectural description languages
- Develop architectural alternatives for a problem and select among them
- Use well-understood paradigms for designing new systems
- Identify and assess the quality attributes of a system at the architectural level
- Motivate the architectural concerns for designing and evaluating a system's architecture
- Discuss and evaluate the current trends and technologies such as model-driven and service-oriented architectures
- Evaluate the coming attractions in software architecture research and practice
University Graduate Attributes
No information currently available.
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Learning Resources
Required Resources
Books
The students will be expected to work with the course curriculum based on the following book:
Gorton, I., Essential Software Architecture, 2nd edition (2011), Springer.
Research articles included in the course syllabus (Assessable material) for critically reviews and presentations
Cleland-Huang, J., Czauderna, A., Keenan, E., A Persona-Based Approach for Exploring Architecturally Significant Requirements in Agile Projects. REFSQ 2013: 18-33.
Rashid, A., Naqvi, S. A. A., Ramdhany, R., Edwards, M., Chitchyna, R., Ali Babar, M., Discovering “Unknown Known” Security Requirements, the 38th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), Austin, USA, 2016.
Xu, X., Pautasso, C., Zhu, L., Gramoli, V., Ponomarev, A., Tran, A. B., Chen, S., The Blockchain as a Software Connector, WICSA 2016.
Hachem, J. E., Pang, Z. Y., Chiprianov, V., Ali Babar, M., Aniorte, P., Model Driven Software Security Architecture of Systems-of-Systems, the 23rd Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference, Hamilton, New Zealand, 2016.
Xu, X., Weber, I., Staples, M., Zhu, L., Bosch, J., Bass, L., Pautasso, C., Rimba, P., A Taxonomy of Blockchain-Based Systems for Architecture Design, ICSA 2017.
Lewis, G., A., Lago, P., A Catalog of Architectural Tactics for Cyber-Foraging, QoSA 2015.
Shahin, M., Ali Babar, M., Zhu, L., The Intersection of Continuous Deployment and Architecting Process: Practitioners’ Perspectives, the 10th International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, Ciudad Real, Spain, 2016.
Singh, M., and Huhns, M., Service-Oriented Computing: Key Concepts and Principles, IEEE Internet Computing: 9(1): 75-81 (2005).
Stal, M., Using Architectural Patterns and Blueprints for Service-Oriented Architecture, IEEE Software, March/April 2006.
Curry, E., and Grace, P., Flexible Self-Management Using the Model-View-Controller Pattern, IEEE Software, May/June 2008.Recommended Resources
Some material for the course will also be drawn from other complementary books such as the followings; if relevant material used from these books, you would be given photocopies of the material. You are NOT required to buy any of these books for this course:
Bass, L., Clements, P. and Kazman, R., Software Architecture in Practice, 2013, Addison-Wesley.
Taylor, R., Medvidovic, N., Dashofy, E., Software Architecture: Foundations, Theory, and Practice, 2010, Wiley.
Newman, S., Building Micro Services: Designing Fine-Grained Systems, 2015, O’Reilly.
Clements, P., Bachmann, F., Bass, L., Garlan, D., Ivers, j., Little, R., Nord, R. and Stafford, J., Documenting Software Architectures: Views and Beyond, 2002, Addison-Wesley.
Clements, P., Kazman, R. and Klein, M., Evaluating Software Architectures: Methods and Case Studies, 2002, Addison-Wesley.
Buschmann, F., Meunier, R., Rohnert, H., Sommerlad, P., Stal, M., Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture: A System of Patterns, 1996, Wiley.Online Learning
This course will use Canvas, which is available from the following link:
https://myuni-canvas.adelaide.edu.au/courses/25364
We may also use GitHub and Slack for discussions, groupwork, collaboration, communication and coordination within each team and across the teams in the class. -
Learning & Teaching Activities
Learning & Teaching Modes
Course duration and Learning and Teaching activities:
12 weeks consisting of different types of learning and teaching activities such as seminar style lectures, moderated discussions on the core topics with relevant industrial examples, guest lectures, students’ presentations, peer evaluation, and project work.
Note: The lecturing time will be utilized for learning and teaching activities using flipped classroom and seminar styles. The students are expected to prepare the material to be discussed before the face-to-face meeting of the whole class and actively participate in the discussions and learning activities designed to achieve the learning objectives of the course.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.
The students are expected to spend 10-12 hours per week on this course. There will be 2 hours contact time for learning and teaching activities and the students will be working in groups and individually 8-10 hours to carry out the required learning and teaching activities for acquiring the expected knowledge, understanding, and skills in this course.Learning Activities Summary
The following are the main topics to be covered in this course:
- Introduction to the fundamentals of software architecture.
- Software architecture and quality requirements of a software system.
- Fundamental principles and guidelines for software architecture design, architectural styles, patterns, and frameworks.
- Methods, techniques, and tools for describing software architecture and documenting design rationale.
- Software architecture design and evaluation processes.
- Rationale and architectural knowledge management in software architecting.
- Approaches and tools for designing and evaluating software architectures for the state-of- the-art technologies such as blockchain, service-orientation and micro serivce architecture.
- Future challenges and emerging trends in software architecture discipline.
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Assessment
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
- Reviewing and presenting assigned article (15%) – Group presentation, Individual Assessment – An article will be assigned to a group of students for reviewing and presenting. Each member of a group will critically review the article and write one page summary of his/her understanding of the article (7.5%). Each group will make a presentation (7.5%) on the assigned article; each of the members in the group is expected to actively participate in the presentation and Q&A as the assessment is individual. Each member of the team will be assessed based on the performance in the presentation and Q&A. The preparation of the article summary and the presentation must incorporate learning from at least one more related article per member of the team and each member must identify which other article he/she would have read to support the review of the assigned article and prepare the presentation. For example, if there are three members in a team, then three other related articles needs to be searched and read to make the summary and presentation for the assigned article.
- Quizzes (15%) – Individual assessment – The quizzes will be based on the material to be discussed in the class. That means the students are expected to come to class after preparing the material that is going to be discussed in the class. The material will be provided to the students one week before the quiz class. There will three quizzes without any prior announcement about the day of the quiz (i.e., surprise quizzes).
- Exercises (20%) – Individual assessment – There will be take home (or in class) exercises based on the material discussed in the class or other relevant material/tasks assigned by the teaching staff.
- Software Design and Evaluation Project (50%) – (Group 30% and individual 20% assessments) – This assessment will be a multi-phase activities in which the students will be designing and documenting an architecture of a given software system, evaluating the architecture of the designed system of another team, and improving the design based on the evaluation recommendations and own critique and reflections. The grading will be done at the team and individual levels in order to enable the students to demonstrate that their can successfully carry out group activities required for designing and evaluating software architecture of a significant system but also have acquired the understanding, knowledge, and skills expected to be gained after completing different phases of the project.
Assessment Detail
No information currently available.
Submission
No information currently available.
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.
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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.
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Student Support
- Academic Integrity for Students
- Academic Support with Maths
- Academic Support with writing and study skills
- Careers Services
- International Student Support
- Library Services for Students
- LinkedIn Learning
- Student Life Counselling Support - Personal counselling for issues affecting study
- Students with a Disability - Alternative academic arrangements
- YouX Student Care - Advocacy, confidential counselling, welfare support and advice
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Policies & Guidelines
This section contains links to relevant assessment-related policies and guidelines - all university policies.
- Academic Credit Arrangements Policy
- Academic Integrity Policy
- Academic Progress by Coursework Students Policy
- Assessment for Coursework Programs Policy
- Copyright Compliance Policy
- Coursework Academic Programs Policy
- Elder Conservatorium of Music Noise Management Plan
- Intellectual Property Policy
- IT Acceptable Use and Security Policy
- Modified Arrangements for Coursework Assessment Policy
- Reasonable Adjustments to Learning, Teaching & Assessment for Students with a Disability Policy
- Student Experience of Learning and Teaching Policy
- Student Grievance Resolution Process
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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.
