CS3007

This collection of Web pages provides information relating to the course CS3007: Software Engineering - Principles & Practice. The pages explain the nature of the course and how it is assessed, provides details of typical projects. In addition, they contain information which you will hopefully find useful during your project work.

Software engineering is concerned with long-term, large scale programming projects. This year-long course introduces the topic through lectures and by giving you a chance to help design, manage and implement a medium-sized project. The lectures will cover topics such as project management, problem specification and analysis, system design techniques, coding, documentation, systems testing and so on. The course is difficult and time consuming - be prepared!

The class has been divided into project teams of approximately seven people. Projects are selected from the list appearing here. Each team will have regular meetings with a "customer" (a postgraduate researcher) who will expect information on how the project is proceeding. You should also hold regular team meetings without the customer, to make decisions, discuss progress, etc. In addition, teams will be required to report to a "manager" (a member of academic staff) every two weeks.

During the course, teams will be asked to produce deliverables - documents and/or demos which illustrate progress. Most of these are not assessed directly, but serve as a series of milestones to help you manage your time effectively and help us to monitor progress.

Individual team members are also required to maintain a Personal Log of project-related activities.

1. To teach software engineering principles.
2. To develop written and verbal presentation skills.
3. To develop team and project management skills.
4. To prepare for the Honours project in Computing Science.

On satisfactory completion of this module, you will have gained experience in:

• Team organisation and project management.
• Preparing written reports and system documentation.
• Preparing and giving verbal presentations.
• All aspects of the software engineering process, from analysis through design to coding & testing.
• Programming graphical user interfaces using Tcl/Tk.

For details see: http://www.csd.abdn.ac.uk/~pedwards/teaching/CS3007/reading.html

For details see: http://www.csd.abdn.ac.uk/~pedwards/teaching/CS3007/assessment.html

• It is a team project - all team members should be working towards the same goal!

• If a team member consistently misses deadlines, fails to attend team meetings, etc. then the team leader should contact their academic manager.

• If an individual does not fully participate in the activities of the course, then he/she will receive a series of formal warnings; the third such warning will result in refusal of a class certificate.

• Don't let arguments/disagreements within the team linger on - seek arbitration - ask for a meeting with the customer or manager!

These pages should not be considered as a complete recipe for the perfect project - they patently are not that! They are simply a collection of documents which students have found useful in the past. The pages are constantly being updated/extended and should be thought of as another tool to help you during the project.