SOFTENG 710

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SOFTENG 710

• Studies in Software Engineering
• Ian Warren
• ian-w_at_cs.auckland.ac.nz
• Building 303, room 492

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Key learning outcomes

• At the end of this course, you should be able to
• Explain the need for adaptive and dynamically
  reconfigurable software systems
• Describe the key issues in developing
  reconfigurable systems and cutting edge research
  that addresses them
• Perform software engineering research activities
  which include
• Critiquing research papers
• Developing software using research tools
• Analysing results and drawing conclusions

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How does the course run?

• Three contact hours per week
• Monday 1-2 (room 561)
• Presentation of a significant research paper
• Performed by a pair of students
• The paper is essential reading for all!
• Monday 2-3 (room 561)
• Group discussion of the paper presented in the
  previous hour
• Friday 2-3 (lab B75)
• A practical session to support project work in
  Python and OpenRec
• The course is hands-on, practical and interactive

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Peer learning

• Peer learning can be a very effective means of
  learning
• To support this style of learning, the course
  includes
• Part of the assessment being carried out in pairs
• A course forum
• This is likely to be very useful in discussing
  course material and invaluable for the practical
  aspects of the course

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What is the subject material?

• Dynamic reconfiguration, autonomic computing,
  adaptive systems
• This material is learned through reading and
  discussing research papers
• The OpenRec framework for dynamic reconfiguration
• A tool for building and monitoring reconfigurable
  software systems
• Python
• A programming language that is well suited to
  rapid prototyping and therefore for developing
  research software
• OpenRec is implemented in Python

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What is the schedule?
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How am I assessed?

• Coursework
• 20 of your SE710 part II mark
• Split 75/25 project/paper review
• The project involves working with OpenRec
• Exam
• 30 of your SE710 part II mark
• Essay question based on 6 research papers covered
  on the course
• Evidence of reading beyond the 6 papers will be
  generously rewarded!

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Paper reviews

• Each of you will work in a pair to present one of
  the 6 research papers
• Each pair will have one week to prepare their
  review
• Feedback will be available if slides are made
  available to me by 10AM on the Friday before the
  presentation
• Slides are to be made available on the Intranet
  pages for the course

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Paper reviews

• Your mark for paper reviewing is derived from
• Your own paper review, assessed in part by your
  peers
• Your assessment of other pairs paper reviews
• You must do this responsibly which means
  providing an accurate assessment of all other
  pairs reviews
• The departments electronic peer marking system
  will be used for this

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Paper reviews

• Reviews should address the following questions1
• Using one sentence, what is this paper about?
• What are the important ideas and concepts in the
  paper?
• What are the claimed contributions of the paper?
• For each claimed contribution, how well does the
  work meet the claim?
• Is there anything else of interest in the paper?
• What future work might be based on the paper?
• What are the key references to follow up?
• What other references might be of interest?
• What other concepts referred to in the paper are
  needed to understand the paper?
• What other thoughts are sparked by this paper?

1 Based on Ewan Temperos paper critique
guidelines for SE702
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Paper reviews

• Next weeks paper is
• Kramer, J. and Magee, J., The Evolving
  Philosophers Problem Dynamic Change Management,
  in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering,
  vol. 16, no. 11, 1990

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Project

• The project work involves using OpenRec to
• Implement a simple reconfigurable application
• Implement Kramer and Magees synchronisation
  algorithm
• Write a monitoring plugin to generate data to be
  used to analyse two algorithms and draw
  conclusions