"In short, software
is eating the world."
--Marc Andreessen
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Last update
26-February, 2019
Requirements Engineering, CS 617-001 and CS 585-001
Course Syllabus
Spring 2019
Collaboration empowered with Piazza
Professor  
Jane Hayes
hayes +++ cs.uky.edu
http://www.cs.uky.edu/~hayes/
Hardymon 228, (+1) 859-257-3171
Class: M 1500 - 1730, LEC Room #334 (Whitehall)
Office Hours: M 1430-1500, RGAN Commons, or by appointment
Requirements Engineering is being taught Spring 2019 as a collaborative learning opportunity.
COURSE STRUCTURE
This course will have three parts: (1) Students and professor will read about concepts of requirements engineering and will use some discussed techniques/tools in an inverted classroom setting; (2) Students and professor will read and discuss requirements engineering research papers from the literature; and (3) Students will carry out a semester-long project (that they propose), write a project report, and present the results.

OVERVIEW OF CONTENTS
The course will examine the requirements phase of the Systems Engineering and Software Engineering lifecycles in detail. Topics will include: requirements elicitation, requirements writing and specification, requirements analysis and modeling, requirements prioritization, verification, and validation, requirements tracing, requirements management. Students may work in pairs or small groups to apply requirements engineering techniques or undertake research for requirements engineering.

MATERIALS
Lectures and papers.

DISCUSSION BOARD USE
In addition to Canvas, Requirements Engineering will use the Piazza bulletin board for discussions. Information for accessing our class will be provided during the first meeting. Lecture slides may be posted on our Piazza page here and joining some discussions will be mandatory.

COURSE LEVEL
This course is ideal as an introductory course to requirements engineering and requirements engineering research for PhD students, and appropriate for advanced MS students and upper level undergraduate students in all computing disciplines (software engineering, computer science, information security, information systems, etc.).

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Specifically, students will be able to:

SUPPLEMENTAL QUESTIONS FOR TEACHER COURSE EVALUATION
The course has helped me to improve my ability, my understanding, or my knowledge in the following categories:

LEARNING PRACTICE
This course will examine and apply requirements engineering techniques and processes as well as read and discuss papers in the current literature and possibly seminal papers.

CLASSES 5 - 14 (Part 2) - Flow and Assignments
These classes will follow this flow: 1) overview of the topic(s) for the week, discussion of lecture slides and/or readings from SWEBOK and/or papers for that week; 2) group work - break up into groups to either: a) discuss a research paper for the topic or b) undertake the hands on activity for the topic; and 3) report out - each group will have 5 minutes to report to the class on their findings/activity results/etc.

Based on these classes, each student must write and post three reports throughout the semester which fall under one of two categories - either a paper summary/critique (described below under PAPERS) or a hands on activity report (detailing a hands on activity that was started in class, note that completion of the activity may require you to work outside of class time), the template for such a report is here. Hands on activity reports will be graded according to the following scale: 0: not submitted, 1: inadequate, 2: needs improvement, 3: meets expectations, 4: exceeds expectations. Proper language usage is required.

The first of these three will be due no later than 25 February. The second will be due no later than 25 March. The third will be due no later than 15 April. ****You must turn in at least one paper summary/critique and at least one hands on activity report (so can turn in two paper summary/critiques and one hands on report or two hands on reports and one paper summary/critique).******

All students must join in the discussion for their paper and/or hands on activity throughout the week that they submit it. All students must join in discussions the week of 25 February, 25 March, and 15 April and are expected to post at least three substantive posts each week. All postings must be courteous and professional.

PAPERS
You are expected to read all papers. The first set of papers are about requirements engineering in general. For these, each student must submit a simple summary and reflection of half of the first set of papers (you can choose two). Your summary and reflection should be about a page long and must be posted on the discussion board. It is important that you read the papers BEFORE the assigned date, as we may have in-class discussions that will be very interactive. Due dates for the summaries of the first set of papers are the Monday that the paper is scheduled.

The second set of papers present various subtopics in requirements engineering and requirements engineering techniques and generally some form of evaluation thereof. You are expected to read all papers. Each is assigned to a specific week on the schedule page. Two people will be assigned to each paper - a reviewer and a dissenter. The reviewer will post their summary/critique of the paper, arguing in favor of or against the results. Due dates for the summaries of the second set of papers are Friday evening the week before the paper is scheduled. The “dissenter” for each paper is required to disagree with the posted summaries and provide reasonable arguments. The dissenter must post the counter-arguments on Tuesday by close of business. When you write and post a summary/critique for a paper (see PAPERS), the summary should: (1) describe the requirements engineering problem being addressed, (2) describe the requirements engineering technique proposed, (3) describe the approach used to evaluate the requirements engineering technique, (4) summarize and critique the technique and its evaluation, and (5) critique the presentation of the paper. Paper summary/critiques will be graded according to the following scale: 0: not submitted, 1: inadequate, 2: needs improvement, 3: meets expectations, 4: exceeds expectations. You are expected to have read all papers. Proper language usage is required.

All students must join in the discussion for their paper throughout the week that they submit it. All students must join in discussions the week of 25 February, 25 March, and 15 April and are expected to post at least three substantive posts each week. All postings must be courteous and professional.

TEXT BOOK

No textbook is required to be purchased, however this free book will be required reading:

  • Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK).

    And here is a book that you can obtain freely or very inexpensively that is recommended to improve your understanding:

  • Karl E. Wiegers, Joy Beatty, Software Requirements, 3rd edition, Microsoft Press, 2013

    PROJECT
    Each student will, independently or as part of a team, undertake a requirements engineering project. The project can involve development of a software application, a requirements engineering technique, application/evaluation of a requirements engineering technique, etc. Students can propose their own project ideas. A report will be delivered and the results presented orally to the class. I strongly recommend that students seek help on writing from the UK Writing Center, especially if English is not your first language. Students must also practice their presentations ahead of time at PresentationU! or similar.

    GROUP/PAIR PROJECTS
    The pair or group projects for the course will require you to work together with other students in the class. You will be evaluated on your contribution to the group project and presentations of the project results. The instructor retains the right to make group assignments. Group members are not guaranteed to receive the same grade; evaluation of the group will be individualized to determine individual understanding, commitment, and mastery of the project goals. As part of the project, written reports will be required. Proper language usage is required.

    ***LATE POLICY***
    Assignments must be submitted prior to the deadline (at the start of class for projects, on the Piazza system as deadlines have been established), unless otherwise indicated by the instructor. Assignments turned in after the deadlines are considered late. Credit will be deducted for late assignments: 3% percent lower grade for the first day late, 5% lower grade for the second day late, 10% lower grade for the third day late, and 50% lower grade for assignments turned in four or more days late.

    GRADING STANDARDS
    The course has five components to the grading for undergrad students, six components for MS students, and seven components for PhD students. These percentages will be used to compute a score from 1 to 100, which will then be used to compute a letter grade where: A= 92 - 100%, B= 83 - 91%, C= 74 - 82%, D= 65 - 73%, F= 64 and below

    I. (7% all) Students are expected to attend and participate in all classes. Attendance will be taken. Arrival after attendance has been taken at the start of class will be considered an absence. Students can be excused for University accepted: 1) serious illness, 2) illness or death of family member, 3) University-related trips (S.R. 5.2.4.2.C), 4) major religious holidays, 5) other circumstances that the instructor finds to be "reasonable cause for nonattendance." It is the student’s responsibility to contact the instructor regarding the nature of the absence, and the instructor retains the right to ask for proof. **Tier 2 or Tier 3 document provided to the student by UHS is appropriate verification for an excused absence for illness. In general, students must notify the instructor of an absence within one week after the absence. ** Students anticipating an absence for a major religious holiday are responsible for notifying the instructor in writing of anticipated absences due to their observance of such holidays no later than the last day in the semester to add a class. Information regarding dates of major religious holidays may be obtained through the religious liaison, Mr. David Beach (859-257-2754). Students are expected to withdraw from the class if more than 20% of the classes scheduled for the semester are missed (excused or unexcused) per university policy.

    II. (8% all) Participation via the bulletin board is required for three weeks (25 February, 25 March, 15 April). Discussions will commence in at least one of three ways: 1) comments on the papers, readings, hands on activity for the week; 2) postings on a paper or a topic you read of your own volition due to the week's topic/lecture/readings/paper/hands on activity; and 3) comments on a new technique/tool/etc. that you found when you took initiative to learn more about the hands on activity that was undertaken in class. All students are expected to participate energetically in the discussions. Discussion postings must have substantial content. Postings such as “I agree with Diane” are welcome but will not earn credit. Postings such as “Diane thought the number of subjects used in the evaluation of the technique were too few, but I believe five is enough for this study because ...” will. Students who do not participate in the discussions during these three weeks will not receive credit for this portion of the grade. **Each student is required to start or continue at least ***three*** discussions over the course of the semester with a substantive post (preferably on a paper that you read on your own or on a tool/technique that you sought out on your own) - these can be the three items described under CLASSES 5 - 14 FLOW AND ASSIGNMENTS. Shyness or lack of English proficiency are not valid reasons for staying out of the discussions.

    III. (35% all) Each student will prepare paper summary/critiques as described under PAPERS - two summaries from the "first set of papers" from Part 1 of the class, one critique where you serve as the reviewer, one critique where you serve as the dissenter (second set of papers), and three summaries and/or hands on activity reports as described under CLASSES 5 - 14 FLOW AND ASSIGNMENTS from Part 2 of the class - total of seven.

    IV. (50% undergrad; 45% MS; 40% PhD) The project will constitute half the grade, and both the report and the presentation will be graded. Each student will write and post a short description of the proposed project early in the semester and the class will make suggestions for improvements. **Draft report is not a grade component but is required; presentation will be worth 5% of the Project grade portion -- so 45% final project report and 5% presentation for undergrads, for example.**

    V. (5% MS and PhD) A draft of each report will be reviewed by at least two people; a professor and at least one classmate. I will assign reports for review later in the semester.

    VI. (5% PhD) The PhD students will present a twenty-minute lecture on a related topic of their choosing. Depending on the number of students, some lectures may be delivered to the class via video.

    ACADEMIC HONOR CODE
    Individual work must be your own. No sharing of computer code or other work will be allowed. Group projects allow the sharing of ideas and computer code within the group. No sharing of work between groups will be acceptable. The University of Kentucky’s guidelines regarding academic dishonesty will be strictly enforced. All incidents of cheating and plagiarism are taken very seriously at this University. The minimum penalty for a first infraction is a zero on the assignment. See policy on plagiarism here.

    ACCOMMODATIONS DUE TO DISABILITY
    If you have a documented disability that requires academic accommodations, please see me as soon as possible during scheduled office hours. You must provide me with a Letter of Accommodation from the Disability Resource center (Rm 2, Alumni Gym, 257-2754, email dtbeac1@email.uky.edu).

    NECESSARY BACKGROUND
    A good grasp on developing software in at least one programming language is required. Although many of the papers will be quite specific in topic, extensive background in these topics will not be necessary.
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