Module Information
Module Identifier
CS22120
Module Title
Software Engineering
Academic Year
2024/2025
Co-ordinator
Semester
Semester 2
Exclusive (Any Acad Year)
Exclusive (Any Acad Year)
Reading List
Other Staff
Course Delivery
Assessment
| Assessment Type | Assessment length / details | Proportion |
|---|---|---|
| Semester Assessment | 140 Hours Group project | 75% |
| Semester Exam | 2 Hours Exam | 25% |
| Supplementary Assessment | Not available There is no External or Supplementary Resit available for this part of the module - the mark for this component will be carried forward. | 75% |
| Supplementary Exam | 2 Hours Exam | 25% |
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
Participate in an industrial scale project.
Apply the elements of the software life cycles, contrast a range of life cycle models and choose appropriate models for a range of typical projects.
Apply software quality procedures and convince others of their value.
Use version and configuration management and convince others of their value.
Produce the key deliverables in software life cycles.
Evaluate ethical situations and make professional judgements on them.
Demonstrate an in-depth knowledge of the practices and process that comprise at least one agile methodology.
Brief description
The aim of this module is to give students a strong foundation in software engineering that will inform their software development practice and prepare them to work in the software industry.
Students are introduced to both plan-driven practices and agile practices for the specification, design, implementation, testing and operation of software systems. A comparison is made between plan-driven and agile practices.
The practical work on the module is a group project, where a group of students work together to produce a defined product. The group will follow standards like those that might be experienced working in industry.
Students are introduced to both plan-driven practices and agile practices for the specification, design, implementation, testing and operation of software systems. A comparison is made between plan-driven and agile practices.
The practical work on the module is a group project, where a group of students work together to produce a defined product. The group will follow standards like those that might be experienced working in industry.
Content
1. Introduction to software engineering
Why software needs to be engineered. The approach and the obligations of the professional engineer. Software engineering failures and what we can learn from them.
2. The Software Life Cycle
Description of the phases of a range of software life cycles (including the Waterfall lifecycle, Prototyping, Agile development and the Spiral model) and the major deliverables and activities associated with each phase.
3. Project Management
Planning and cost estimation. Progress monitoring. Team structure and team management.
4. Quality Management
How do we make quality software. Quality plans. Walkthroughs, code inspections and other types of review. Role of the quality assurance group. Standards (international, national and local). Software process improvement.
5. Configuration Management
Baselines. Change control procedures. Version control. Software tools to support configuration management.
6. Requirements engineering and HCI
Obtaining and documenting system requirements. Validation of requirement by e.g., prototyping. Deficiencies in the traditional approach to requirements. Introduction to UML Use cases. An introduction to HCI.
7. Design
Outline (architectural) design and detailed design. Use of abstraction, information hiding, functional and hierarchical decomposition at levels higher than the individual program. Contents of design documentation. State diagrams. Relevant UML notations: packages, sequence and activity diagrams, active objects.
8. Maintenance
Types of maintenance. Maintenance process. Refactoring.
9. Testing
Testing strategies. Testing tools: static and dynamic analysers, test harnesses and test data generators, simulators. Performance testing. Regression testing. User documentation and training.
10. Ethical issues
Difficult ethical issues. Examples of ethical dilemmas for software engineers. Evaluating ethical issues and developing decision skills for difficult situations.
11. Seminars
Looking at Agile Manifesto and example methodologies and their practices, e.g. XP and Scrum. Discussion of requirements, design, planning, customer interaction and managing change in an agile context, and how these compare to traditional approaches. Application of an agile approach in the group project.
12. Tutorials
A weekly tutorial used to organise group project activities and to discuss software engineering issues.
13. Acceptance testing events
The project customer or their proxy will meet with every group on N occasions to undertake acceptance testing of a specified sets of agile stories. These events may be held during the tutorials.
Why software needs to be engineered. The approach and the obligations of the professional engineer. Software engineering failures and what we can learn from them.
2. The Software Life Cycle
Description of the phases of a range of software life cycles (including the Waterfall lifecycle, Prototyping, Agile development and the Spiral model) and the major deliverables and activities associated with each phase.
3. Project Management
Planning and cost estimation. Progress monitoring. Team structure and team management.
4. Quality Management
How do we make quality software. Quality plans. Walkthroughs, code inspections and other types of review. Role of the quality assurance group. Standards (international, national and local). Software process improvement.
5. Configuration Management
Baselines. Change control procedures. Version control. Software tools to support configuration management.
6. Requirements engineering and HCI
Obtaining and documenting system requirements. Validation of requirement by e.g., prototyping. Deficiencies in the traditional approach to requirements. Introduction to UML Use cases. An introduction to HCI.
7. Design
Outline (architectural) design and detailed design. Use of abstraction, information hiding, functional and hierarchical decomposition at levels higher than the individual program. Contents of design documentation. State diagrams. Relevant UML notations: packages, sequence and activity diagrams, active objects.
8. Maintenance
Types of maintenance. Maintenance process. Refactoring.
9. Testing
Testing strategies. Testing tools: static and dynamic analysers, test harnesses and test data generators, simulators. Performance testing. Regression testing. User documentation and training.
10. Ethical issues
Difficult ethical issues. Examples of ethical dilemmas for software engineers. Evaluating ethical issues and developing decision skills for difficult situations.
11. Seminars
Looking at Agile Manifesto and example methodologies and their practices, e.g. XP and Scrum. Discussion of requirements, design, planning, customer interaction and managing change in an agile context, and how these compare to traditional approaches. Application of an agile approach in the group project.
12. Tutorials
A weekly tutorial used to organise group project activities and to discuss software engineering issues.
13. Acceptance testing events
The project customer or their proxy will meet with every group on N occasions to undertake acceptance testing of a specified sets of agile stories. These events may be held during the tutorials.
Module Skills
| Skills Type | Skills details |
|---|---|
| Communication | Written skills will be needed to complete supporting documents to accompany coursework. |
| Improving own Learning and Performance | Students are required to engage in self study. Completing the group project requires improvements in application design and development. Both the group project and the exam require understanding of challenging concepts. |
| Information Technology | The whole module concerns this area. |
| Personal Development and Career planning | Careful time management will be needed as so to enable students to complete coursework etc. |
| Problem solving | This is inherent in both the group project and examined material. |
| Research skills | The students will need to search for and use relevant technical information while completing coursework. |
| Subject Specific Skills | Yes. See module title and content. |
| Team work | Yes. Fundamental to module. |
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 5