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Unit Outline: COMP340

2010

Convenor: Dr Frank Moisiadis

Phone: 0402 385 356/ Email: fmoisiad@science.mq.edu.au

Class Hours: Friday 6-8 pm in E7B T2

SEMESTER 2 2010 CLASSES ON WEEK 3, 6, 9 AND 13.

SEMESTER 2 WEEK 3: Class on design specifications and testing

Design Deliverable

TESTING MATERIAL.ppt

SEMESTER 2 WEEK 6: Class on Quality Management

PROJECT QUALITY MANAGEMENT.ppt

SEMESTER 2 WEEK 9: Class on Risk/Scope/Resource Management 

PROJECT MANAGEMENT.ppt

SEMESTER 2 WEEK 13: FINAL PRESENTATIONS AND REPORTS

Final Presentations Friday 12th Novemeber 6:00-7:30pm in E6A 133.

Final Reports due Friday 12th Novemeber 6:00-7:30pm in E6A 133.

 

MATERIAL FROM CLASSES IN SEMESTER 1:

SRS MATERIAL.ppt

MORE on SRS.ppt

DESIGN MATERIAL.ppt

WEEK 13 SEM 1

 

Full Year 4cp

Prerequisites: Prerequisites: COMP225 (P); COMP227 (P); at least 45 cp with a GPA => 2.75; admission to BCompSc or BBA/BCIS (See the MU Handbook of Undergraduate Studies).

Students should read this unit outline carefully at the start of semester. It contains important information about the unit. If anything in it is unclear, please consult one of the teaching staff in the unit.

About This Unit

The objective of this unit is to convey to you, as a third-year undergraduate student, an appreciation, understanding and experience of the systems engineering process and the many activities which must come together in a successful systems development project. You will be assigned to a 4 to 6 person project team, which will work closely throughout the year with a project sponsor and an academic supervisor on a project specified by the sponsor. Sponsors come predominantly from industry, though sponsored projects from other organisations are acceptable. Though the projects tend to have a significant software engineering content, there will always be a strong systems engineering emphasis underlying the project goals. There is a strong focus on the application of sound project management principles, teamwork and dealing with customer requirements, as well as coming to grips with the underlying technical issues to the extent necessary to produce a successful project outcome.

Unit rationale: To give student valuable experience in industry relating to working in teams, managing a project, dealing with clients and delivering outputs to satisfy a set of requirements they have gathered by bringing together the knowledge they have acquired throughout their degree.

Teaching Staff

Role	Name	Email	Room	Class hours
Convenor, Lecturer, Sounding Board	Dr Frank Moisiadis	fmoisiad@science.mq.edu.au	N/A	Friday 6-8pm

All emails related to COMP340 should be sent to fmoisiad@science.mq.edu.au and must include your full name and your student id number.

Classes

The class will meet in general each fortnight on Friday 6-8pm, but pay attention to the website for exact dates. Please ensure you attend the first lecture session on Friday 26th to find out what dates we will be meeting for the rest of the semester. Attendance will be taken on each of these days. You are expected to attend at least 80% of the class meetings throughout the year to be eligible to sit the exam and pass the unit. In week 3 the Careers Development Office will run a "Working in Teams" workshop. Attendance is compulsory. Some weeks I will present mini-lectures on material that you need to know at that phase. Some weeks will require your team to present your progress to date.

Note there are no practicals or tutorials. Some practical exercises and other resource material is available at the COMP345 or ISYS346 website which you will have access to. This material may assist you. Your organisation will also have documents, templates, procedures and processes that will assist you. Always follow the processes and deliverable formats used by the organisation before the resources I have provided.

Required and Recommended Texts

The is no mandatory textbook. In previous years there has been a text book and lectures for the first six weeks. You are encouraged to purchase a software engineering book which will be valuable resource if you plan to work in this area and will also provide some assistance at certain points in your project. In past years the text book we used was Ian Sommerville: Software Engineering (Pearson Addison Wesley 8th Edition, 2007). The slides for this textbook are available from Sommerville's site.

Additional reading that you may find useful for this unit is given below under Some topics relevant to study below.

Learning Outcomes

A student completing the unit should be able to:

1. Critically analyse, describe and apply principles and models of software development..
2. Perform the stages of the software engineering life-cycle (requirements analysis, design, construction, testing) in an authentic context.
3. Demonstrate an understanding of the influences of group effectiveness and strategies for supporting effective interoperation.
4. Demonstrate the capacity to work effectively in a software development team.
5. Effectively Communicate results of the software development process (in both written and oral form).

In addition to the discipline-based learning objectives, all academic programs at Macquarie seek to develop students' generic skills in a range of areas. One of the aims of this unit is that students develop their skills in the following:

• Self awareness, knowledge of own abilities, strengths, weaknesses, self discipline and motivation, independent learning skill
• The ability to perform time management for themselves and to meet deadlines
• Teamwork and cooperative learning skills (to cooperate with one or more other people to achieve a goal, to manage the efforts of each and report effectively on individual progress to the group, leadership to motivate and manage a successful outcome, to build networks)
• The ability to read, analyse and understand written material (ranging from technical to descriptive writing)
• Written communication skills (to convey ideas clearly, concisely, logically at a suitable level for technical or general documents)
• An awareness and appreciation of ethical issues and professional standards and conduct
• The ability to carry out advanced and broadly based problem solving (analysis of problem, breakdown into sections, verbal, graphical, mathematical formulation of a problem as required and interpretation of the solution, model building, ability to apply skills to both familiar and unfamiliar problems)

Teaching and Learning Strategy

COMP340 is taught via mini lectures as needed throughout the year and the involvement in an industry-based group project. Much of what is learnt is gained through experience and problem solving at the individual and group level. The unit will require the student to apply knowledge and skills gained in previous units and also require the student to acquire new knowledge and skills which will vary for each student and project according to the industry-based problem needing to be solved. The content of the unit includes:

1. Some mini-lectures and assigned readings in software and systems engineering.
2. Preparation of a detailed project proposal and plan.
3. Undertaking an extended industrial group project.
4. Preparation of intermediate and final project deliverables and progress reports.
5. Acceptance of project deliverable(s) by customer.
6. Preparation of a final report.
7. A one-hour group presentation.

    

To be successful you should:

• Meet with your group weekly. Make sure you take notes, set agendas and action items and at the start of each meeting check the status of all action items.
• Meet with your industry sponsor at least fortnightly.
• Attend the fortnightly class sessions.
• Read appropriate material to support the technical and management aspects of your project.
• Continually review and revise your project plan and ensure you are working to meet delivery of milestones by the specified time. If you are unable to meet a deadline you must inform the unit convenor before the due date and provide an explanation and revised date. Failure to do so may result in no marks for that deliverable.

Some Topics to Study Relevant to this Unit are

Relationship Between Assessment and Learning Outcomes

Learning Activities

 

1. Appreciate the role of software engineering in the context of the wider systems engineering process this will be achieved via a group project with assessed deliverables and final exam.
2. Understand and make use of some of the principles and methods that are used in the definition, design, implementation, delivery and maintenance of software-intensive systems this will be achieved via a lecture series, supplementary material, textbook and the application of the principles and methods to the group project which will require assessable deliverables and a final exam.
3. Understand the nature of the software development life-cycle and its different process models this will be achieved via a lecture series, textbook and the assessed via the development of a project plan specifying and justifying the SDLC to be used in project and final exam.
4. Understand and make use of the basic principles of project management, teamwork and the elements of software process from requirements elicitation to maintenance this will be achieved via a lecture series, supplementary material, textbook and participation in a group project and the assessed via the development of a project plan, requirements document, design documents, test plans, final report, project presentation and final exam.
5. Appreciate the importance of working closely with the project's customer and the delivered system's end-user(s) this will be achieved via an industry based project in which the group must interact with their industry sponsor and understand the needs of the end-user and assessed via a individual project mark to be supplied by the industry sponsor.
6. Appreciate the role and responsibilities of the project manager this will be achieved via rotation of the project manager role ensuring that every group member has a roughly equal period of time in this role and assessed via individual contribution to group marks for all project tasks. In general, all group members will receive the group mark, but where an individual is not performing their role appropriately, as deemed by the group, individuals will receive a lower or no mark.

Reports and Presentations

The final report and presentation are an opportunity for students to showcase what they have been doing throughout the year. Both invite reflection on what worked well and what didn't. Industry sponsors will be invited to attend. The presentation will be a half day event where all groups are expected to attend and see what their peers have been up to. More information will be given later in the year.

Assessment Criteria

Student assessment for project work will be based upon the quality. In general, you are expected to work as a team with equal contributions. Please ensure that you continually monitor your teams progress and how you as an individual are contributing. Any issues that arise regarding the team and individual performance should be dealt with quickly. Please contact me if you are not able to resolve an issue in a week or two. Please don't let the issue grow.

Task	Planned Date	Total Marks
Initial group proposal and project plan	May 1st	10%
Project deliverables (throughout the year), most likely broken down as	Deliverable Mark % SRS (initial & final) 5 + 4 Analysis 5 Design and Testing (initial & final) 5 + 5 Deployment & user documentation 8 + 3 Individual Project Mark 10 The actual deliverables, dates and weightings will be decided by the group and sponsor and included in the project plan to be approved by the unit convenor. In practice, there may be minor differences in timings and weightings of deliverables between project groups, reflecting the different project topics and the associated timetables of the industry project sponsors.	45%
Final group project report	FRIDAY WEEK 13 Hand in hard copy to Computing Admin Office by Friday 4pm	10%
Final Presentation	FRIDAY WEEK 13 from 6-8pm	10%
2 hour Final Examination	TBA. Will be held during second semester exam period Nov 2010	25%

Your final grade will depend on your performance in the project and exam. In particular:

• You must perform satisfactorily in the examination in order to pass this unit.
• You must contribute to all parts of the project (and your team members should agree).
• You must attend 80% of all class sessions.

All work submitted should be readable and presented in a business-like and professional format.

Late work will be accepted but may receive no marks. Your project plan will outline what you intend to deliver, when and how many marks each deliverable is worth. It is up to you to ensure you follow your project plan. Changes can be made but these must be discussed with the convenor before the due date. As you are working in a team and also are expected to perform risk management, sickness or other misadventure needs to be planned for and managed.

Assessment Guidelines

Final Grade	Summary of required performance
P	Has participated in group-based projects which delivered satisfactory outputs in both semesters and has demonstrated this participation in the final examination.
CR	Has participated in group-based projects in both semesters which delivered quality outputs and demonstrated in the exam a high degree of contribution to those outputs and good grasp of the concepts relating to working in groups, managing projects and the development of software.
D	Has participated in group-based projects in both semesters which consistently delivered high quality outputs and demonstrated in the exam a high degeee of contribution to those outputs and strong grasp of the concepts relating to working in groups, managing projects and the development of software.In addition to reaching the CR level of performance: all the assignment, practical and tutorial tasks (programming and written) completed to a very high standard. Excellent performance in the written examination.
HD	Has participated in group-based projects in both semesters which consistently delivered high quality outputs and demonstrated in the exam a high degeee of contribution to those outputs and strong grasp of the concepts relating to working in groups, managing projects and the development of software. Students achieving this grade are often distinguished by a high level of effort, enthusiasm, competence and often leadership in their project groups as well as by excellent performance in the written examination.

 

Examinations

The university examination period in Second Half year 2010 is from 17 November - 3 December.

You are expected to present yourself for examination at the time and place designated in the University Examination Timetable. The timetable will be available in Draft form approximately eight weeks before the commencement of the examinations and in Final form approximately four weeks before the commencement of examinations.

You are advised that it is Macquarie University policy not to set early examinations for individuals or groups of students. All students are expected to ensure that they are available until the end of the teaching semester, that is the final day of the official examination period.

The only exception to not sitting an examination at the designated time is because of documented illness or unavoidable disruption. In these circumstances you may wish to consider applying for Special Consideration. Information about unavoidable disruption and the special consideration process is available on the web (PDF).

If a Supplementary Examination is granted as a result of the Special Consideration process the examination will be scheduled after the conclusion of the official examination period. For details of the Special Consideration policy specific to the Department of Computing, see the Department's policy page.

Plagiarism

Please refer to the Department of Computing Plagiarism Policy for the definition of plagiarism, advice on avoiding it and the penalties in place if you are found to have submitted plagiarised work.

Student Support Services

Macquarie University provides a range of Academic Student Support Services. Details of these services can accessed at http://www.student.mq.edu.au.

Staff-Student Liaison Committee

The Department has established a Staff-Student Liaison Committee at each level (100, 200, 300) to provide all students studying a Computing unit the opportunity to discuss related issues or problems with both students and staff.

For each meeting, an agenda is issued and minutes are taken. These are posted on the web at:

• http://www.comp.mq.edu.au/units/300-liaison

Details of the regular meeting dates will be posted on the unit home page. Anyone with an interest in Computing units may attend. This includes staff involved in the teaching and administration of the units, and all students currently taking a Computing unit at that level. There are formal Liaison Committee representatives for each unit who attend to present the views of the student body; all students are welcome and are encouraged to attend.

The meetings are usually held in the Department of Computing Meeting Room, E6A357.

To forward agenda items or get in touch with your representative, send an email to comp340liaison@ics.mq.edu.au.

If you have exhausted all other avenues, then you should consult the Director of Teaching (Senior Lecturer Christophe Doche) or the Head of Department (Professor Bernard Mans). You are entitled to have your concerns raised, discussed and resolved.