CS 320: Introduction to Software Engineering

This website is for the section of CS 320 taught by Prof. Yuriy Brun.

News | Description | Logistics | Grading | Integrative Experience | Schedule | CS 429 | Nondiscrimination | Academic integrity | Reading | Prerequisites | Acknowledgements

News:

• You can give the professor anonymous feedback on the class.
• The User Report assignment is due Tue November 26, 12:00PM noon EDT.
• The 1.0 release is due Friday, December 10, at 11:59PM (end of day) EST.

Description:

Software engineering goes beyond software development. It involves defining software products, dealing with customers who may not understand software or even their own needs, coordinating large teams of coworkers, ensuring the quality of software, shipping and maintaining software, and much more! As well as requiring strong technical skills, a good software engineer requires strong teamwork and communication skills. Get ready to learn software engineering principles first hand, ship product, and survive to do it again!

Logistics:

All assignment submissions are through Canvas.

Late policy: Assignment due dates and times are listed on the schedule. All deadlines are sharp and the submission site will be closed at the specified time. No extensions will be granted after the assignment is due. Early requests for extensions will be considered only in extenuating circumstances.

Grading:

Students are responsible for submitting all assignments. Each student who fails to participate in one or more of the exams, or whose group fails to submit one or more of the seven (7) project assignments, will receive the grade F for the entire class.

The project's 45% are further broken down:

Integrative Experience:

• engage in an in-class discussion at the start of the semester about what they will learn in CS 320 and how the skills they have acquired in their general education requirements will help them,
• engage in an a reflective in-class discussion at the end of the semester about what they actually learned, and which learning activities were the most effective,
• work extensively in groups,
• present his or her work orally in class,
• participate in active-learning activities with significant reflection components (including one on design, one on system understanding, and one on security in software),
• reflect on submitted assignments and improve and resubmit the work, and
• be guided by CS 429 students and their experience having previously taken CS 320.

Schedule:

(subject to change; check regularly)

CS 429: Software Engineering Project Management

CS 429 is an advanced class on project management. Each student in CS 429 leads a team of CS 320 students toward a successful project completion. In addition to all the CS 320 lecture and discussion meeting times, CS 429 students also meet on Thursday, 9:00–9:50AM in CS building, room 303. The prerequisite to take CS 429 is an A- or better in CS 320 and instructor approval.

429 Schedule:

(subject to change; check regularly)

Nondiscrimination policy:

Software engineering is at its nature a collaborative activity and it benefits greatly from diversity. This class includes and welcomes all students regardless of age, background, citizenship, disability, sex, education, ethnicity, family status, gender, gender identity, geographical origin, language, military experience, political views, race, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and work experience. Our discussions and learning will benefit from these and other diverse points of view. Any kind of language or action displaying bias against or discriminating against members of any group, or making members of any group uncomfortable are against the mission of this course and will not be tolerated. The instructor welcomes discussion of this policy, and encourages anyone experiencing concerns to speak with him.

Academic integrity:

Students are allowed to work together on all aspects of this class except the midterm. However, for the homework assignments, each student must submit his or her own write up, clearly stating the collaborators. Your submission must be your own. When in doubt, contact the instructors about whether a potential action would be considered plagiarism. If you discuss material with anyone besides the class staff, acknowledge your collaborators in your write-up. If you obtain a key insight with help (e.g., through library work or a friend), acknowledge your source and write up the summary on your own. It is the student's responsibility to remove any possibility of someone else's work from being misconstrued as the student's. Never misrepresent someone else's work as your own. It must be absolutely clear what material is your original work. Plagiarism and other anti-intellectual behavior will be dealt with severely. Note that facilitation of plagiarism (giving your work to someone else) is also considered to be plagiarism, and will carry the same repercussions.

Students are encouraged to use the Internet, literature, and other publicly-available resources, except the homework solutions and test (including quizzes, midterms, finals, and other exams) solutions, from past terms' versions of this course and other academic courses, whether at UMass and at other institutions. To reiterate, the students are not allowed to view and use past homework and test solutions, unless explicitly distributed by the CS 320 staff as study material.

The use of AI-based and other generative technologies (such as, but not limited to ChatGPT) is allowed, but the students must explicitly and clearly disclose all such use whenever submitting anything for the class that benefited from the use of such technology. All submissions using such technology, for code, text, or any other material, must explicitly disclose and document its use.

Whenever students use Internet, literature, and other publicly-available resources, they must clearly reference the materials in their write ups, attributing proper credit. This cannot be emphasized enough: attribute proper credit to your sources. Failure to do so will result in a zero grade for the assignment and possibly a failing grade for the class, at the instructor's discretion. Copying directly from resources is not permitted, unless the copying is clearly identified as a quote from a source. Most use of references should be written in the words of the student, placing the related work in proper context and describing the relevant comparison.

The students should familiarize themselves with the UMass Academic Honesty Policy and Guidelines for Classroom Civility and Respect. These policies and guidelines apply to this class.

Students who violate University standards of academic integrity are subject to disciplinary sanctions, including failure in the course and suspension from the university. Since dishonesty in any form harms the individual, other students, and the university, policies on academic integrity have been and will be strictly enforced.

Course Staff Are Mandatory Reporters:

The University of Massachusetts has decided that all its faculty are mandatory reporters. This means that if a student tells a faculty member about abuse or harassment, the faculty member is required to report this to the authorities. There is ample evidence that this practice is hurtful to victims of abuse and harassment (see here and here), but UMass has given faculty no choice, and it is important that students are aware of this policy to avoid unexpected surprises.

Reading:

There is no required textbook for the course. There may be several reading assignments that will come from publicly available research papers. Students who wish to read established textbooks beyond the assigned reading should consider:

• An Integrated Approach to Software Engineering by Pankaj Jalote; Springer
• The Design of Design, by Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., Addison-Wesley
• Software Architecture: Foundations, Theory, and Practice by Richard N. Taylor, Nenad Medvidovic, and Eric Dashofy; John Wiley and Sons

Prerequisites:

This course does not teach students to program. Software engineering is a larger concept than programming and both cannot be taught in a single semester class. Students should already be proficient in at least one programming language (such as Java or C++). A grade of C or higher in CS 220 is required, though you will likely have a difficult time with the material in CS 320 if you got below a B in CS 220.

Acknowledgements:

Various materials used in this course have greatly benefited from materials developed by Gail Alverson, Lori Clarke, Michael Ernst, André van der Hoek, David Notkin, Nenad Medvidovic, Lee Osterweil, and Ian Sommerville. Thank you.