Forum for Advancing Software engineering Education (FASE)
Volume 10 Number 02 (121st Issue) - February 15, 2000

902 subscribers

Note:  If you have problems with the format of this document, try
<http://www.cs.ttu.edu/fase/v10n02.txt>

An HTML version of this issue is available at
<http://www.cs.ttu.edu/fase/v10n02.html>

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Table of Contents
 
   Letter From the ListMaster: Yet Another New Listserv
   This Month's Topic: Top Ten Contributions - The Readers Speak
   Upcoming Topics
   News Items
      ACM Council Members on SE Licensing: "Not Now, Not Like This"
      New PhD Program in Software Engineering at Carnegie Mellon
   Calls for Participation
      New Survey on SE Academic Programs - Deadline is February 29
      A New Web-based Journal Dedicated to SET&P: Survey
      International Symposium on Multimedia on Software Engineering
      Asia-Pacific Conference on Quality Software
   Position Openings
      Eastern Michigan University - Department Head
   Contact and General Information about FASE

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

By:  Don Bagert (Academic/Misc Editor)

Letter From the ListMaster: Yet Another New Listserv

   Texas Tech's Academic Computing Services is in the process of
changing to a new Lyris Mail List Server for all of their listservs.
I had thought that the changeover for FASE and FASE-TALK would not be
until next month, but problems with the old listserv over the last
few days necessitated the change be made on February 15th - the
scheduled FASE distribution date.

   As shown in the information at the bottom of this issue, under
"Contact and General Information about FASE", one can subscribe and
unsubscribe to FASE and FASE-TALK using <lyris@lyris.acs.ttu.edu> as
was done for the previous listserv address, and can send messages to
FASE-TALK through <fase-talk@lyris.acs.ttu.edu>.  However, there is
also a web-based interface for using the listserv that can be used
instead.  To access it, go to

   http://lyris.acs.ttu.edu

and click on "TTU Faculty Mailing Lists", and then "fase" or
"fase-talk".  A person can subscribe, unsubscribe, receive
messages and (in the case of FASE-TALK) send messages from there.
In the long run, this should be beneficial to everyone concerned.

   If you have any problems with new listserv, please contact me at
Don.Bagert@ttu.edu.

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This Month's Topic: Top Ten Contributions - The Readers Speak

Topic Editor:  Don Bagert, Texas Tech University
               Don.Bagert@ttu.edu

In the December 1999 FASE, a panel of experts gave their opinions on
what are the top ten contributions of the century in the area of
software engineering education, training, and professional (SEET&P)
issues.  For the next several weeks, we asked you, the reader, for
your opinions of the top ten contributions.  Here are the results.

There were 27 responses.  The top ten:

1.  Contributions in structured programming and algorithm development
    by Dijkstra, Hoare, Wirth, Knuth and others (1966-71) - 22 votes

2.  Barry Boehm's work in software engineering economics (c. 1981)
    - 18 votes

3.  First USA Master's Programs in Software Engineering at the Wang
    Institute, Seattle University, and TCU (1978-79) - 17 votes

4.  (tie) Development of formal methods for software development by
    Dijkstra, Hoare, Harlan Mills and others 1970's) - 16 votes

4.  (tie) Contributions by Fred Brooks, including The Mythical
    Man-Month (1975) and No Silver Bullet (1987) - 16 votes

4.  (tie) First software engineering textbooks by Pressman,
    Sommerville, Fairley and others (1982-85) - 16 votes

7.  (tie) The SEI Education Program, including the development of
    curriculum modules (1985-94) - 12 votes

7.  (tie) The Carnegie Mellon MSE Program and the SEI Graduate
    Curriculum Model (1989)

9.  NATO Conferences on Software Engineering (1968-69) - 11 votes

10. The Software Engineering Institute CMM(R) and PSP(SM) (1991 to
    present)

(SM)PSP is a service mark of Carnegie Mellon University
(R)CMM is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
    - 10 votes

Seven of these ten appeared on the panel's list; the ones the panel
didn't choose were Boehm's work, the work on formal methods, and the
contributions by Fred Brooks.

The other seven events listed on the web page received the following
votes:

* The Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (1987
  to present) - 7 votes

* The FASE Electronic newsletter (1991 to present) - 6 votes

* The development of large-scale corporate SE training programs (late
  1970's to present) - 5 votes

* Texas Board of Professional Engineers recognizes SE as a discipline,
  and begins to licensing in that area (1998) - 5 votes

* First baccalaureate degrees offered (UK, Australia - late 1980's on;
  USA - 1996 on) - 3 votes

* The creation of several small working groups in SEE&T, such as the
  Working Group and SWEEP (late 1990's) - 1 vote

* Innovative University/Industry Collaborations, as documented by the
  Working Group on SEE&T and elsewhere (1990's) - 1 vote

Of these, the first three (CSEE&T, FASE, and the corporate training
programs) were in the panel's top ten.

In addition, several events received a single write-in vote:

* Kant, E, 'A semester course in software engineering', SIGSOFT
  Software Engineering Notes, 1981, 6,(40), pp.52-76.

* A report on Undergraduate Curricula for Software Engineering, The
  British Computer Society/The Institution of Electrical Engineers,
  June 1989.

* The development and definition of Standard ML by Robin Milner

* SW Methodologies of Parnas, et. al.

* Michael Fagan's work on Software Inspections

* Bringing Christopher Alexander's patterns into SE: Kent Beck and
  others.

* Terry Winograd's contributions to SE and design.

* Commander Grace Murray Hopper and the COBOL system 1954-56: first HL
  programming language with broad support

* Allan Albrecht and Charles Symonds for Function Points Mk1 and Mk 2;
  more systematic project estimates

* The B family - Tool, Method and Tookit - which has empowered very
  ordinary engineers to use interactive and automatic proof assistants
  for a wide class of safety critical software applications.

* Java, JavaBeans from Sun Microsystems. (1995 - date)

Below are the comments supplied by those completing the survey.
____

The universal adoption of groupwork as a means of furthering SE
education marked out the discipline from many others typically found
in Universities, especially at the end of the 70s/beginning of the
80s. In many ways this put SE education at the forefront of
educational innovation. I started on this route in 1983 and when
thinking around my approach found the Kant paper inspirational
- groupwork could be done.

The BCS/IEE report [on undergraduate software engineering education]
had a considerable impact on UK education in crystallizing thoughts
on what the discipline was and how it could best be taught. The
report above was useful in itself, but what was also useful was the
process of developing it, and some of the personal networking that
went on.

It's very difficult to separate some of the technical innovations in
the discipline itself from the education. For example, object-
-orientation has had a major impact on both. So one might like to
raise a cheer for Smalltalk, especially Smalltalk 80 and the mature
development environment that it was part of. Or even further back to
Simula67 or maybe Parnas and encapsulation. The list goes on.
____

The [ML] programming language was the first to realize that modules
needed external connectors if they were to be useful as reusable
components and that the interface type languages play a crucial role
in the development of large systems from reusable components. Over
the past 10 years people have slowly recognized the educational
potential of this idea, and they will finally make use of it over
the next ten years.
____

The Top Ten shortlisted in Dec99 FASE have a very North American
slant. Although N America dominates software engineering in terms of
dollar investment, it does not dominate in terms of intellectual
concepts.

[Editor's comment: I - Don Bagert - personally agree with these
comments.  Unfortunately, I was not able to get more than one non-US
person on the panel (out of seven), although several were asked.  This
was a topic of discussion by the panel, who (I believe) made an extra
effort to consider contributions outside of North America because
of this.  However, I wished I could have gotten a wider diversity of
panelists.]
____

My thanks to all those who participated.

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By:  Don Bagert (Academic/Misc Editor)

Upcoming Topics

   May 2000: SWECC Survey on Software Engineering Academic Programs
             Guest Editor: Kenneth Modesitt
                           University of Michigan-Dearborn
                           modesitt@umich.edu
 
For more information about a particular issue's topic, please contact
the corresponding guest editor.  Please refer to the article format
provided at the end of each issue when making submissions, which are
always made directly to the guest editor.

If you are interested in being a guest editor, or have any suggestions
for future topics, please contact me at Don.Bagert@ttu.edu.

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News Items

######################################################################

By: Don Bagert (Academic/Misc Editor)

ACM Council Members on SE Licensing: "Not Now, Not Like This"

   In the latest of a series of "Viewpoint" articles on the licensing
of software engineers in Communication of the ACM, Fran Allen, Paula
Hawthorn and ACM President Barbara Simons, speaking for a majority
of the ACM Council, made their contribution to the debate with "Not
Now, Not Like This", on pages 29-30 of the February 2000 issue.

   The authors stated that "Is there a [licensing] test that will
assure the person who passes the test will be qualified to write
programs that will never endanger the public?...We do not have
building codes for programs.  We do not have a vocabulary of program
design rich enough to discuss structural integrity.  Much more
research is needed before a test is devised."

   At the end of the article, the authors state that "ACM is taking
proactive steps to address the very significant issues implicit in the
licensing debate by creating two task forces (see
http://www.acm.org/serving/se_policy/taskforce.html#bok for details)."
One task force is assessing the SWEBOK body-of-knowledge project
sponsored by the Software Engineering Coordinating Committee (SWECC)
and the second is looking at all options for ensuring public safety
from the development of software.

######################################################################

From: William L Scherlis <scherlis@cs.cmu.edu>

New PhD Program in Software Engineering at Carnegie Mellon

[Editor's Note: This article was submitted at the request of the
editors.  This is believed to the second announced PhD program in
software engineering in the United States, after the Naval
Postgraduate School, as reported in the July 1999 FASE.]

PhD in Software Engineering:
A New Degree Program at Carnegie Mellon University
David Garlan, Phil Koopman, William Scherlis, Mary Shaw
Institute for Software Research International
School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh PA 15213
isri@cs.cmu.edu
www.isri.cs.cmu.edu

Introduction

The School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)
has recently announced the inauguration of a new PhD program in
software engineering. The program is associated with the newly-
created Institute for Software Research International (ISRI).
ISRI is the principal locus for software engineering research and
education at Carnegie Mellon, and currently has 23 affiliated
faculty.

ISRI adopts as one of its founding principles that both research
and education in software engineering must rely on an intellectual
base that includes not only core computer science topics, but also
engineering methods and process, organizations and collaboration,
information management, and legal and policy issues.  ISRI faculty
are involved in research projects in embedded systems,
dependability, pervasive computing, software architecture,
software adaptation and assurance, collaboration technology,
digital libraries, distance education, distributed resource
management, and other areas.

With the start of the new millennium, software has become an
essential building material for systems of all kinds, affecting
business and everyday living throughout the emerging global
economy. As software becomes ubiquitous, the relation between end
users and software development is undergoing fundamental changes.
Rarely is software produced from scratch by a team of experts and
delivered to clients. Increasingly,

* Software is developed by adapting and integrating existing
  components and services;
* The Internet and other forms of interconnection provide broad
  access to computation and information resources that are
  independently created and managed;
* Software systems must be designed and fielded under complex
  economic and legal constraints;
* Systems are being built in which unreliable and unstable
  software cannot be tolerated;
* Clients are intimately involved in the development and
  configuration of systems; and
* Requirements for those systems often emerge only as clients
  better understand both the technology and the opportunities in
  their own settings.

CMU established the ISRI as a center for long-term
interdisciplinary fundamental research, apprenticeship-based
education, and international collaborations to address the
challenge of designing, developing, integrating, validating, and
maintaining practical, large-scale, high-quality software-
intensive systems. The creation of the ISRI is a natural extension
of Carnegie Mellon's long-standing commitment to research in
software systems.

By creating a new PhD program in software engineering, we are able
to train researchers who can address challenging problems related
to practical issues of developing product-quality software-
intensive systems.

ISRI research activities employ a variety of approaches, including
experimental prototyping, empirical modeling, codification of
experience, formal analysis, creating design/development
strategies for modern software, and developing public policy
positions. Educational activities are tightly integrated with
research and demonstration projects. The ISRI faculty is drawn
from computer science, computer engineering, public policy, and
other areas. The ISRI also maintains close ties with the CMU
Software Engineering Institute.

An important emphasis in ISRI activities is employing a broad view
of design. The approach to performing design in practice typically
follows a progression of increasing maturity over time, starting
as artisanship and leading to a scientifically-based, routinized
engineering discipline. This frontier advances at different rates
in different sub-disciplines. Aspects for which generic design
principles are not yet well articulated must be taught as art;
aspects that can be taught via an artisanship approach must be
taught in an apprenticeship format; aspects that can be reduced to
heuristics and empirical models can be taught as an engineering
discipline; and aspects that can be related to a theoretical
foundation may best be taught as science. For this reason, ISRI
adopts a flexible approach to teaching topic areas, attempting to
identify and teach the right topics rather than just focusing in
areas that are easy to teach.  Additionally, ISRI seeks to advance
the understanding of various areas to increase the level of
scientific maturity.

Expectations for Graduates

Graduates will be prepared for faculty positions in software
engineering, for research positions in industrial laboratories,
and for leadership positions in the computer industry. As faculty,
they will be distinguished by their understanding of software
design and development issues, and the way this shapes their
selection of research problems and evaluation of research results.
As industrial developers, they will understand the interplay of
academic research issues with engineering constraints that arise
from public policy, economic, regulatory, and market issues. As
senior software system developers, they will have a perspective
that enables them to address specific problems in the context of
the principles and results of the field. Graduates will understand
practical issues of software design and development, from
requirements acquisition to product support. They will be prepared
to enter research or advanced development positions in application
areas, distributed networks, embedded/critical systems, and other
specialties as well as conventional software system development.

Admission Criteria

Applicants to the program should have proficiency in computer
science at least at an undergraduate level, with emphasis on
development of software or hardware systems. They should also have
evidence of intellectual ability to succeed in an intellectually
rigorous doctoral program, demonstrated through transcripts, GREs,
and other means.

Prior industrial software development experience, especially
software design and programming experience as a member of a system
team, is a strong asset. We expect that students entering the
program will have experience equivalent to three or more years in
an industrial software development team. Students with less
quantity or quality of experience will spend more time during the
program gaining practical experience, through internships,
practicums, and other engagements. Extensive, high-quality
software development experience may substitute for any of the
normal requirements. We especially value the perspective that
senior software developers can bring to a research program.

Program Requirements

The program requires eight courses, distributed across software
design and engineering, systems, analysis, and economics or public
policy. Two of these courses are principally practical experience
courses. In addition to the course requirements, students must
demonstrate proficiency in speaking and writing, serve as a
teaching assistant in a classroom course and a studio/project
course, and participate in ongoing professional activities of the
ISRI.

As in any PhD program, the program culminates in an original
research investigation leading to significant new results.
Students can do research in a broad range of areas, such as those
mentioned above. Our focus is on systems that exploit the growing
infrastructure for high performance, nearly ubiquitous computing
and communication, especially systems that the public depends on
for services provided through the electronic marketplace. The
research approach for each project will be selected to match the
needs of the project. Approaches appropriate to PhD theses include
(but are not limited to):

* Novel methods for software development
* Automated support for software activities
* Descriptive models that generalized from practical examples
* Empirical models with predictive power
* Implementation techniques for novel applications
* Measurement techniques for system evaluation
* Guidance for making classes of design decisions
* Analytic models that permit quantitative or symbolic analysis

We anticipate that the program will require four years to
complete. In the first two years, most students will complete the
courses, teaching requirement, and preparation for the research
proposal. The last two years will be principally devoted to
research, including thesis work and contributions to a sponsoring
project. Students without significant prior industrial experience
should expect up to spend an additional year gaining practical
experience.

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Calls for Participation

######################################################################

From: Ken Modesitt <modesitt@umich.edu>

New Survey on SE Academic Programs - Deadline is February 29

Dear FASE Member:

If you are involved in Software Engineering (SE) efforts at your
institution, please reply to this survey request by January 31,
2000.  If you are not so involved, would you please
just reply "NOT INVOLVED" and then forward it on to the person in
your institution who is so involved?  Thank you very much!

ACM and IEEE-Computer Society would like to make your Software
Engineering (SE) academic programs known throughout the world. This
would be accomplished by your participation in a just-funded annual
survey of international SE programs, somewhat like the renowned
annual Taulbee surveys on faculty salaries and
enrollments for Computer Science.

Nearly one and half years ago, a survey on SE graduate programs and
the results were published in the Forum for Academic Software
Engineering (FASE): http://www.cs.ttu.edu/fase/v8n09.txt.  Thanks to
the work of Peter Knoke at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks,
that summary listed about 90 M.S. programs in SE and related fields,
an increase from the 60 or so several years earlier, as determined
by the Software Engineering Institute.

Since that time, there has been considerable activity world-wide
related to SE:

1. The state of Texas has instituted the licensing of professional
   software engineers
2. The Naval Postgraduate School developed the first Ph.D. program
   in SE
3. The United Kingdom has 27 institutions that now offer Bachelor's
   degrees in SE, as are several other universities/colleges in the
   U.S., Canada and Australia
4. The Software Engineering Coordinating Committee (SWEcc) was
   formed by ACM and IEEE-CS and has already sponsored three major
   initiatives: SWE Body of Knowledge (SWEBoK), Curriculum 2001
   (version 1.0 just appeared in November) and an annual survey of
   international software engineering academic programs (SESURV).

This last initiative is the concern of this note.  After you
complete the following short (16-question) survey and reply to me
(modesitt@umich.edu), the mini-survey preliminary results will be
posted on the following web site:

   http://www.engin.umd.umich.edu/CIS.

Additional universities and college programs will be added in a
second, more detailed survey.  Your help in providing such leads to
other programs will be invaluable, as you will be asked for
such help on the survey.

Why should you take the 15-20 minutes to complete this survey? Here
are some reasons you might consider, as formulated by the committee
that was funded by ACM and IEEE-CS (see list below):

1. It will help make your programs known to a wider audience of
   prospective students
2. Potential employers will have ready access to your programs via
   the WWW
3. If you are looking for qualified faculty, this WWW site will be
   a natural place for SE faculty to check first
4. The dramatic increase in the importance of SE throughout the
   world will be evident in the breadth and depth of SE programs
   available as shown in this WWW summary.

Please complete the survey by February 29, 2000.

The mini-summary of results will be posted a few weeks after that,
with a follow-up mailing to the people you have recommended.  A
second, more complete survey will be administered via the WWW, and
you will be contacted about that during February or March.  A final
summary with detailed responses will be posted on the official SWECC
web-site in April, 2000, for consideration by ACM and IEEE-CS.
[Editor's Note: The results will also be published in the May 2000
FASE.]

Thank you very much for your efforts in completing the survey and
for your continued interest in making a difference in the world of
Software Engineering!

Kenneth L. Modesitt
University of Michigan-Dearborn

Don Bagert
Texas Tech University

Laurie Werth
The University of Texas-Austin

Peter Knoke
University of Alaska-Fairbanks

Survey Follows:

____________________________________________________________________

Survey on Software Engineering Academic Programs

"Mini" version
January 31, 2000

1. Date:  _________

2. Name of institution: _________________________________________

3. Is there an academic program at your institution that has at
   least one degree, concentration or track in software engineering?
   (Use an X for your answer.)

     ____ Yes   ____ No

If your answer is "No", please skip to question 16.  Otherwise please
continue with question 4.

4. Academic unit(s) that house software engineering (e.g. College
   of Engineering)

   a. ________________________________

   b. ________________________________

5. The academic department(s) that house software engineering
   (e.g. Department of Computer Science)

   a. ________________________________

   b. ________________________________

6. Actual title of degree(s) offered that is (are) related to
   software engineering, as it would appear on the graduate's
   diploma, and the field of study for the program, e.g.

   Bachelor of Science (B.S./B.S.E.)
      Software Engineering,
      Computer Science (with concentration in SE identifiable
         on transcript/degree)
      Computer Engineering (with concentration in SE identifiable on
         transcript/degree)
      Information Systems (with concentration in SE identifiable on
         transcript/degree)
      Software Engineering Technology,
      Other?

   Master of Science (M.S.)
      Ditto

   Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
      Ditto

   a. Title ______________________  Field ________________________

   b. Title ______________________  Field ________________________

   c. Title ______________________  Field ________________________

   (Please add more lines if necessary)

For questions 7-10 below, fill in slots a, b, and c with information
corresponding to that degree.

7. Approximate date the degree(s) began

   a.  ____   b.  ____   c.  ____

8. Number of credit hours required for each degree: use a range of
   hours if appropriate

   a.  ____   b.  ____   c.  ____

9. Approximate number of students in each degree program:

   a.  ____ Total   ____ Full-time   ___ Part-time

   b.  ____ Total   ____ Full-time   ___ Part-time

   c.  ____ Total   ____ Full-time   ___ Part-time

10. Approximate number of graduates in each degree program to date

    a.  ____   b.  ____   c.  ____

11. Total number of software engineering courses available:

    Undergraduate ____
    Graduate      ____

12. System used for courses at your institution (mark an X by which
    answer is the most appropriate):

    ____  semester system (standard course length is 15-16 weeks)

    ____  quarter system (standard course length is 10-11 weeks)

    ____  other (describe)

13. Number of full-time faculty with primary interest in software
    engineering: ____

14. Number of part-time faculty with primary interest in software
    engineering: ____

15. Web URL address of information about the degree programs:

    ______________________________________________________

16. Name, e-mail, phone and postal address of contact person:

    ______________________________________________________

    ______________________________________________________

    ______________________________________________________

    ______________________________________________________

    ______________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

Optional questions, but the answers would really be helpful!!!
Other universities/colleges that may have software engineering
programs:

___________________________________

___________________________________

___________________________________

The following are some definitions of software engineering.
Please place an "X" by the ones with which you agree.
If none, what is your definition or one you believe to be more
accurate?

1. [Texas Board of Professional Engineers, April, 1998]

The practice of software engineering will mean a service or creative
work such as analysis, design, or implementation of software
systems, the adequate performance of which requires
appropriate education, training or experience.  Such education,
training, or experience shall include an acceptable combination of:
computer sciences such as computer organization, algorithm analysis
and design, data structures, concepts of programming languages,
operating systems, and computer architecture.; software design and
architecture; discrete mathematics; embedded and real-time systems;
or other engineering education.  Such creative work will
demonstrate the application of mathematical, engineering, physical
or computer sciences to activities such as real-time and embedded
systems, information or financial systems, user interfaces, and
networks.

2.[Freeman, P. and W. Aspray, The Supply of Information Technology
  Workers in the United States, Computing Research Association,
  1999, as adapted from U.S. Degree Programs in Computing in
  Computing Professionals - Changing Needs for the 1990s, National
  Academy Press, 1993]

[Software Engineering] Graduates work with the engineering of
software, with special attention devoted to large and critical
systems.

3. [IEEE Standards Collection: Software Engineering, IEEE Standard
   610.12-1990, IEEE, 1993]

Software Engineering: (1) The application of a systematic,
disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation,
and maintenance of software; that is, the application of engineering
to software. (2) The study of approaches as in (1).

4. [Naur, P. and B. Randall (eds.), Software Engineering: A Report
on a Conference Sponsored by the NATO Science Committee, NATO, 1969]
Software engineering is the establishment and use of sound
engineering principles in order to obtain economically software that
is reliable and works efficiently on real machines. (Fritz Bauer)

5. [Parnas, D., Software Engineering: An Unconsummated Marriage,
Software Engineering Notes, ACM SIGSOFT, November, 1997, pp. 1-3]

The members of the Software Engineering profession should know that
subset of Computer Science that is relevant to software design, but
they must also share the knowledge about design, mathematics, and
other sciences that are traditionally known by Engineers.

6. Yours ???

######################################################################

From: Peter J. Knoke <ffpjk@aurora.uaf.edu>

A New Web-based Journal Dedicated to SET&P: Survey

SWEETPI

A New International Web-based Journal
Dedicated to Software Engineering Education, Training, and
Professional Issues (SWEETPI)

This new periodical, with a first issue planned for October 2000, is
aimed at the emerging software engineering education and research
community. It has the goals of high quality via peer reviews, short
times to publication, and very low cost compared to printed journals.
It is unique because it is focused solely on software engineering
education and research. Feature articles will be complemented with
such items as:

   reports on training and educational developments
   reviews on national and international policies (e.g., on
     certification and licensing) and programs
   selected standardization issues
   forum and book reviews columns
   model curricula and programs reviews (what works what does not
      work)
   course announcements
   readers forums
 

SURVEY

The purpose of this survey is to assist in shaping the content and
form of the first few issues of SWEETPI. We thank you for taking a
few minutes to answer the following questions. Please send the
survey results to

      ffpjk@aurora.alaska.edu

as soon as possible, and preferably no later than 29 Feb 2000.
 

1) Do you think that current journals adequately cover the following
   areas of interest:
 
      * SE education?
      * SE practice?
      * SE training?

2) Would you be likely to subscribe to SWEETPI assuming it maintained
   high quality at very low cost? (the first two issues will be
   free)
 
3) Would you consider SWEETPI a potentially viable vehicle for
   publishing your own work? (If your answer is no, why not?)
 

4) Which of the following would POSITIVELY influence your decision to
   send your own work to an online journal such as SWEETPI?

        * quick reviews
        * 3 months to publication
        * highly reputable editorial board
        * other

5) If you are in academia, what concerns would NEGATIVELY influence
   your decision to send your own work to an online journal such as
   SWEETPI (e.g., tenure and promotion concerns)

6) To which computing and SE journals do you currently subscribe?

######################################################################

From: Peter J. Knoke <ffpjk@aurora.uaf.edu>

International Symposium on Multimedia on Software Engineering

      I n t e r n a t i o n a l    S y m p o s i u m    o n
      M u l t i m e d i a    S o f t w a r e    E n g i n e e r i n g
 
      December 11-13, 2000
      Taipei, Taiwan
      Co-sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society and Tamkang University
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 
      CALL FOR PAPERS
 
      With the advance of computer and telecommunication technologies,
      the demand for multimedia systems had increased dramatically.
      Despite the growing importance of multimedia applications, we
      still know relatively little about how to develop and maintain
      this class of complex applications in a systematic manner. The
      purpose of this symposium is to bring together active
      researchers in the area of multimedia systems, AI, database,
      HCI, computer and software engineering to exchange and evaluate
      the issues, experience, and trends in the areas.
 
      MSE2000 will be conducted as a combination of paper
      presentations, invited talks, and panel discussion. Submission
      of high quality papers describing mature results or on-going
      work are invited. The Conference Proceedings will be published
      by the IEEE Computer Society Press. A selected number of the
      accepted papers will possible be expanded and revised for
      publication in journals. Topics of interest include, but are not
      limited to:
 
         * multimedia architecture
         * multimedia communications & networking
         * multimedia and metamodeling techniques
         * architecture specification languages
         * software development using multimedia techniques
         * multimedia authoring
         * multimedia file systems and databases
         * multimedia over mobile systems
         * user-interface design
         * requirements and design specification techniques
         * distributed software development environment
         * metrics, analysis, testing and debugging techniques
         * intelligent agents
         * visual programming
         * neural networks
         * signal processing
         * image processing
         * parallel processing
         * distributed multimedia systems & applications
 
      PAPER SUBMISSIONS
 
      Papers  are  solicited  from  potential   participants of
      this  workshop.  Papers  must  be  written in English, with the
      length of no more than 20 pages, and printed using at least
      11-point type and double spacing. Authors are requested to
      submit their paper electronically (postscript or pdf format
      only) and followed by a hard copy to the respective Program
      Co-Chairs. The paper should have a cover page which includes a
      200-word abstract, a list of keywords, and author's phone number
      and e-mail address.
 
      For authors in Americas and Africa
            Professor Jaideep Srivastava
            Department of Computer Science and Engineering
            University of Minnesota
            Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
            Email: srivasta@cs.umn.edu
 
      For authors in Europe and Japan
            Professor Masahito Hirakawa
            Faculty of Eng. Infor. Systems
            Hiroshima University
            1-4-1 Kagamiyama
            Higashi-Hiroshima 739-8527, Japan
            Email: hirakawa@huis.hiroshima-u.ac.jp
 
      For authors in Asia and Australia
            Professor Ching-Tang Hsieh
            Department of Electrical Engineering
            Tamkang University
            151 Ying-Chuan Road
            Tamsui, Taipei
            Taiwan 25137
            Email: hsieh@ee.tku.edu.tw
 
      MSE 2000 will also include few special tracks dedicated to
      focused interest areas. For submission to these focused tracks,
      contact the Track Chair(s) in the respective areas, listed
      below. Papers from these Focused Tracks will be presented during
      MSE 2000. These papers will also be published in the IEEE
      Proceedings.
 
            End-to-End Design Issues for Distributed Multimedia
             Systems Track
            Chair: Jonathan C.L. Liu
                    Room E444, CSE Building
                    Department of Computer & Information Science and
                      Engineering
                    P.O. Box 116120
                    University of Florida
                    Gainesville, FL 32611-6120, USA
                    Phone: (352) 392-6834
                    Fax: (352) 392-1220
                    Email : jcliu@cise.ufl.edu
 
            Multimedia Tools for Scientific Applications Track
            Co-Chairs:
                    Jason T. L. Wang
                    Department of Computer and Information Science
                    New Jersey Institute of Technology
                    University Heights
                    Newark, New Jersey 07102, USA
                    Email: jason@cis.njit.edu
 
                    Takenao Ohkawa
                    Department of Information Systems Engineering
                    Graduate School of Engineering
                    Osaka University
                    2-1, Yamadaoka, Suita,
                    Osaka, 565-0871, JAPAN
                    Email: ohkawa@ise.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp
 
      Important dates:
             Papers due                          May 1, 2000
             Paper acceptance notification       August 1, 2000
             Camera ready paper due              September 1, 2000
 
      More Information:
             http://www.ee.tku.edu.tw/mse2000.htm

######################################################################

From: T.H. Lee <tse@csis.hku.hk>

       THE FIRST ASIA-PACIFIC CONFERENCE ON QUALITY SOFTWARE
                             (APAQS 2000)

                    http://www.csis.hku.hk/~apaqs

                              HONG KONG
                         OCTOBER 30-31, 2000
______________________________________________________________________

ORGANIZED BY

-  The Software Engineering Group, The University of Hong Kong

-  Software Technology Centre, Vocational Training Council, Hong Kong
______________________________________________________________________

BACKGROUND

The quality of software has an important bearing on the financial and
safety aspects in our daily lives.  Unfortunately, software systems
often fail to deliver according to promises.  It is well known that
there are still unresolved errors in many of the software systems that
we are using every day.  The Asia-Pacific region is far from being
immune to these problems.  The prime objective of the conference is to
provide a forum to bring together researchers and practitioners from
this region to address this issue seriously.
______________________________________________________________________

CALL FOR PAPERS

We are soliciting full-length research papers and experience reports
on various aspects of software testing or quality assurance.  Specific
topics include, but are not limited to, the following areas:

-  Automated software testing
-  Configuration management and version control
-  Conformance testing
-  Debugging
-  Economics of software testing
-  Formal methods
-  Metrics and measurement
-  Performance testing
-  Process assessment and certification
-  Quality management
-  Quality measurement and benchmarking
-  Reliability
-  Review, inspection, and walkthroughs
-  Robustness testing
-  Safety and security
-  Testability
-  Testing tools
-  Testing standards
-  Testing of object-oriented software
-  Testing of real-time systems
-  Testing processes
-  Testing strategies
-  Application areas such as e-commerce, component-based systems,
   digital libraries, distributed systems, embedded systems,
   enterprise applications, information systems, Internet, mobile
   applications, multimedia, and Web-based systems

All the papers submitted to the conference will be refereed by three
members of the program committee according to technical quality,
originality, significance, clarity of presentation, and
appropriateness for the conference.  The conference proceedings will
be published by IEEE Computer Society.
______________________________________________________________________

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Manuscripts should be full-length papers in English, double-spaced,
and must not exceed 20 pages.  Both electronic and hard copy
submissions will be accepted, although electronic submissions are
preferred.  Manuscripts must not have been submitted or published
elsewhere.
 

ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION

An electronic copy of the manuscript should be emailed to the
conference account mailto:apaqs@csis.hku.hk, to reach us by March 15,
2000.

Electronic submission must be in PDF or portable Postscript format
with no encoding, condensing, or encapsulation.  Please use TrueType 1
fonts wherever possible.  Do not use bitmapped versions of fonts such
as Computer Modern if you can avoid it.  Some printer drivers have
settings that directly address the portability issue, offering the
options for "optimizing speed" or "optimizing portability".  You
should select the "optimize for portability" setting(s) wherever
possible.  Word processor or LaTeX source files will not be accepted.
 

HARD-COPY MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION

Six hard copies of the manuscript should be sent to one of the program
co-chairs below, to reach him by March 15, 2000.  In addition, an
abstract in plain text, not more than 150 words in length, should be
emailed to the conference account mailto:apaqs@csis.hku.hk, to reach
us by the same deadline.

-  Dr. T.H. Tse
   Department of Computer Science and Information Systems
   The University of Hong Kong
   Pokfulam Road
   Hong Kong

   Email: mailto:tse@csis.hku.hk
   Fax: +852 / 2559 8447
   Telephone: +852 / 2859 2183

-  Dr. T.Y. Chen
   Department of Computing and Mathematics
   Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education
   Vocational Training Council
   30 Shing Tai Road
   Chai Wan
   Hong Kong

   Email: mailto:tychen@vtc.edu.hk
   Fax: +852 / 2505 4216
   Telephone: +852 / 2595 8152
______________________________________________________________________

FURTHER INFORMATION

More details of the conference are accessible at the Web site
http://www.csis.hku.hk/~apaqs.  Please feel free to contact the
conference organizers for any queries.  We can be reached by email at
mailto:apaqs@csis.hku.hk.
______________________________________________________________________

IMPORTANT DATES

-  March 15, 2000        Deadline for submission

-  May 15, 2000          Notification of acceptance

-  June 30, 2000         Deadline for camera-ready copies of accepted
                         manuscripts

-  October 30-31, 2000   Conference
______________________________________________________________________

COMMITTEES

GENERAL CHAIR

-  Mr. Danny Tang
   Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation
   Hong Kong
 

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

-  Professor Stephen Yau
   Arizona State University

-  Mr. K.C. Kwong
   Secretary for Information Technology and Broadcasting
   The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
 

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Co-Chairs

-  T.H. Tse, The University of Hong Kong

-  T.Y. Chen, Vocational Training Council, Hong Kong, and The
   University of Melbourne, Australia

Members

-  Mikio Aoyama, Niigata Institute of Technology, Japan
-  Paul Bailes, University of Queensland, Australia
-  Maarten Boasson, Hollandse Signaalapparaten BV, The Netherlands
-  Jonathan Bowen, The University of Reading, UK
-  Kai-Yuan Cai, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics,
   China
-  K.P. Chan, The University of Hong Kong
-  Carl K. Chang, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
-  Huo Yan Chen, Jinan University, China
-  Shing-Chi Cheung, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
-  William Chu, TungHai University, Taiwan
-  Doug Grant, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
-  Jifeng He, UNU/IIST, Macau
-  Lucas C.K. Hui, The University of Hong Kong
-  S.L. Hung, City University of Hong Kong
-  John Jenkins, Middlesex University, UK
-  Kouichi Kishida, Software Research Associates, Japan
-  David Kung, The University of Texas at Arlington, USA
-  H.F. Leung, Chinese University of Hong Kong
-  Hareton Leung, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
-  Shaoying Liu, Hiroshima, Japan
-  Michael Lyu, Chinese University of Hong Kong
-  Karl Reed, La Trobe University, Australia
-  Barrie Thompson, University of Sunderland, UK
-  Wei-Tek Tsai, University of Minnesota, USA
-  Feng-Jian Wang, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan
-  Chris Yang, Chinese University of Hong Kong
-  Y.T. Yu, City University of Hong Kong
 

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

-  Chair:                  F.T. Chan, The University of Hong Kong

-  Vice-Chair:             Karl R.P.H. Leung, Vocational Training
                           Council, Hong Kong

-  Secretary, Publicity,   M.F. Lau, The Hong Kong Institute of
   and Publication:        Education

-  Treasurer:              Wai Wong, Hong Kong Baptist University

-  Registration:           Emily Chui, Vocational Training Council,
                           Hong Kong

-  Local Arrangement:      P.K. Wong, Vocational Training Council,
                           Hong Kong
______________________________________________________________________

*  The above line-up will be subject to final confirmation

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Position Openings

######################################################################

From: William W. McMillan <csc_mcmillan@online.emich.edu>

Eastern Michigan University - Department Head

My department is searching for a department head and would welcome
applications from people who have an interest in furthering the
development of a promising computer science department.  We're right
by Ann Arbor, not far from Detroit, and amidst swarms of high tech
companies.

The position announcement:
http://compsci.acad.emich.edu/pos_head.html

(The deadline has been extended until the position is filled.)

Please get in touch with me if there are questions.

Bill McMillan
Computer Science
Eastern Michigan University.

csc_mcmillan@online.emich.edu

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Contact and General Information about FASE

The Forum for Advancing Software engineering Education (FASE) is
published on the 15th of each month by the FASE editorial board.

Send newsletter articles to one of the editors, preferably by
category: Articles pertinent to corporate and government training to
Kathy Beckman <kbeckman1@erols.com>; Academic education, and all
other categories to Don Bagert <Don.Bagert@ttu.edu>.  If the article
for a FASE topic where there is a guest editor, the submission should
instead be to that person.  Items must be submitted by the 8th of the
month in order to be considered for inclusion in that month's issue.
Also, please see the submission guidelines immediately below.

FASE submission format guidelines:  All submissions must be in ASCII
format, and contain no more than 70 characters per line (71 including
the new line character).  This 70-character/line format must be
viewable in a text editor such as Microsoft Notepad WITHOUT using a
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[NEW SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE INFORMATION - February 15, 2000]
 
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But what if you have something that you want to share with everyone
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Please try to limit FASE-TALK to discussion items related to software
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FASE-TALK is also used by the editors for "breaking stories" i.e. news
that we feel that you would want to hear about before the next issue
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As always, there is no cost for subscribing to either FASE or
FASE-TALK!

Back issues (dating from the very first issue) can be found on the
web (with each Table of Contents) at
<http://www.cs.ttu.edu/fase/archive.htm> in chronological order,
<http://www.cs.ttu.edu/fase/reverse.htm> in reverse order, or
through ftp at
<ftp://www.cs.ttu.edu/fase/archive>.

The FASE Staff:

Don Bagert, P.E. -- Academic/Misc Editor, ListMaster, and Archivist
Dept. of Computer Science
8th and Boston
Texas Tech University
Lubbock TX 79409-3104 USA
Phone: 806-742-1189
Fax:   806-742-3519
Email: Don.Bagert@ttu.edu
URL:   http://www.cs.ttu.edu/faculty/bagert.html

Kathy Beckman -- Corporate/Government Editor
Computer Data Systems
One Curie Ct.
Rockville MD 20850 USA
Phone: 301-921-7027
Fax:   301-921-1004
Email: kbeckman1@erols.com

Laurie Werth -- Advisory Committee
Taylor Hall 2.124
University of Texas at Austin
Austin TX 78712 USA
Phone: 512-471-9535
Fax:   512-471-8885
Email: lwerth@cs.utexas.edu

Nancy Mead -- Advisory Committee
Software Engineering Institute
5000 Forbes Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA
Phone: 412-268-5756
Fax:   412-268-5758
Email: nrm@sei.cmu.edu