Forum for Advancing Software EngineeringForum for Advancing Software Engineering
Volume 6, Number 2, Fri Feb 2, 1996
Topics
MISCELLANY
Request for Articles for TCSE Newsletter
Request for SIGCSE "Reporters"
TEXT ANNOUNCEMENTS
The Case of the Killer Robot
EDUCATION SOURCES
CTIComp News
CONFERENCE/SYMPOSIUM/WORKSHOP/COURSE ANNOUNCEMENTS
Are Today's Requirements Engineering Problems Being Solved?
Software Engineering in Virtual Organizations
18th International Conference on Software Engineering
CALLS FOR PAPERS
International Conference on Software Maintenance
Workshop on Empirical Studies of Software Maintenance
A-------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Request for Articles for TCSE Newsletter
I edit the "Education News" column of the newsletter of the IEEE Technical
Council on Software Engineering Education (TCSE). This newsletter is
distributed three times a year to over 30,000 members of the TCSE. The
Education News column is the news source for the TCSE's Technical Committee
on Software Engineering Education. Please consider writing an article for
this newsletter; it will receive wide distribution.
Articles on any topic of interest to software engineering educators and
trainers will be considered. Length can range from very short announcements
(web sites or sources of training materials, for example) to 500-1000 word
articles. Here are some possible topics that come to mind:
* position papers on methods, philosophy, style, ... of software engineering
education or training
* descriptions of new or innovative programs or courses
* summaries of interesting conference events
* book reviews
* education and training sources
* conference announcements (education or training related only)
* news, articles, announcements related to professional issues and ethics
in software engineering.
The deadline for submitting articles for the next issue is March 15. If you
would like to submit an article but can't make this deadline, subsequent
deadlines fall every 4 months: March 15, July 15, November 15. Because of
space limitations, some editing of your articles may be required.
I look forward to receiving your articles.
Keith Pierce
A-------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Request for SIGCSE "Reporters"
As usual, this year's SIGCSE Technical Symposium includes much of interest
to software engineering educators. I would welcome from any attenders
articles summarizing events, panel discussions, or talks that might be of
interest to teachers of software engineering.
A-------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Killer Robot Text
THE CASE OF THE KILLER ROBOT
[THE SAGA CONTINUES
by
Richard G. Epstein
Department of Computer Science
West Chester University of PA
West Chester, PA 19383]
The Case of the Killer Robot explores the ethical, social and professional
dimensions of computing. It does this by means of an in-depth analysis of an
industrial accident in which a robot kills its operator. The investigation into
the accident leads to many important considerations in software engineering,
computer ethics, professional and workplace issues and the social implications of
computing.
FASE placed the original killer robot scenario (of about 70 manuscript pages) in
its Internet repository during the winter of 1994. This June the book version of
the killer robot case study will be published by John Wiley and Sons of New York.
The book is entitled The Case of the Killer Robot and it runs 400 manuscript
pages. The book is no longer just a scenario. It is a meditation upon broader
social, ethical and professional issues.
The Case of the Killer Robot consists of two books: an outer book which consists
of supporting factual materials and an inner book which contains the fictitious
materials (including the scenario proper). Each part has its own table of
contents.
Here is the table of contents for the outer book:
GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS
[the outer book]
Preface
General Table of Contents
Appendix A: real people and institutions
Appendix B: endnotes and references
Appendix C: discussion questions
Appendix A helps the reader to distinguish between fictitious characters (like Ray
Johnson, Robotics Division Chief) from real characters (like Ben Shneiderman,
whose user interface principles are discussed). Appendix B contains copious
references and endnotes on each story. Appendix C contains discussion questions
and other suggestions for student activities. The endnotes and discussion
questions introduce some important concepts in their own right. For example, the
concept of a "penumbra" of a decision as the sum total of all people that are
affected by a decision is introduced as a major tool for analyzing ethical
decisions.
The inner book is a compilation of papers concerning the killer robot and related
issues. The fictitious editor of the inner book is Pam Pulitzer, the Sentinel-
Observer reporter who is covering the killer robot case. Here is an annotated
listing of the twenty-nine articles that are included in her compilation of killer
robot articles:
ANNOTATED TABLE OF CONTENTS
[The inner book]
1. NEW GENERATION OF ROBOTS DELIVERED TO CYBERWIDGETS, INC.
2. ROBOT KILLS OPERATOR IN GRISLY ACCIDENT
3. McMURDOCK PROMISES JUSTICE IN 'KILLER ROBOT' CASE
[The first three articles provide a new introduction to the scenario and tries to
build the case that a prosecutor might try to hold a programmer responsible for an
industrial accident that is caused by a flawed computer program. ]
4. SILICON VALLEY PROGRAMMER INDICTED FOR MANSLAUGHTER
5. 'KILLER ROBOT' DEVELOPERS WORKED UNDER ENORMOUS STRESS
6. 'KILLER ROBOT' PROGRAMMER WAS PRIMA DONNA, CO-WORKERS CLAIM
7. 'KILLER ROBOT' PROJECT MIRED IN CONTROVERSY RIGHT FROM START
[stories 4-7 introduce the basic killer robot scenario]
8. FALLEN PROJECT DIRECTOR ACCUSED OF CONFLICT OF INTEREST IN KILLER ROBOT CASE
[this new story discusses conflicts of interest, personal problems and their
impact in a professional setting, the role of CASE tools on a software project.]
9. THE 'KILLER ROBOT' INTERFACE
10. SILICON TECHCHRONICS PROMISED TO DELIVER A SAFE ROBOT
11. SOFTWARE ENGINEER CHALLENGES AUTHENTICITY OF 'KILLER ROBOT' SOFTWARE TESTS
12. SILICON TECHCHRONICS EMPLOYEE ADMITS FAKING SOFTWARE TESTS
[Stories 9-12 complete the original killer robot scenario]
13. A CONVERSATION WITH DR. HARRY YODER
[A discussion of collective versus individual responsibility in an incident of
this nature.]
14. ETHICS & COMPUTING: THE ACM CODE OF ETHICS
[ACM President Turina Babbage discusses the entire killer robot scenario from the
perspective of the ACM Code of Ethics. The ACM Code of Ethics is presented and
discussed in some detail.]
15. SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS DISCUSS ETHICS AND PROFESSIONALISM
[A bunch of software professionals meet at the Angry Ostrich Bar and Grill and
discuss the role of ethics in their professional lives. One message: the presence
or absence of clear ethical guidelines will influence the pleasure that one will
derive from one's work.]
16. LONG-AWAITED SUITS FILED IN KILLER ROBOT CASE
[Basic legal principles: negligence, strict liability and warrantees]
17. HACKER EXPOSES 'PROCESS MATURITY' CONTROVERSY AT SILICON TECHCHRONICS
[A discussion of process maturity in general and the SEI CMM model in particular.
Reasons why a company might want to buy into process maturity and reasons for not
buying into process maturity. Also, hacking and computer security.]
18. THE UNHEALTHY WORKPLACE
[Repetitive Strain Injuries and other hazards of the computer professional's
working environment. Ethics of experiments involving human subjects.]
19. A TALE OF TWO CITIES
[Seven factors which impact upon the quality of the working environment. Emphasis
on what makes work rewarding and what makes work stressful and dangerous to
health. These are issues students should seriously consider before plunging into
the workforce.]
20. WEB OF DECEPTION
[Social implications of the World Wide Web. Can there be such a thing as too much
information? Quality of information. Fragmentation of society.]
21. VISITING A SOFTWARE VISUALIZATION LABORATORY
[Using process visualizations to communicate the complexity of software. The
difficulty of maintaining and testing object-oriented software. Basic software
engineering principles: coupling, cohesion, information hiding.]
22. AI RESEARCHER QUITS TO PROTEST SYSTEM HE HELPED TO CREATE
[Ethical implications and social impact of intelligent systems, in this case a
system which alerts security officials of suspicious-looking people based upon
ethnic and other visual characteristics. I call this "visual profiling" as opposed
to "data profiling". The nature of intelligence. Computers as embodying our own
intelligence or lack thereof.]
23. VISION QUEST: THE FUTURE OF COMPUTING
[A reporter goes on a vision quest and gets to see the world of computing in 2011.
An honest effort to predict what the future will be like, a combination of World
Wide Web and Megaprogramming. The Global Landscape is introduced as a carefully
planned and standardized Web of the future. The Global Landscape is a virtual
image of business, governmental and educational activities.]
24. LETTERS TO THE SENTINEL-OBSERVER SUNDAY MAGAZINE
[Readers respond to the Vision Quest story.]
25. VARIETIES OF TEAMWORK EXPERIENCE
[A very detailed analysis of teamwork and the ethics of speech. Presents actual
transcripts of killer robot team meetings and analyzes nature of the
communications between team members from an ethical point of view. Uses four
guidelines for evaluating the ethics of speech.]
26. THE CASE OF THE VIRTUAL EPIDEMIC
[This article introduces another software disaster: a medical diagnosis system
that is responsible for the death of a patient. Social and ethical implications of
expert systems. Who is embodied in a complex computer system and how is
accountability maintained in such an environment? In this case, an expert system
misdiagnoses ailments with fatal results. Can computers steal human capabilities?]
27. THE CASE OF THE DEADLY DATA
[Social and ethical implications of database systems. What happens when an
unreliable person is hired by a company with extremely sensitive data - in this
case, a blood bank? What kinds of data should a company be allowed to collect,
albeit anonymously? Data privacy policies of organizations.]
28. IS YOUR COMPUTER STEALING FROM YOU?
[Professor Lowe-Tignoff's assertion that computers can steal human capabilities.
The social and ethical implications of this fact. Also, a discussion as to whether
we need ethical guidelines for computer systems themselves, as well as for
people.]
29. CANDID PROFESSOR
[Professor Yoder's computer ethics lecture is video taped for the Candid Professor
TV show. The students and the professor discuss the Collins et al. paper "How Good
is Good Enough?" which proposes ethical guidelines for software developers.]
A-------------------------------------------------------
Subject: CTIComp News
>From the October 1995 Newsletter of The CTI Centre for Computing at the
University of Ulster at Jordanstownn: This edition of the NewsSheet
includes reports from projects which have been funded under the New
Technologies Initiative and which are of particular interest to Computer
Science educators. A full list of the projects is available on the Web at
the following URL:
http://www.man.ac.uk:80/NTI/
* World Wide Web teaching resources in Knowledge Based Systems (KBS)
and Speech And Language Technology (SALT)
* High Performance Computing Training and Education Centres tc "High
Performance Computing Training and Education Centres"
Visit the Centre's web page at http://www.ulst.ac.uk/misc/cticomp/
A-------------------------------------------------------
Subject: BCS RESG: Requirements Engineering Symposium
The BCS Requirements Engineering Specialist Group presents:
Are Today's Requirements Engineering Problems Being Solved?
Thursday March 21st 1996
City University, London
09:00am - 17:30pm
The BCS Requirements Engineering SG invites you to attend a symposium for
directors and senior managers which investigates whether today's
requirements engineering problems are being solved. In particular you
should attend this symposium if your business is losing money because of
inadequate specifications, your organisation is buying systems unsuited to
its real needs, or get well programmes are needed within months of system
installation.
For more information, contact
ORLENA GOTEL
Department of Computing
Imperial College
180 Queen's Gate
LONDON SW7 2BZ Phone:+44 171 589 5111 x58237
Email:oczg@doc.ic.ac.uk Fax: +44 171 581 8024
http://www-dse.doc.ic.ac.uk/~oczg Home: +44 1865 749200
A-------------------------------------------------------
Reply-To: bmccarty@apu.edu
Subject: Course Announcement: Software Engineering in Virtual Organizations
Beginning Feb. 5, a 9-week course in the MSE program at Azusa Pacific
University (Azusa, California) will address issues relevant to software
engineering in the 21st century, including in particular software
engineering in "virtual" organizations. There is a mailing list which
will be used to host course discussions, which are open to the public.
Information on the course and instructions for joining the mailing list
can be found at:
http://www.apu.edu/~bmccarty/curricula/mse598
Dr. Bill McCarty, Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science
Azusa Pacific University Ph. 818 815-5311
901 East Alosta Avenue Secty. 818 815-5310
Azusa, CA 91702 USA Fax 818 815-5323
mailto:bmccarty@apu.edu http://www.apu.edu/~bmccarty
A-------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 18th International Conference on Software Engineering
25-30 March 1996
Technische Universitaet Berlin, Germany
ICSE is the flagship conference of the international software
engineering community. The objectives are to provide a forum to present
new software engineering research results, to exchange experience
reports regarding the use of software engineering technologies in
industry, to expose practioners to promising new technologies, to
expose researchers to the problems of industrial software development,
and to encourage the transfer of advanced software engineering
technologies from research into practice.
ICSE 18 is the main event of the International Software Engineering
Week '96 (ISEW 96). The ISEW 96 in Berlin, Germany, is the premier
international software engineering meeting in 1996. The venue of ISEW
96 is the Technische Universitaet Berlin.
ICSE 18 will feature invited keynote presentations, parallel
conference sessions, tutorials, workshops, plenaries, workshop
presentations, reports from industrial experiences, mini-tutorials,
and other events.
INVITED SPEAKERS
o Chip Anderson, Microsoft, USA
o Victor Basili, University of Maryland, USA
o Hans-Eugen Binder, Siemens, Germany
o Anthony Hoare, Oxford University, UK
o Tom de Marco, Atlantic Systems Guild, USA
o Hasso Plattner, SAP, Germany
CONFERENCE SESSIONS
o Understanding and Analysis
o Supporting Requirements
o Testing and Analysis
o Object Orientation in Use
o Analysis of Distributed Systems
o Measurement
o Component-based Software
o Formal Design
o Configuration Management and Reuse
o Process Effectiveness
o System Validation
o Environments
o System Generation
o Data Flow Testing
o Maintenance and Evolution
o Testing Algorithms
WORKSHOPS
o Third Annual European Symposium on Cleanroom Software Engineering; Tuesday
o Fourth IEEE Workshop on Program Comprehension; Friday - Sunday
o Workshop on Multimedia Software Engineering; Monday+Tuesday
o Sixth Workshop on Software Configuration Management; Monday+Tuesday
o Workshop on Technology Transfer; Friday+Saturday
o 8th International Workshop on Software Specification and Design; 22+23 March
o Metrics Symposium METRICS 96; Monday+Tuesday
o First International Workshop on Software Engineering for Parallel
and Distributed Systems; Monday+Tuesday
o Third International Workshop on Software Engineering Education; Friday
TUTORIALS
Full-Day:
The Experience Factory: How to Build and Run One
Software Process Improvement: Methods and Lessons Learned
The Personal Process in Software Engineering
Safety Case Construction and Management
Software-Reliability-Engineered Testing
Inspecting Critical Software
Software Design for Concurrent and Real-Time Systems
Systematic Object-Oriented Software Construction With Eiffel
Half-Day:
Rigorous Requirements for Real-Time Systems: Evolution and
Application of the SCR Method
Computer and Network Security
A Comparison of Object-Oriented Analysis and Design Methods
EOS: A Model for Evolutionary Object Oriented Software Development
and its Implications for Project Management
Software Design and Implementation with C++ Components
Understanding Software Systems Using Reverse Engineering Technologies
For more information (W3 also registration) access:
http://www.gmd.de/Events/ICSE18/
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/Events/ICSE18/
mailto: icse18@informatik.uni-kl.de
Contact the general chair
A-------------------------------------------------------
Subject: CFP: International Conference on Software Maintenance
CALL FOR PAPERS
International Conference on Software Maintenance - ICSM'96
Monterey, California, USA
November 4 - 8, 1996
The Workshop on Software Maintenance held in Monterey,
California in 1983 marked the first in a series of software
maintenance conferences than have evolved into the
International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM).
ICSM is recognized as the world's premier forum for state-of-
the-art developments in the field of software maintenance. In
returning to Monterey in 1996, it is appropriate to examine
developments in software maintenance over the past thirteen
years and to assess the extent to which these developments
have added value to software products and processes.
SUGGESTED TOPICS include software maintenance education
For more information contact the submitter above, or visit the web site
http://www.crim.ca/se/icsm96.html
A-------------------------------------------------------
Subject: CFP: Workshop on Empirical Studies of Software Maintenance
CALL FOR POSITION STATEMENTS
International Workshop on Empirical Studies of Software Maintenance
Monterey, California, USA
November 8, 1996
Deadline for submission: August 1st, 1996.
This workshop is to take place following ICSM-96, the International Conference
on Software Maintenance taking place in Monterey, California, U.S.A. It is in
part sponsored by the Fraunhofer-Institute for Experimental Software Engineering
(IESE), Kaiserslautern, Germany.
The focus of the workshop is on experimental quantitative and qualitative
studies of software maintenance processes. Of particular interest will be the
design of empirical studies, their underlying methodologies and techniques, and
the lessons learned from them. Controlled experiments, field studies, pilot
projects, measurement programs, surveys or analyses based on questionnaires,
maintenance process models, etc., are examples of empirical studies of
interest. Please, send your position statements to:
For more information, contact the submitter or see the Web site:
http://www.crim.ca/se/wessm.html
FASE Volume 6 Number 2
Send newsletter articles to one of the editors, preferably by
category: Articles pertinent to corporate and government training to
Kathy Beckman, sdmce@access.digex.net; Academic education, and all
other categories, to Keith Pierce, kpierce@d.umn.edu (Messages routed
to fase-submit@d.umn.edu still go to Keith)
Send requests to add, delete, or modify a subscription to
fase-request@d.umn.edu
Send problem reports, returned mail, or other correspondence about this
newsletter to fase-owner@d.umn.edu, or kpierce@d.umn.edu
You can retrieve back issues by anonymous FTP from from
ricis.cl.uh.edu or through WWW at URL http://ricis.cl.uh.edu/FASE/
Keith Pierce -- Academic/Misc Editor and ListMaster
University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, MN 55812-2496 USA
Phone: 218- 726-7194
Fax: 218-726-8240
Email: kpierce@d.umn.edu
Kathy Beckman -- Corporate/Government Editor
Computer Data Systems
One Curie Ct., Rockville MD 20850 USA
Phone: 301-921-7027
Fax: 301-921-1004
Email: sdmce@access.digex.net
David Eichmann -- FASE Archivist
University of Houston - Clear Lake
Box 113, 2700 Bay Area Blvd., Houston, TX 77058 USA
Web: http://ricis.cl.uh.edu/eichmann/
Phone: 713-283-3875
Fax: 713-283-3810
Email: eichmann@rbse.jsc.nasa.gov or eichmann@cl.uh.edu
Laurie Werth -- Advisory Committee
Taylor Hall 2.124
University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 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