Forum for Advancing Software engineering EducationForum for Advancing Software engineering Education
Volume 6 Number 6 March 8, 1996
Contents:
WANTED: Information and articles for TCSE Newsletter
OO Education and Training Sources
New software verification e-mail list (forward)
Software Reliability Engineering Bulletin Board
Update: Software Engineering at Keele
Minutes of the February 22,1996 SPIN DC Training Group
CFP: ZUM'97, 10th International Conference of Z Users
CFP, Special Issue of INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SYSTEM SCIENCE
Subject: WANTED: Information and articles for TCSE Newsletter
It's time for my tri-annual request for submissions for the newsletter
of the IEEE-CS Technical Council on Software Engineering Education. I
edit the "Education News" column, whose objectives are similar to those
of FASE. I welcome any submissions that would be of interest to software
engineering educators and trainers, and software engineering
professionals with an interest in education and training. THe newsletter
goes out to over 30,000 TCSE members worldwide, so your article will
receive wide exposure. I will byline submissions with your name and
affiliation.
My deadline for completing the column is March 31, so submissions must get
to me in the next couple of weeks to make the spring issue.
Subject: OO Education and Training Sources
The March/April issue of the Journal of Object-Oriented Programming
contains a listing of providers of education and training in object
orientation.
Also in that issue is an article "Teaching Eiffel as a first language. This
article describes a design framework and notation that integrates
procedural and object-oriented design, and shows how the framework is used
to teach Eiffel as a first language.
Subject: New software verification e-mail list (forward)
This is to announce a new software verification e-mail list where people
can discuss issues related to proving programs.
To join the list, send e-mail to
majordomo@lal.cs.byu.edu
The body must contain the line
subscribe softverf
Paul E. Black (p.black@ieee.org) Laboratory for Applied Logic, 3325 TMCB
black@cs.byu.edu Brigham Young University
voice: +1 801 378 8113 Provo, Utah 84602-6576
KC7PKT Web: http://lal.cs.byu.edu/people/black/black.html
Subject: Software Reliability Engineering Bulletin Board
+ Interested in keeping up with what's happening in SRE?
+ Want to learn more about SRE?
+ Having problems/successes in applying SRE that you want to
share with others?
The IEEE SRE Committee sponsors an Electronic Bulletin Board that can be
accessed via electronic mail (email). To subscribe (or change your email
address if already subscribed), please send email to
vishwa@hac2arpa.hac.com (Vishwa Hassan). After subscribing, any email
posted to sw-rel@gate1.hac.com (IEEE SRE Committee Bulletin Board) will
be relayed to you.
Planned uses of the bulletin board include:
+ sharing items regarding upcoming SRE-related
conferences/workshops,
+ providing a forum for discussion of SRE topics and issues,
+ giving hints and tips for implementing SRE in your organization,
+ distributing items that will appear in the (paper) IEEE SRE
Newsletter
DO YOU HAVE IDEAS ON OTHER USAGES, please share with
vishwa@hac2arpa.hac.com!!
Subject: Update: Software Engineering at Keele
This message is intended to update our many friends and collaborators about
some exciting new developments in the Department of Computer Science.
Following the recent decision by the U.K. National Computing Centre
(N.C.C.), based in Manchester, that it would restructure its activities in
the area of Software Engineering; Dr Barbara Kitchenham and Mr Stephen
Linkman, two of the senior researchers from the N.C.C., have joined the
Department of Computer Science at Keele University. The N.C.C. have also
agreed to make material from previous research available to Keele as well
as to help with marketing research and consultancy for the Department.
Barbara and Stephen bring with them a range of experience at senior levels
in software metrics, evaluation, quality assessment and risk management.
They have worked in and with industry on both research and consultancy, and
Barbara was formerly a Reader at City University in London.
This development has complemented and extended the Department's existing
strengths in Software Engineering, centred upon Software Design,
Configuration Management and Parallel Systems. An area of research that
we expect to be developing more strongly as a result of our combined
interests is that of Systems Evaluation, which will also involve
contributions from the Department's other research groups (Databases,
Cooperating Knowledge Based Systems, Geographic Information Systems,
Machine Perception & Neural Networks).
David Budgen, Pearl Brereton, Barbara Kitchenham, Stephen Linkman
Subject: Minutes of the February 22,1996 SPIN DC Training Group
The meeting topic was " Five Minute Madness"; anyone could bring a lesson
learned, a current challenge, or any topic for presentation and a brief
group discussion.
Claire Lohr of Lohr Systems explained how she develops pocket summary
guides for individual courses. They are either a bifold or a trifold
presenting all of the main points of the training. They have been very well
received by clients, but they do need to be tailored to the individual
organization. For more information, contact Claire Lohr at
75021.3410@compuserve.com.
Bill Flury of American University presented several key points from his
Software Process Improvement course, along with a poem by Ogden Nash:
"At last I've found the secret, that guarantees success.
To err, and err, and err again, but less, and less, and less."
For more information, contact Bill at wflury@american.edu.
Kathy Beckman of CDSI reported on the success of their training user's
group. Students (who had completed the training) voluntarily came back and
gave feedback for future improvements. At a follow-on meeting, the training
development staff reported back on which suggestions were implemented and
explained what happened to the others. Then the same group developed yet
another list of desired improvements for future implementation. For
additional information, contact Kathy at sdmce@access.digex.net.
Pam Case of System Engineering & Acqusition Services, Inc. (SEAS) shared
her experience with a large government project using MIL-STD-498. She
discovered that training just a small core of people was not enough. The
change in thinking required to transition from the predecessor standards was
just too difficult without training. The issues which are particularly
challenging are the emphasis on information instead of documents, the
reduction in formal reviews, and the increased emphasis on risk management.
Also, 498 assumes that a fully complete, documented software development
process is already in place, which was not the case with this particular
organization. Finally, the QA group had trouble orienting themselves to
focusing on the health and success of the process, instead of the individual
documents. For more information, contact Pam at 301-261-3805.
Rick Gross of DISA quoted Tom Gilb's law that if it is desirable to measure
something, there must be a way to do it somehow. Then he expressed his
desire as a consumer of training to have measures of the differences in
student skill before and after the training occurs. The group did some
brainstorming about what those measures could be, and made some plans for
future exploration of this concept. To join in this discussion, contact
Rick at grossr@ncr.disa.mil.
Subject: CFP: ZUM'97, 10th International Conference of Z Users
Notice of Meeting and First Call for Papers
10th International Conference of Z Users
Organized by the Z User Group in association with BCS FACS
Sponsored by BT and Praxis
3--4th April 1997
University of Reading, England
Of special interest to FASE subscribers: An educational issues session
is planned to follow the conference, and tutorials may be possible on
the days directly preceding and following the main sessions.
THE SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS 16 AUGUST 1996
General enquiries about the meeting and the Z User Group may be
directed to Jonathan Bowen at J.P.Bowen@reading.ac.uk or
URL: http://www.cs.reading.ac.uk/people/jpb/
For the complete text of this call, write to Mike. Also, see the on-line
and up-to-date conference information may be found under the following
World Wide Web URL:
http://www.cs.reading.ac.uk/archive/z/zum97/
Subject: CFP, Special Issue of INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SYSTEM SCIENCE
CALL FOR PAPERS
Special Issue of INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SYSTEMS SCIENCE
on Distributed Systems
Tentative Publication Date: November 1966
Distributed computing systems have experienced a massive growth in the
last few years. Many new frontiers of applications have opened up due
to the availability of these distributed and parallel systems.
While the foundations and the properties of sequential computing are
relatively well understood, theoretical modeling as well as software
engineering for distributed systems are still emerging. The purpose of
this special issue is to focus on different theoretical and experimental
aspects of distributed computing as well as new approaches, algorithms
and methodologies that are needed to accommodate the new complexities
introduced by the asynchronous operations of distributed systems.
Example topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
o Distributed Computing Models.
o Distributed and Parallel Algorithms
o Interconnection Networks
o Distributed Operating Systems
o Performance Evaluation
o Self-Stabilizing Systems
o Fault Tolerance in Distributed Systems
o Applications to Real Life Problems
Papers should emphasize new original contributions of either theoretical
or experimental nature. Papers must be written in IJSS style. Please
submit five copies of your manuscript to the guest editor by June 15,
1996: Pradip K Srimani, Department of Computer Science, Colorado State
University, Ft. Collins, CO 80523 USA, Tel: (970) 491-5862, Fax: (970)
491-2466, Email: srimani@CS.ColoState.Edu.
Instructions for submitting papers: Papers should not exceed 30 double
spaced pages. Papers should not have been previously published, nor
currently submitted to other journals for publication. Papers should
include a title page containing title, authors' names and affiliations,
postal and email addresses, telephone numbers and Fax numbers. Papers
should include a 300-word abstract and 5-10 keywords and be written in
general in IJSS style. [Note: If you are willing to referee papers for
this special issue, please send a note with research interest to Dr.
Srimani.]
Publishers: Taylor & Francis, Rankine Road, Basingstoke, Hants.
RG24 8PR England
FASE Volume 6 Number 6
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Keith Pierce -- Academic/Misc Editor and ListMaster
University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, MN 55812-2496 USA
Phone: 218- 726-7194
Fax: 218-726-6360
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
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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