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82: Software Engineering Management - Term 1 - PDF file required
MAC
Greenwich Course Leader: Dr Simon Scola Due date: 12th November
2019
This coursework should take an average student who is up-to-date with tutorial work
approximately 25 hours
Learning Outcomes:
ALL
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Specification
You are to research and prepare a section of your report describing the application of quality
assurance to your work.
For this task you are required to perform some quality assurance on your coursework. You should
document as a detailed section in your coursework how you will ensure both process and product
quality. This should include the development of a quality plan for your work and a review of your
plan once the work is complete.
As part of the quality process, you should give a presentation that facilitates the review of your quality
plan. You are required to deliver the presentation formally and should also include it as part of your
coursework.
1. A description of your process and product quality assurance procedure for your
coursework. This should include a description of any change control that you have
employed.
2. A description of your 5 minute presentation (approximately 5 slides) aims/objectives, the
power point slides, and a critical review.
3. A review of your quality assurance procedures.
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Part 2 (60%):
Brief:
In his seminal paper “No Silver Bullet – Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering1” Fred
Brooks Jr. questioned whether there could be a “silver bullet” that could lay to rest the monsters of
missed schedules, blown budgets and flawed products. He argued that software development is
ultimately reliant on good designers and good managers and so advances in technology and
methodology such as object-orientated analysis and design or programming languages can never give
more than marginal gains. He concluded that “Building software will always be hard. There is
inherently no silver bullet.”
However, that paper was written nearly thirty years ago and in that time there have been a number of
advances which claim to specifically address the problems of large scale systems development.
You are to research and prepare a report on one of these techniques from the following list:
Python,
Semantic Programing.
Your report should be an academic style discussion that critically evaluates the technique’s value in
light of software engineering’s inherent problems and concludes by discussing how far the technology
does, or does not, go toward supporting the view expressed by Brooks in the quotation given above.
The report should have solid academic content and you should therefore base your discussion on at
least one refereed paper from a leading computing or software engineering journal such as IEEE
Software, IEEE Computing or Communications of the ACM.
The paper in Part 2 should following typical format of a formal academic paper. You may consider
looking at the ‘information for authors’ found in all referred archived journals for examples of
formatting and layout. An example of the IEEE style manual and article templates can be found at
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/authors/authors_journals.html
1
Brooks Jr., F. P., “No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering”,
Computer, Vol. 20(4), (April 1987) pp. 10-19. (A copy of this can be found online)
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Deliverables:
You are required to deliver a two part report as follows:
A report detailing your quality assurance produced in producing this work (around 3-5 pages).
This should include:
A report of between 1,500 and 2,000 words arranged in the following order:
1 Title
2 Author name, degree program and email address
3 An abstract description of your paper,
4 The main body of your, suitably divided under headings and where necessary, sub-headings
(for example, Introduction, Discussion, Conclusions, Evaluation, Future Work)
5 Acknowledgements (if any)
6 References (Harvard standard)
7 Appendices including a glossary of terms and list of acronyms used (if any).
The paper in Section 2 should following typical format of a formal academic paper.
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Assessment Criteria
This is a level six degree coursework and therefore, as well as a demonstrating that you have learnt some
facts or skills, you are being assessed on your ability to research, think and reason and then articulate your
findings and conclusions.
Evaluation / critique
Demonstration of insight
A strong argument supporting or rejecting the technique with a sound conclusion given your stated
premises.
Can make qualitative and quantitative judgments about the value of methods, processes or artefacts.
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Grading Criteria
Specifically the following marking guidelines will be used for the assessment:
The QA plan contains both excellent project management and well specified quality
objectives that are excellent and relevant. Section 1 is complete.
The QA plan contains either excellent project management and somewhat relevant, well
specified quality objectives or vice-versa. Section 1 is complete.
The QA plan contains either some project management or some relevant quality objectives
but they are incomplete. Some deliverable may be absent.
The QA plan makes an attempt at project management and quality objectives but they are in
places quite weak and erroneous. Deliverables are absent but those provided are of sufficient
quality to warrant a pass.
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0 … 40% Fail
This level demonstrates unsound presentation of relevant knowledge and comprehension
applied and/or the presentation of material is not contextualised to the question posed,
absent or unsound synthesis, analysis and critique.
Does not demonstrate accurate reporting of information. The references are unsound.
Does not answer the question posed.
The QA plan is incomplete. The plan does not provide project management and/or quality
objectives. A factual presentation without application to the specific task of writing an
academic paper warrants a failure.
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