This web page currently refers to an old version of the course, taught in 2004. For the current version of the course, please see the main course web page.

Note:

For 2004, we are running this course as an ARISE video-conferenced course, linking together the Universities of Toronto, Waterloo and York, and the IBM Toronto Lab. Students at any of these sites may take the course, but note that enrollment numbers will be limited at some sites.

Course seminars are timetabled for Wednesdays, 2pm to 5pm, starting Jan 7th, 2004. Location information is as follows:

• U of Toronto: Bahen Center, room BA7231
• U of Waterloo: the FlexLab, LIB 329
• York University: Stedman lecture hall, 120E
• IBM Toronto Lab: Y4-021

About the Course

• Orientation Handout
• Course notes and readings (page is password protected)
• Other RE resources
• Instructions for formatting your term papers
• Website for last year's version of the course is still available (but note that some of the seminar material has changed)

Course Outline

Please note: this is just an overview of the course content. Students taking the course can find more more material on the password protected page of Course notes and readings.

The slides available on this site are copyrighted. Please check with me if you wish to reproduce or adapt any of this material. I will normally grant permission for educational uses, as long as my copyright notice is preserved.

Week 1 (Jan 7, 2004): Course Orientation & Intro to RE

• slides in pdf format
• Required Reading (please read this paper before the class!):
• B. A. Nuseibeh and S. M. Easterbrook, "Requirements Engineering: A Roadmap", In A. C. W. Finkelstein (ed) "The Future of Software Engineering". (Companion volume to the proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE'00). IEEE Computer Society Press.
• Other Relevant Readings:
  • A. van Lamsweerde, "Requirements engineering in the year 00: a research perspective", Proceedings, 22nd International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE'00), Limerick, Ireland, 5-9th June, 2000, pp5-19. IEEE Computer Society Press.

Week 2 (Jan 14, 2004): Basics of RE

• slides in pdf format
• Required Reading (please read this paper before the class!):
  • Jackson, M. (1997). The Meaning of Requirements. Annals of Software Engineering, Vol 3, Pp5-21, Baltzer Science Publishers. Note: this issue of Annals was a special issue on RE. Some of the other papers are worth looking at too.
• Other Relevant Readings:
  • Zave, P. and Jackson, M. (1997). Four Dark Corners of Requirements Engineering. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology 6(1) 1-30. ACM Press.

Week 3 (Jan 21, 2004): Project Initiation

• slides in pdf format
• Required Reading (please read this paper before the class!):
• Hickey, A.M. and Davis, A.M. (2003) Elicitation technique selection: how do experts do it? Proceedings, 11th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE'03), Monterey Bay, USA, 8-12th September 2003, Pages: 169-178. IEEE Computer Society Press.
• Other Relevant Readings:
  • Bergman, M. and Mark, G. (2003) In situ requirements analysis: a deeper examination of the relationship between requirements determination and project selection. Proceedings, 11th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE'03), Monterey Bay, USA, 8-12th September 2003, Pages: 11-22. IEEE Computer Society Press.
  • Sutcliffe, A. (2003) Scenario-based requirements engineering. Proceedings, 11th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE'03), Monterey Bay, USA, 8-12th September 2003, Pages: 320- 329. IEEE Computer Society Press.
  • van Lamsweerde, A. (2001) Goal-Oriented Requirements Engineering: A Guided Tour. Proceedings, 5th IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering (RE'01), Toronto, August, 2001, pp. 249-263. IEEE Computer Society Press.

Week 4 (Jan 28, 2004): Elicitation Techniques (postponed!)

Week 5 (Feb 4, 2004): Elicitation Techniques

• slides in pdf format
• Required Reading (please read this paper before the class!):
• Goguen, J., & Linde, C. (1993). Techniques for Requirements Elicitation. Proceedings, First IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering (RE'93) San Diego, California, USA, pp. 152-164. IEEE Computer Society Press.
• Other Relevant Readings:
  • Lloyd, W.J.; Rosson, M.B.; Arthur, J.D. (2002) Effectiveness of elicitation techniques in distributed requirements engineering. Proceedings of the IEEE Joint International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE'02), Essen, Germany, 9-13 September, 2002, Pages: 311- 318.
  • Potts, C.; Newstetter, W.C. (1997). Naturalistic inquiry and requirements engineering: reconciling their theoretical foundations. Proceedings, Third IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering (RE'97), Annapolis, USA, pp. 118 -127. IEEE Computer Society Press.

Week 6 (Feb 11, 2004): Modeling Enterprises

• slides in pdf format
• Required Reading (please read this paper before the class!):
  • Yu, E.S.K. (1997) Towards modelling and reasoning support for early-phase requirements engineering. Proceedings, Third IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering (RE'97), Annapolis, USA, pp 226 -235. IEEE Computer Society Press.

Week 7 (Feb 18, 2004): No seminar - Reading Week

Week 8 (Feb 25, 2004): Modeling Information and Behaviour

• slides in pdf format
• Required Reading (please read this paper before the class!):
  • De Landtsheer, R.; Letier, E.; van Lamsweerde, A. (2003) Deriving tabular event-based specifications from goal-oriented requirements models. Proceedings, 11th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE'03), Monterey Bay, USA, 8-12 Sept 2003. pp200-210.. IEEE Computer Society Press.
• Other Relevant Readings:
  • Whittle, J.; Schumann, J. (2000) Generating statechart designs from scenarios. Proceedings, 22nd IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE-00), Limerick, Ireland, 4-11 June 2000. Pages: 314-323.
  • Fichman, R.G.; Kemerer, C.F. (1992). Object-oriented and conventional analysis and design methodologies. IEEE Computer, 25 (10) 22 -39, Oct. 1992.
  • Glinz, M. (2000). Problems and Deficiencies of UML as a Requirements Specification Language. Proceedings of the Tenth International Workshop on Software Specification and Design (IWSSD-10). San Diego. pp11-22. IEEE Computer Society Press.

Week 9  (Mar 3, 2004): Modeling Quality Requirements

• slides in pdf format (not yet available)
• Required Reading (please read this paper before the class!):
  • Mylopoulos, J.; Chung, L.; Nixon, B. (1992) Representing and using nonfunctional requirements: a process-oriented approach. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering,Vol 18, Issue 6, June 1992, Pages:483 - 497.
• Other Relevant Readings:
  • Franch, X. (1998) Systematic formulation of non-functional characteristics of software. Proceedings, Third International Conference on Requirements Engineering, (ICRE'98). 6-10 April 1998. Pages:174-181. IEEE Computer Society Press.

Week 10 (Mar 10, 2004): Specifications & Validation

• slides in pdf format
• Required Reading (please read this paper before the class!):
  • Regnell, B., Runeson, P., Thelin, T. (2000) Are the Perspectives Really Different? – Further Experimentation on Scenario-Based Reading of Requirements. Empirical Software Engineering: An International Journal, Volume 5, Issue 4, Dec 2000, Pages: 331-356.
• Other Relevant Readings:
  • IEEE Standards Board (1998) IEEE Recommended Practice for Software Requirements Specifications. IEEE-STD-830-1998.
  • Wilson, W.M.; Rosenberg, L.H.; Hyatt, L.E. (1997) Automated Analysis of Requirement Specifications. Proceedings of the Nineteenth International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE-97), Boston, MA, May 17-23, Pages: 161 -171.
  • Robertson, J.and Robertson, S. (1997) Requirements: Made to Measure. American Programmer, Volume X, No. 8; August 1997.
  • Porter, A.A.; Votta, L.G., Jr.; Basili, V.R. (1995) Comparing detection methods for software requirements inspections: a replicated experiment. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 21 (6) 563 -575, June 1995.

Week 11 (Mar 17, 2004): Negotiation and Prioritization

• slides in pdf format
• Required Reading (please read this paper before the class!):
  • Damian, D.E.H.; Eberlein, A.; Shaw, M.L.G.; Gaines, B.R. (2000) Using different communication media in requirements negotiation. IEEE Software, Volume: 17 Issue: 3, May-June 2000. Page(s): 28 -36.
• Other Relevant Readings:
  • Richards, D. (2003) Merging individual conceptual models of requirements. Requirements Engineering Journal, Vol 8: pp195–205.
  • Boehm, B.; In, H (1996) Identifying quality-requirement conflicts. IEEE Software 13 (2) 25-35. March 1996.
  • Easterbrook, S. M. (1994) Handling Conflict between Domain Descriptions with Computer-Supported Negotiation. Knowledge Acquisition: An International Journal, Vol 3, Pp255-289, 1991.
  • Karlsson J. and Ryan K. (1997) A Cost–Value Approach for Prioritizing Requirements. IEEE Software Sept/Oct 1997, pp. 67-74

Week 12 (Mar 24, 2004): Managing Change and Inconsistency

• slides in pdf format
• Required Reading (please read this paper before the class!):
  • Anton, A.I.; Potts, C. (2001) Functional paleontology: system evolution as the user sees it. Proceedings, 23rd IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE'01), Toronto, Canada, 12-19 May, 2001. Pages: 421-430.
• Other Relevant Readings:
  • Easterbrook, S.; Nuseibeh, B. (1995) Managing inconsistencies in an evolving specification. Proceedings of the Second IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering (RE'95), York, UK, Page(s): 48 -55.
  • Faulk, S.R. (2001) Product-line requirements specification (PRS): an approach and case study. Proceedings of the Fifth IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineeirng (RE'01), Toronto, Canada. Pages 48-55.
  • Gotel, O. C. Z. and Finkelstein A. C. W. (1995) Contribution Structures. Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering (RE'95), York, UK, pp. 100-107, March 27-29 1995. IEEE Computer Society Press.
  • Ramesh, B. and Jarke, M. (2001) Toward reference models for requirements traceability. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Volume: 27 1, January 2001, Pages: 58 -93.
  • Feather, M.S. and Cornford, S. L.(2003) Quantitative risk-based requirements reasoning. Requirements Engineering, Vol 8, pages 248–265.

Week 13 (Mar 31, 2004): How Much Formality?

• slides in pdf format
• Required Reading (please read these papers before the class!):
  • Parnas, D. L. (1998) “Formal Methods” Technology Transfer Will Fail. Journal of Systems and Software. Volume: 40, Issue: 3. March, 1998. pp. 195-198
  • Le Charlier, B.; Flener, P. (1998) Specifications Are Necessarily Informal or: Some More Myths of Formal Methods. Journal of Systems and Software. Volume: 40, Issue: 3. March, 1998. pp. 275-296.
  • Berry, D.M., Formal Methods, the Very Idea, Some Thoughts on Why They Work When They Work. Science of Computer Programming, 42:1, 11-27, January, 2002
• Other Relevant Readings:
  • Greenspan, S.; Mylopoulos, J.; Borgida, A. (1994) On formal requirements modeling languages: RML revisited. Proceedings, 16th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE-16) pp135 -147. IEEE Computer Society Press.
  • Heitmeyer, C. L., Jeffords, R. D., & Labaw, B. G. (1996). Automated Consistency Checking of Requirements Specifications. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, 5(3), 231-261.
  • Heimdahl, M.P.E, and Leveson, N. G. (1996) Completeness and Consistency in Hierarchical State-Based Requirements.