Annoucements

• Thurs 28th Dec, 2006: I have posted the preliminary marks for the assignments and exams, including class averages. Please let me know if there are any mistakes in your coursework grades. The Final Exam with model answers is also available.
• Thurs 7th Dec, 2006: Your final assignment is due in tomorrow at 12 noon, to room BA5287. One of the TAs, Jorge Aranda, will be there from 10:30am to receive the assignments. If you miss the 12 noon deadline, the assignment will be penalized according to the course lateness policy.
• Wed 6th Dec, 2006: For tomorrow's lecture, we'll review the course, and talk a little about the final exam. Reminder: no aids of any kind are allowed in the final exam - that includes cellphones, ipods, etc. The rules are very strict - if you need to keep track of time, you'll need to get a simple watch or alarmclock.
• Tues 5th Dec, 2006: As agreed in class this morning, there will be no tutorial on Friday. To save you getting up so early, we'll move the hand in time for the final assignment to 12 noon on Friday.
• Tuesday 20th Nov, 2006: Assignment 4 is released.
• Thur 16th Nov, 2006: Here's this term's midterm exam, with model answers.
• Thurs 2nd Nov, 2006: Note that there are no lectures and no tutorials next week, but the midterm exam will be held in the normal Thursday lecture slot, in the normal lecture room.
• Mon Oct 30th, 2006: Assignment 3 is released.
• Mon Oct 16th 2006: I had a request to make the lecture slides available as 1-up pdf (instead of 4-up), so I've started doing this from this week (lecture 9).
• Tues Oct 3, 2006: Assignment 2 is released.
• Sun Sept 24, 2006: Assignment 1 is released.
• Thurs Sept 14, 2006: Here is a list of teams and tutorial groups
• Thurs Sept 7, 2006: This webpage has been updated for the fall term 2006. Last year's site can still be accessed.

About the Course

This course covers the theory, tools and techniques of problem analysis for software systems development, covering both information systems and control systems. Topics include: requirements specification, object-oriented analysis, business process modeling, and analysis of non-functional requirements.

General Course Handouts

• Course Information Sheet
• Notes on Teamworking (including a pointer to the team information sheet)
• The Frequently Asked Questions list
• Web pages for previous incarnations of this course may still be available:
  • Spring 2005 and Spring 2006 taught by JC;
  • Fall 2004 and Fall 2005 taught by SE;

Lecture Notes & Weekly Readings

• Week 1:
  • 12/9/2006 - Lecture 01: Introduction
  • 14/9/2006 - Lecture 02: What are Requirements?
  • 15/9/2006 - No tutorial
  • Readings: "What is Requirements Engineering?" the draft chapter 1 and"What are Requirements?" the draft chapter 2 of Fundamentals of Requirements Engineering (FoRE)
• Week 2: No Lectures this week!
  • 19/9/2006 - No Lecture
  • 21/9/2006 - No Lecture
  • 22/9/2006 - Tutorial notes - Professional Ethics
  • no readings.
• Week 3:
  • 26/9/2006 - Lecture 03: What is Engineering?
  • 28/9/2006 - Lecture 04: Managing Risk
  • 29/9/2006 - Tutorial notes - assessing risk
  • Readings: "What is Engineering?" the draft chapter 3; Barry Boehm's "Software Risk Management: Principles and Practices" (), IEEE Software, January 1991.
• Week 4:(Assignment 1 is due in the tutorial this week)
• 3/10/2006 - Lecture 05: Feasibility Studies
• 5/10/2006 - Lecture 06: Stakeholders, Goals, Scenarios and Boundaries
• 6/10/2006 - Tutorial notes - Scoping (and hand in assignment 1!)
• Readings: Notes on the PIECES framework.
  For more guidance on feasibility studies, take a look at Prof. Sauter's resources on estimation and feasibility.
  Axel van Lamsweerde's Tutorial on Goal Modelling () from the RE'01 conference;
  Alistair Sutcliffe's Tutorial on Scenarios () from the RE'03 conference;
• Week 5:
  • 10/10/2006 - Lecture 07: Elicitation Techniques
  • 12/10/2006 - Lecture 08: Systems Thinking
  • 13/10/2006 - Tutorial notes - Return on Investment
  • Readings: Ann Hickey and Alan Davis' paper on Elicitation Technique Selection () from the RE'03 conference. "What is a System?" the draft chapter 4of FoRE
• Week 6:
  • 17/10/2006 -Lecture 09: Introduction to Requirements Modelling
  • 19/10/2006 -Lecture 10: Modelling Enterprises
  • 20/10/2006 -Tutorial notes - Modelling Stakeholders' Goals and Business Processes
  • Readings: Stephen White's paper on Business Process Modeling and Activity Models
• Week 7: (Assignment 2 is due in the tutorial this week)
  • 24/10/2006 - Lecture 11: Modelling Objects
  • 26/10/2006 -Lecture 12: Modelling Relationships
  • 27/10/2006 - Tutorial notes - ER and Class diagrams (and hand in assignment 2!)
  • Readings: The chapter in your UML textbook on class diagrams.
• Week 8
  • /10/2006 - Lecture 13: Modelling State
• 2/11/2006 - Lecture 14: Modelling Events
• 3/11/2006 - Tutorial - prep for midterm
• Readings: Harel and Gery's paper Executable Object Modelling with Statecharts (), IEEE Computer, July 1997. (David Harel was the inventor of the statechart notation).The entry on SCR in the Encylopedia of Software Engineering (Ed. John J. Marciniak, Jan 2002)
• Week 9: (Midterm test in the Thursday lecture this week)
  • 7/11/2006 - No lecture
  • 9/11/2006 - Lecture = midterm test!
  • 10/11/2006 - No tutorial. Stay in bed to recover from midterm.
  • Readings: No new readings this week
• Week 10:
  • 14/11/2006 - Lecture 15 - Modelling Interactions
  • 16/11/2006 - Lecture 16 - Non-functional Requirements
  • 17/11/2006 - Tutorial notes - Use Cases and Sequence Diagrams
  • Readings: The chapters in your UML textbook on use cases and sequence diagrams.
• Week 11: (Assignment 3 is due in the tutorial this week)
  • 21/11/2006 - Lecture 17: Requirements Specifications
  • 23/11/2006 -Lecture 18- Verification and Validation
  • 24/11/2006 - No Tutorial. Hand in assignment and go back to bed.
  • Readings: the Standard 830-1998 for Requirements Specifications. Also, somesample specifications.
• Week 12:
  • 28/11/2006 - Lecture 19 - Prioritizing Requirements
  • 30/11/2006 - Lecture 20 - Software Evolution
• 1/12/2006 - Tutorial notes - Prioritization using AHP
• Readings: Karlsson and Ryan's paper A Cost-Value Approach for Prioritizing Requirements (), in IEEE Software, Sept-Oct 1997; Parnas's paper Software Aging (), in 16th International Conference on Software Engineering, 16-21 May 1994
• Week 13: (Assignment 4 is due this week)
  • 5/12/2006 - Lecture 21 - Software Architecture
  • 7/12/2006 - Lecture 22 - Course Review & Exam prep (no slides)
  • No tutorial, No new Readings

Other stuff:

• Humour

Assignments and Exams

• Assignment 1:
  • Description
• Assignment 2:
  • Description
• Assignment 3:
  • Description
• Assignment 4:
• Description
• Midterm Exam :
  • Samples (with suggested answers): 2003 Spring, 2004 Spring, 2004 Fall, 2005 Fall, 2006 Fall
  • Note: In studying these samples, bear in mind that the course has changed a little each year - in particular, don't worry if there are modelling techniques on these exams that we haven't covered (yet) in the lectures. The midterm will only cover things we have met in lectures.
• Final Exam:
  • Samples (with suggested answers): 2003 Spring, 2004 Spring, 2004 Fall, 2005 Fall, 2006 Fall
  • Same note applies to these as it does to the midterm samples above. Don't forget that previous instances of this course covered more design than we do now, so ignore exam questions asking to give detailed designs.

Contact Details

Professor: