Description

Software engineering is a central area of study and research. Though, classes often do not exceed topics like requirements engineering, software design, implementation, testing, and project management. In brief, the topics focus on developing the software. However, software engineers have to tackle more obstacles in order to operate software. This seminar introduces students to software engineering activities, problems, and practices that go beyond the topics taught in classes.

Addressed topics this year:

• DevOps
• Microservices
• Release Engineering
• Software logging / tracing / profiling
• Software architecture evolution
• Software health
• Technical debt
• Test-driven development

Seminar Concept

While this seminar also teaches students how to write a scientific paper and present it, the main goal of this seminar is to bring students closer to research. Consequently, the addressed topics are emerging questions in current research that will be tackled by students and supervisors. Moreover, this seminar will be conducted in a conference-like style. In the process, students will learn to search for literature, gasp a research problem, use a popular conference management tool, review papers of fellow students, and prepare a good and straight-to-the-point presentation.

1. Kick-off meeting: First meeting to discuss the research question, direction, and strategy
2. Research and find your topic
3. Discuss topic, literature, etc. with supervisor
4. Narrow your research question
5. Discuss outline and related work with supervisor
6. Submit an abstract to a conference management system
7. Submit a draft version of a paper to your supervisor
8. Submit first version to the conference management system
9. Review two other papers
10. Polish your paper and submit final version to the conference management system
11. Create, review with supervisor, and submit a presentation for the paper
12. Present your paper at the end

Dates

Here are the preliminary dates and deadlines:

• 06.10.2014 10:00-11:30 Kick-off meeting in room AH 5
• 07.-10.10.2014 Appointment with supervisor: Discuss topic, literature, etc.
• 20.-24.10.2014 Appointment with supervisor: Discuss outline and related work
• 31.10.2014 Deadline: Submit abstract to the conf. mgmt. system
• 14.11.2014 21.11.2014 Deadline: Submit a draft version of the paper to your supervisor
• 19.-26.11.2014 26.-03.12.2014 Appointment with supervisor: Feedback on draft version
• 12.12.2014 Deadline: Submit first version of the paper to the conf. mgmt. system
• 19.12.2014 Deadline: Submit reviews to the conf. mgmt. system
• 09.01.2015 (14:00-15:30) Academic Presenting (part 1) in room 9u10 (E3)
• 12.01.2015 Submit final version of the paper to the conf. mgmt. system
• 19.01.2015 Deadline: Submit draft presentation to the conf. mgmt. system
• 19.01.2015 (14:00-15:30) Academic Presenting (part 2) in room 9u10 (E3)
• 20.-23.01.2015 Appointment with supervisor: Feedback on presentation
• 30.01.2015 Deadline: Submit final presentation to the conf. mgmt. system
• 03.-04.02.2015 (09:00-17:00) Presentations in room 9u10 (E3)

Note that the only “regular attendances” are required at the kick-off meeting (in the beginning), the presentation days (in the end), and your appointments with your supervisor.

Prerequisites

• Strong interest in software engineering
• Strong interest in research
• Basic LaTeX knowledge
• Write and talk in English

Contact

Andrej Dyck, M.Sc. seminar@swc.rwth-aachen.de