New Trends in Software Construction 2021

Description

Developing and delivering high-quality software is challenging. New software development processes, forms of organization, methodology and tools continuously arise with the aim to provide a solution for these challenges. With every new idea the question is, whether it is just a hype or it becomes a valuable long lasting tool for software engineers. For example. agile software development process models once were new and challenged other process models, such as the waterfall model. Nowadays, agile development is widely adopted in many areas. Yet, there are still a lot of open research questions when dealing with agility.

Topics like DevOps, continuous delivery, infrastructure as code, container-based virtualization or hyper scalable software architecture more recently started their rise. Consequently, much is still unknown in these areas. At the same time quite established fields of research are impacted by emerging developments. Thereby new research questions are raised. For example, continuous delivery heavily relies on test automation to ensure that the fast delivery of software does not negatively impact the software’s quality.

In this seminar, the students address research questions related to emerging trends in the construction of software.

Possible topics addressed this year

  • ….
  • ….
  • ….

Seminar Concept

While this seminar 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 the students together with their supervisors. Moreover, this seminar will be conducted in a conference-like style:

  1. The students have to write a paper. They must clearly state their research problem and methodology, do a thorough search for literature, and explain and discuss their results. Here, it is of high importance that the work is reasonable and easy to understand. The paper is then submitted to the seminar’s conference management system.
  2. The submitted papers have to be reviewed. The students are assigned papers for review: they must read the papers, identify potential for improvement, and submit their feedback to the conference system.
  3. Finally, the students have to do a presentation at the seminar’s internal conference. The students have to raise interest in their research and present their results in a very limited time.

This process is challenging, but with the supervision the students will learn to manage it and deliver the results in time. To stay on track, the process is broken down in smaller steps:

  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. Discuss your draft with your supervisor
  9. Submit first version to the conference management system
  10. Review two other papers
  11. Polish your paper and submit final version to the conference management system
  12. Attend two Academic Presenting events
  13. Create and review your presentation with supervisor
  14. Submit a presentation for the paper
  15. Present your paper at the end

Conference Management System (EasyChair)

Prerequisites

  • Application: Provide a brief motivation why you want to do this seminar (don’t list your courses and grades!)
  • Strong interest in software engineering
  • Strong interest in research
  • Basic LaTeX knowledge
  • Write and talk in English

Requirements

  • 1 research vision (short abstract in English)
  • (presumably) 10-pages paper on a research topic (in English)
  • 2 reviews of 2 follow students’ papers (in English)
  • 1 presentation (in English)
  • 2 discussion questions (for 2 presentations)
  • Attend kick-off meeting
  • Attend all appointments with the supervisor
  • Attend Academic Presenting I+II
  • Attend all presentations

Contact

seminar@swc.rwth-aachen.de

Course information

Supervisors
Course type

Seminar

Semester:

Summer semester 2021

Course language
  • English
Course level
  • Bachelor
  • Master
Credit points 1

4

1: The actual number of credit points can vary depending on the study program's examination regulation version. Consult your examination regulation's module catalog or the campus information system to see the valid number of credit points.