Professor:
Dr. Anita Sarma
anita.sarma [at] oregonstate.edu
Office: 2063 KEC
Hours:
Class Time: TR 4:00-5:20pm
Class Room: TBA
Office Hours: TBA
Course Objectives
CS 569, Empirical Software Engineering, is a four-credit course for graduate students. This course will provide an overview of the different empirical research methods that can be used to research different aspects of software engineering. Any research or software development requires an empirical investigation of the nature of the problem that the tool or approach solves and an evaluation of the tool or process itself. In this class, you will learn about the different research methods and how they can be used for a particular software development process or tool.
The course will focus on the following topics: measurement types and data, qualitative research methods including interviews and surveys, design of user experiment, including crowd sourcing, and mining of software repositories. The course materials will draw from both emerging research and from fundamentals established over the last 20+ years about how different methods can be applied to software problems, tools, and processes. Therefore, at the end of the class, students should come away with a fundamental understanding of the different approaches of performing empirical studies on software engineering aspects.
Grading
TBA
Class Resources:
Tentative Schedule: please check regularly as it is bound to change
Readings will be made available online and will be linked from the schedule page.
CS569_Syllabus: A more concise version of this page, along with grading rubric
Education Methods
This is not a lecture-oriented class. I will do some lectures, but the class is very active-learning based. Thus, it will be quite critique-oriented, with student presentations and analyses regarding research papers and with a strong element of group critiques as work begins to emerge. No programming is expected, except a little of it might come in handy in the final project. Students should approach the course with the attitude that they get out of it what they put into it.
While there is no required text book. I highly recommend the textbook: Guide to Advanced Empirical Software Engineering, by Shull, F., Singer, J., and Sjøberg, D. I. 2007, Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
Prerequisites
Graduate standing in CS and interest in software engineering. CS561 is recommended.
Gadget policy: No cell phones, IPods, or Laptops allowed in class unless needed for class. Failure to follow will lead to penalty
Academic Misconduct: All homework assignments, quizzes, exams, etc. must be your own work. No direct collaboration with fellow students, past or current, is allowed unless otherwise stated.
Special Needs: Students with disabilities are encouraged to contact the instructor or the TA for a confidential discussion of your individual needs for academic accommodation.
