630 F07 Syllabus

Software Engineering (CSCI 340)

Students need a general knowledge of software engineering practices and terms

Graduate-level programming skills

Students will work in a group to develop a semester-long programming project

Software engineering textbooks tend to be expensive and boring. I've found that students don't usually read the textbook, so I've decided not to require one.
I think the following book is one of the best (most readable) and easy to read (not boring) software engineering texts. If you like to read then buy the book. If you don't like to read or are unlikely to ever read it, then don't buy it. I will put one copy on reserve in the library (remind me if I forget).

Software Engineering: Principles and Practice, 2nd Edition by Hans van Vliet

Attendance of lectures is not required, but is highly recommended. My goal is to make this a very interactive class. We will be preforming lots of in class exercises, and if you are not there, you won't get any class participation points. Class participation will count 10% of the course grade (see below).

Grading is relative. The students that do the best work will get an A, the students that don’t do as well will get a B, and so on. I do not follow the traditional percentage grades of 90% = A, 80% = B, etc., and I do not grade on a curve that defines how many students will receive each grade.

Students will receive a letter grade A-F (4.0 – 0.0) for each category (1 for exam, 1 for group project, 1 for your contribution to the group project, and 1 for class participation). The course grade will be a weighted average of the individual letter grades (see category percentages below). This mechanism allows for relative grading of each category (e.g., if the best score on the exams is a 60%, that student will probably receive an A for the exams, thus an A (not the 60%) will be averaged with the student’s other grades). This grading mechanism means that you have to get an A in all categories except class participation to get an A in the course.

Grade category percentages

30% Final Exam
30% Group project
30% Your participation in the group project
10% Class presentations & class participation

Here is my notion of the meaning of grades in a graduate course:

A	Exceptional effort and exceptional work. Much better than the average student.
B	Strong effort. Strong results. Similar to the majority of the class.
C	Weak effort and/or weak results. Lower than the majority of the class.
D	Little effort and/or no concrete results. Much lower than the majority of the class.
F	No effort, no concrete results.

Students will work in groups of 4-6 on a programming project. The project will include considerable planning and documentation. Each group will turn in and present to the class parts of the project’s documentation throughout the semester.

The most difficult aspects of this class are (1) making progress in the first half of the semester and (2) working in a group.

I will occasionally communicate with the class via e-mail. I will use your ECST e-mail. If you do not routinely read your ECST e-mail, you should create a .forward file to forward your ECST e-mail to the account you routinely read. The size of your ECST mailboxes is limited. If you let too much mail build up, you will not be able to receive new mail and thus might miss some important class information.

You are required to read e-mail I send to the class. I suggest that you make sure your e-mail is working (by comparing e-mail you've received from me to that posted on the class web site) and that you check the class e-mail when working on class assignments and before exams.

I expect all students to understand and follow the University’s honesty policies (http://www.csuchico.edu/prs/EMs/EM04/em04_36.htm). I will fail students who do not follow these policies, even if they don’t understand them. It is your responsibility to understand these policies. If you are planning on cheating you might want to read my cheating policy.

Don't ignore cheating by your group members, your grade will certainly be impacted and you will have to provide evidence that you did not cheat.