Winter Quarter 2009
Course Code 37060
(Discussion: 37061; Lab: 37062)
Last update: February 17, 2009
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Instructor: |
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Email: |
(taylor [at] ics [dot] uci [dot] edu) |
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Office hours: |
After class, or by email appointment |
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Lectures: |
Tuesday and Thursday 11:00-12:20, ICS 253 |
| Web site: | http://www.ics.uci.edu/~taylor/classes/117/syllabusWQ09.html |
Description - Textbook and Readings - Schedule - Grading - Policies
Catalog description:
Specification, design, construction, testing, and documentation of a complete software system using concepts learned in ICS 52, Informatics 101, and Informatics 111. Special emphasis on the need for and use of teamwork, careful planning, and other techniques for working with large systems. Prerequisites: ICS 51 with a grade of C or better; Informatics 101/CS 141/CSE141 and Informatics 111/CSE121; Mathematics 2A-B and Statistics 67/Mathematics 67. Formerly ICS 125.
Remember reading The Mythical Man-Month? If you do, you can expect to profit from that experience in this class. If you don't, you need to read it, cover to cover BEFORE the class begins. Don't worry, it is a quick and fun read.. Depending on the projects chosen additional readings from various sources may be required.
Note that this book has a lot of white space and blank pages, so it really will not take you long to read these chapters.
Informatics 117 is on a tight time schedule, thus there is not much time for review. You are expected to recall the material covered in the prerequisite courses. Short supplementary lectures may be given on:
The schedule is subject to change.
| Week | Date | Topic | Project Items | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | J A N U A R Y | 6 Tu | Introduction | Individual website assigned |
| 8 Th | Teams assigned | |||
| 2 | 13 Tu | Getting Organized; Managing Time | Prospectus assigned | |
| 15 Th | ||||
| 3 | 20 Tu | Prospectus Reviews | Requirements assigned | |
| 22 Th | ||||
| 4 | 27 Tu | Requirements Reviews | ||
| 29 Th | ||||
| 5 | F E B R U A R Y | 3 Tu | Architecture/design | |
| 5 Th | Design assignment available | |||
| 6 | 10 Tu | Design reviews | ||
| 12 Th | Design due | |||
| 7 | 17 Tu | Implementation assigned | ||
| 19 Th | No class | |||
| 8 | 24 Tu | Progress review & presentations | ||
| 26 Th | ||||
| 9 | M A R C H | 3 Tu | No class | |
| 5 Th | Implementation review | Implementation due | ||
| 10 | 10 Tu | |||
| 12 Th | Final implementation due | |||
| Exam | 17 Th 10:30-12:30 | Scheduled Final Exam time. | ||
The project is the focus of this course and will be assessed accordingly.
It will account for approximately 80% of your grade; this
is broken down between deliverables, a team Web page, and presentations. The approximately remaining
20% will be divided among individual course logs, teamwork, individual leadership
demonstrated, and the final. These are guidelines intended to help students
plan their work in this course. However, the instructor does reserve the
right to make changes in these evaluation criteria.A critcal aspect of success,
however, and thus of assessment, is an effectively functioning team. Just because
a team's code "works" at the end of the quarter does not mean that
they have earned an A. If the team did a poor job on the requirements and design,
for instance, their grade would be much lower, despite "working" code.
Put another way, if your team has to pull an all-nighter to get a working system,
in all likelihood you will not receive the grade you want.
| Deliverable/Schedule Item | Weight | Description | Due Date (subject to change) |
Individual Web Page |
. | January 13th | |
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. | January 9th | |
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. | January 9th | |
Team Web Page |
. | January 15th | |
Prospectus and Plan |
Prospectus | January 20th | |
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. | week 3 | |
Requirements Specification |
Requirements | January 29th | |
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. | week 4 | January 27th and/or 29th |
Architecture/Module Specifications |
Architecture/Design | February 12th | |
|
. | Week 6 | February 12th |
Implementation |
Implementation/1st demonstration | ||
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. | week 9 | March 5th |
Testing/Test Documentation |
15 |
Implementation/2nd demonstration/Quality Assurance Report | March 12th |
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. | week 10 + finals week (TBD) |
Variations on this schedule may be made to accommodate the particular needs of a given project or a given team. Also, note that a team's grade for a phase is a function not only of the document/specification developed but also of any associated test plan and any reviews conducted in class, with the instructor, with the TA, or with the customer.
Have questions about your intellectual property rights (IPR)? Take a look at the UC's view of the subject also see http://www.ucop.edu/ott/genresources/pat-pol_97.html
Specific due dates/times will be indicated for each assignment. NO LATE ASSIGNMENTS WILL BE ACCEPTED. This applies to your final system and all intermediate projects. Since you are working in this class as part of team, it is the team's responsibility to ensure that assignments are turned in on time. Normal excuses for late assignments, such as illness, do not apply in a team setting (unless of course everyone on the team is ill :-)
Your customer should be invited to your team's Prospectus and Requirements review as well as your demonstration (and, possibly even your design and code reviews depending on the nature of your customer). The review is your team's chance to inform as well as obtain feedback and ideas from all relevant parties; your document will be reviewed at this time by course staff and clients as well as the rest of the class. This review is formal, however, and each team should have presented and negotiated both relevant documents to the customer prior to the review (if you haven't, it may be unpleasantly obvious by the interactions at this time).
All the documents associated with the above listed phases are integral parts of systematic software development. Their continued, up-to-date existence is necessary for successful system development. Do not delete documents after they have been turned in. They must reside permanently on your team's website.
All deliverable documents, with the exception of performance appraisals as discussed below, must be prepared on-line and be available as part of your project home page either as either HTML or .pdf files. NO MS Word files. In general, the following should be observed.
For all deliverables, except for the last and except for the "Agendas and Minutes" section, you will also have the opportunity to ``fix it'' based on its evaluation. You may submit an improved version of a deliverable one week after that deliverable has been graded and receive up to 50% of the points deducted on the initial version. The purpose of this exercise is for you to both learn how to use the techniques and so that you do not implement something from a bad design or specification. You should keep the same responsibilities for the improvement phase but assign new responsibilities for the next phase.
During your career you will need to keep track of how you spend your time either for you employer or to improve your own productivity. Throughout this course, you will practice doing this by keeping a course log recording the time you spend on all activities related to this course. At the beginning of each week you must submit the previous week's log to the TA. A sheet showing what should be on the log is available. The first log you submit will cover Week Two; it will be submitted at the beginning of Week Three.
Keep a copy of your logs: you will need them at the end of the quarter for the final review.
Each entry records the date and amount of time spent, type of entry, and text describing the entry. An entry is one of three types:
Most entries will be of the first type, but occasionally you should reflect and think about what is going on. The time entry applies for descriptions of activities and records the amount of time spent in hours, to the nearest quarter hour.
You will be marked down only for failing to submit logs each week, giving too little detail, or failing to keep track of time spent.
You are especially encouraged to keep track of the kinds of errors you make and the amount of time they consume. The purpose of recording these errors is so that you develop a better understanding of the kinds of mistakes you typically make. With that understanding you can improve your performance in the future, by paying extra attention to those areas in which you've had problems in the past.
The danger most students perceive in working on projects with other students is being saddled with (what they think is) a "non-producer". This is particularly true when you don't get to choose all your teammates (the situation here). Many factors dictate the use of a multi-person project for this course. You will not, after all, be able to choose your workmates in the future. One thing we'll discuss in the class is how to fix dysfunctional teams. Nonetheless, to alleviate your concerns and to grade you appropriately, at the end of the term project you will be asked to divide 100 points among the members of your project team, excluding yourself, corresponding to how you believe they contributed to the project as a whole (or on a phase-by-phase basis if you wish). In addition, each team member will be appraised for each phase. This ``peer apportionment of credit'' will be used to help determine appropriate individual grades for the project component.
There are several obvious dangers to group work that can be circumvented. Ensure that there is adequate coordination among the team members. Know each other's login names for electronic mail. Know each other's phone numbers. Meet at least twice per week (outside of class lecture) at the same, pre-determined time each week (so as to avoid confusion). The Discussion Section is designed to guarantee that such meetings are possible for everyone. You are strongly urged to use that time slot.
Have a contingency plan for submitting a document on time even if the responsible manager becomes unavailable.
You are strongly advised to consult weekly with the instructor/TA about your progress, problems, questions, etc.
Meetings are an important part of a team project. A successful meeting requires that the meeting have a definite purpose and associated agenda (these are the responsibility of the phase manager) and that all decisions be recorded in minutes (the responsibility of the phase clerical person).
The purpose of minutes is to record decisions made and to be available for updating any team member who misses a meeting. Each deliverable must be accompanied by agendas and minutes for the team meetings held during the associated period of time. I.e., keep the agenda, and the minutes, on-line as part of your project web page. The minutes should outline
What's the Drop/Add policy? Since Informatics 117 has a strong team project orientation, it is essential that the drop/add process be terminated early. Therefore NO drops or adds after the end of the second week of class.
Course Evalutions. The online evaluation window for winter quarter will run from TBA through TBA.
Cheating. The UCI academic honesty policy applies. Consequences of cheating in this class: a letter in your UCI file, and the course grade is lowered, most likely to F. Material that is copied from books or Web pages needs to be quoted and the source must be given. If you plagarize, you run the severe risk of failing the class, in a most disgraceful manner.
Disabilities. If you need an accommodation because of a disability, please contact the instructor and the Disability Services Center as soon as possible.