Ann E. Kelley Sobel

Formal methods application: an empirical tale of software development

The development of an elevator scheduling system by undergraduate students is presented. The development was performed by 20 teams of undergraduate students, divided into two groups. One group produced specifications by employing a formal method that involves only first-order logic. The other group used no formal analysis. The solutions of the groups are compared using the metrics of code correctness, conciseness, and complexity. Particular attention is paid to a subset of the formal methods group which provided a full verification of their implementation. Their results are compared to other published formal solutions. The formal methods groups solutions are found to be far more correct than the informal solutions.

SE2004: Recommendations for Undergraduate Software Engineering Curricula

Universities throughout the world have established undergraduate programs in software engineering, which complement existing programs in computer science and computer engineering. To provide guidance in designing an effective curriculum, the IEEE Computer Society and the ACM have developed the Software Engineering 2004 (SE2004) set of recommendations. The SE2004 document guides universities and colleges regarding the knowledge they should teach in undergraduate software engineering programs. It also provides sample courses and curriculum patterns. SE2004 begins with an overview of software engineering, explaining how it is both a computing and an engineering discipline. It then outlines the principles that drove the documents development and describes expected student outcomes. Next, SE2004 details the knowledge that universities and colleges should teach, known as SEEK (software engineering education knowledge), in a software engineering program. These recommendations are followed by general pedagogical guidelines, sample courses, and sample curriculum patterns

The flow-service-quality framework: unified engineering for large-scale, adaptive systems

Modern enterprises are irreversibly dependent on large-scale, adaptive, component-based information systems whose complexity frequently exceeds current engineering capabilities for intellectual control, resulting in persistent difficulties in system development, management, and evolution. We propose an innovative framework of engineering representation and reasoning methods for developing these complex systems: the flow-service-quality (FSQ) framework. In dynamic network information systems with constantly varying function and usage, workflows and their corresponding traces of system services act as stable foundations for functional and non functional (quality attribute) specification, design, and operational control. Our objective is to provide theoretical foundations, language representations, and rigorous yet practical unified engineering methods to represent and reason about system flows as essential artifacts of system specification, design, and operation.

Response to "Comments on 'Formal methods application: an empirical tale of software development"'

We respond to criticism by D. Berry and W. Tichy of our paper that appeared in the March 2002 issue of IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. Many of the supposed faults they identify in our experiment are a result of a misunderstanding on their part, while others are inherent aspects of an educational experiment. We present counterarguments that explain why our experiment is valid.

Empirical results of a software engineering curriculum incorporating formal methods

A three year study of integrating formal methods into the undergraduate software engineering curriculum of the Systems Analysis Department of Miami University was recently completed (NSF Educational Innovation Program CDA-9522257). Formal analysis skills were added to the curriculum to address the concern that the discipline of software engineering education lacks sufficient emphasis on mathematics and engineering science. A presentation of the six courses chosen for integration of formal analysis is given. The empirical data which directly compares the problem solving skills of the formal methods and control student groups shows that the formal methods students possess an increased level of complex problem solving skills as well as a greater ability to perform problem abstraction.

Should Everyone Go to College

The combination of ability, interest, potential for commensurate employment, and reasonable cost should direct an individuals career path.

Software engineering 2004: ACM/IEEE-CS guidelines for undergraduate programs in software engineering

This paper is an overview of Software Engineering 2004, the software engineering volume of the computing curricula 2001 project. We briefly describe the contents of the volume, the process used in developing the volumes guidelines, and how we expect the volume to be used in practice.

Technology transfer issues for formal methods of software specification

Accurate and complete requirements specifications are crucial for the design and implementation of high-quality software. Unfortunately, the articulation and verification of software system requirements remains one of the most difficult and error-prone tasks in the software development lifecycle. The use of formal methods, based on mathematical logic and discrete mathematics, holds promise for improving the reliability of requirements articulation and modeling. However, formal modeling and reasoning about requirements has not typically been a part of the software analysts education and training, and because the learning curve for the use of these methods is nontrivial, adoption of formal methods has proceeded slowly. As a consequence, technology transfer is a significant issue in the use of formal methods. In this paper, several efforts undertaken at NASA aimed at increasing the accessibility of formal methods are described. These include the production of the following: two NASA guidebooks on the concepts and applications of formal methods, a body of case studies in the application of formal methods to the specification of requirements for actual NASA projects, and course materials for a professional development course introducing formal methods and their application to the analysis and design of software-intensive systems. In addition, efforts undertaken at two universities to integrate instruction on formal methods based on these NASA materials into the computer science and software engineering curricula are described.

The Move Toward Electronic Health Records

A multitude of projects are under way that support the transition to electronic health records, which enable the exchange of health information among healthcare-related parties while maintaining patient privacy and offering security protections.

Experience integrating a formal method into a software engineering course

This paper outlines the integration of formal method techniques into a graduate advanced software engineering course. A formal method consists of a mathematical model and methodology to aid in the creation of the specification, design and verification of a software system. The justification for the introduction of a formal method not only stems from government and industry regulations/standards, but also from the national perception that the discipline of software engineering education lacks sufficient emphasis on mathematics and engineering science. This outline includes the objectives, teaching methods, group project, and evaluations of the experience from the instructor and students.