Important Dates & Schedule

Introduction

3 Readings (on Perusall):

(1) What makes good research in software engineering?, Shaw, International Journal on Software Tools for Technology, 2002.

(2) A practical guide to controlled experiments of software engineering tools with human participants. Ko, LaToza, Burnett, ESE, 2013.

(3) Experimental models for validating technology, Zelkowitz et al., IEEE Computer, 1998.

Some questions that developers or data scientists ask about developers (as ideas for projects):

• 78 Questions developers ask (Paper)
• 145 Questions for Data Scientists in Software Engineering (Paper)

Optional (not required!):

Preliminary guidelines for empirical research in software engineering, Kitchenham et al., IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 2002.

READ and ANNOTATE all 3 papers on Perusall, the latest by midnight before class (interactively annotate each paper with comments and questions you have)

IDENTIFY ONE research question/problem and a way to address/study it in a course project and CREATE a max 2min presentation (max 2 slides in PDF) due on Sunday 26.9

(hand in by email, name the presentation LASTNAME_FIRSTNAME_RQ_01.pdf)

present to class 27.9 and take part in the discussion of papers

Developer Productivity

READ and ANNOTATE all 3 papers on Perusall, the latest by midnight before class (interactively annotate each paper with comments and questions you have)

Task: State in a maximum of 200 words: What are the major differences in the study methods used in the three papers, and what are the major strengths and/or weakness when comparing them?

due on Sunday 03.10

(hand in by email to Anastasia Ruvimova and me, name it LASTNAME_FIRSTNAME_TASK_02.pdf)

READ and ANNOTATE all 3 papers on Perusall, the latest by midnight before class (interactively annotate each paper with comments and questions you have)

Task: Based on the papers you read, you learned a lot about interruptions (self interruptions as well as external interruptions) and their impact on productivity and flow. Come up with ONE research question that you consider interesting in the area of interruption & flow and write down, which method you would use to examine it. For the method, choose one of the ones you saw in the papers for this week, or a combination thereof. (Maximum of 200 words, continuous text and full sentences)

due Sunday 10.10

(hand in by email to Anastasia Ruvimova and me, name it LASTNAME_FIRSTNAME_TASK_03.pdf)

Sensing Developers

READ and ANNOTATE all 3 papers on Perusall, the latest by midnight before class (interactively annotate each paper with comments and questions you have)

Task:  If you were asked to design a study (for the course project) that examines a measure/metric for coding difficulty: (a) which measure do you think would be interesting to study and why, and (b) how would you design the study? It does not necessarily have to be one of the ideas stated above, you could also come up with your own, but then just explain why you chose that one.  Keep in mind the time frame, i.e. you only have 3 months to design, run and analyze it. (Maximum of 200 words, continuous text and full sentences)

due on Sunday 17.10

(hand in by email to Anastasia Ruvimova and me, name it LASTNAME_FIRSTNAME_TASK_04.pdf)

Project Proposal

21/22.10: proposal discussions

Understanding and Supporting Code Comprehension
(CC1) Exploring Programmers' API Learning Processes: Collecting Web Resources as External Memory. Gao Gao, Finn Voichick, Michelle Ichinco, and Caitlin Kelleher. VL/HCC 2020.

(CC2) Supporting Code Comprehension via Annotations: Right Information at the Right Time and Place. Marjan Adeli, Nicholas Nelson, Souti Chattopadhyay, Hayden Coffey, Austin Henley, and Anita Sarma. VL/HCC 2020.

(CC3) Helping developers help themselves: automatic decomposition of code review changesets. Mike Barnett, Christian Bird, João Brunet, Shuvendu K. Lahiri. ICSE 2015.

READ and ANNOTATE all 3 papers on Perusall, the latest by midnight before class (interactively annotate each paper with comments and questions you have)

Task: 

Assume that you just developed a tool that allows developers to select web links and associate them with code elements in the IDE (e.g. a link to an API documentation on the web would be linked to a method call in the code that uses the API). Which research question(s) would be of interest for studying and how would you study it (method and study procedure)? (Maximum of 200 words, continuous text and full sentences)

due on Sunday 31.10

(hand in by email to Anastasia Ruvimova and me, name it LASTNAME_FIRSTNAME_TASK_05.pdf)

PER TEAM: a short update report on the project: 3 bullet points of what you did, 3 bullet points of what you'll do next week. (hand in by email)

Scrum + weekly meetings

short update report

Progress Presentation & Discussion

Study Sessions

Study Sessions

Scrum (+ controlled experiments)

Reading for writeup:

Preliminary guidelines for empirical research in software engineering, Kitchenham et al., IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 2002.

Study Sessions

rough draft due 05.12 (not graded!)

12.12

8pm

Project report (max 5 pages excluding references and optional Appendix)

16.12

12pm

noon

Peer reviews are due

& you will receive two peer-reviews for your project report for possible feedback before the presentation