Requirements Engineering I

Module number: MINF 4204
Teaching language: English
ECTS Points: 2

The final exam grades are available in your online transcript. If you want to see your exam, please send an e-mail to todoran@ifi.uzh.ch by Thursday, December 19. You will be scheduled for a short discussion on Friday, December 20.

Having a good requirements specification is a critical prerequisite for any successful software project.

This lecture gives an introduction to processes, methods and representation forms for specifying and managing requirements.

The topics include:

• Background and general overview
• Processes and methods for requirements elicitation
• Specification with natural language
• Object-oriented specification, use cases, UML
• Formal specification
• Specification of performance requirements, quality requirements, and constraints
• Requirements validation and management
  

More information can be found in the Electronic Course Catalogue of the University of Zurich.

Generally Master's or advanced Bachelor's students, who are interested in problems at the interface of application and system development, particularly:

• BSc Computer Science students in all fields of study, usually in the fifth semester;
• MSc Computer Science students in all fields of study, who have not already taken the course during their BSc studies;
• MSc or advanced BSc students, having Computer Science as a minor ("Nebenfachstudierende").

For the students whose study major is Software Systems, this module is strongly recommended.

• Bachelor of Science in Computer Science: elective module
• Master of Science in Computer Science: elective module (unless already completed during the BSc studies)
• Minor studies in Computer Science: elective module
  

• Basic knowledge in software development and modeling.
• The students who successfully completed the Informatik IIa and Software Engineering modules have the required prerequisite knowledge.

Prof. Dr. Martin Glinz (Instructor)

• Office: BIN 2.B.21
• Email: glinz@ifi.uzh.ch

Irina Todoran (Course Assistant)

• Office: BIN 2.B.20
• Email: todoran@ifi.uzh.ch

Rita Forster (Teaching Assistant)

• Office: BIN 2.B.20
• Email: ritaforster123@gmail.com

This course is held in classes of four academic hours per week in the first third of the term (From Sept 16 to Oct 14, 2013). The lectures take place on Mondays, 10:15 - 13:45, in seminar room BIN 2.A.01 (Institut für Informatik).

The slides are published shortly before the lecture. References to further and more detailed literature can be found in the lecture slides.

The course includes two assignments, which are taken into consideration for the course evaluation. More information can be found on the Assignments Page.

If you are unable to complete an assignment due to illness, military service or force majeure, you have to inform the course assistant as soon as possible.

The course evaluation consists of grading the assignments and the final exam. In order to pass the course, you have to pass both the assignments and the final exam. You will receive points for each assignment (maximum 40 points in the first assignment, maximum 60 points in the second). Passing the assignments part means you should have at least 50/100 points by the end of the semester. The final course grade is entirely based on the final exam.

The final exam takes place on Monday, November 4, 2013, 10:15 - 11:45, in BIN 2.A.01. You are allowed to bring one double-sided self-written A4 auxiliary sheet, with handwritten notes.

If you are unable to attend the final exam due to illness or force majeure, you must let the instructor know in time and present to the instructor a note from your physician, detailing the period during which you were ill, in order not to be penalized (i.e., receive a grade of 0), or present a document from some other appropriate authority, respectively. In case you are unable to attend due to military service, you have to tell the instructor at the beginning of this course in September and if acceptable, also present a copy of the “Einberufungsbefehl”. In all cases, the instructor will then decide on the course of action to follow.

We provide a sample RE I exam from HS 2007 (in German only), to support you for your final exam preparation. It may help you get a feeling of what the exam looks like and what level of detail we expect. To evaluate your knowledge correctly, we recommend that you only compare your solutions with the ones provided here after you have solved the entire exam on your own, under exam conditions. Naturally, this is only a sample exam, and does neither suggest nor guarantee that the topics or exercises this year will be the same. This year's exam will be in English.

Sample Exam RE I (no longer online)

Solution Sample Exam RE I (no longer online)

The lecture slides are provided here.

Part I: Fundamentals - Version of 2013-09-23 (PDF, 2 MB)

Part II: Requirements Engineering Practices - Update of 2013-10-06 (Slides for Chapters 10-13 added) (PDF, 2 MB)

Part III: Enablers and Stumble Blocks - New of 2013-10-06 (PDF, 226 KB)

References (all chapters) - Update of 2013-10-06 (References for remaining chapters added) (PDF, 130 KB)

Students should know where to draw the line between getting legitimate outside assistance with course material and outright cheating. Students who obtain too much assistance without learning the material ultimately cheat themselves the most. Submitting the work of another person as your own (i.e., plagiarism) constitutes academic misconduct, as does communication with others (either as donor or recipient) in ways other than those permitted for assignments and exams. Such actions will not be tolerated. All offences will be reported to the Department of Informatics, University of Zurich.

For more information on the treatment of plagiarism at UZH, please refer to The Information Sheet on the Treatment of Plagiarism