Seminar: Advanced Software Engineering, Spring 2020

The software requires constant evolution due to changing customer needs, bugs that have to be fixed, or changes in the environment. Lehman’s first law of software evolution states that a software system must be continuously adapted, or it becomes less and less useful. The constant change poses many challenges, and both researchers and practitioners have recognized the importance of studying and support software evolution and the humans involved in the process. In this seminar, we will cover some of the most relevant studies, approaches, and techniques that researchers have looked at in this context.

In this seminar, the students will work on a specific research topic in software engineering. By the end of the course, they will be asked to present a literature review on the chosen topic in the form of a report. Furthermore, the students will take part in a simulated peer-reviewing process for the first version of the produced reports. Finally, they will share as a presentation the results of their work and discuss them with the class.

First, we will explore how the research world in software engineering works. In particular, we will analyze the structure of a scientific paper and how to look at them critically. Also, we will examine the process that transforms a research work into a publication for a conference or a scientific journal. Then, we will study how to write a review of the literature systematically. Lastly, we will learn how to use LaTeX as a writing tool. By the end of the first lecture, the students will own the required knowledge to work independently on their reports.

Learning objectives:

At the end of this course, students should be able to:

• find and identify relevant related work
• reflect on a topic and discuss it
• critically analyze and reflect on research articles
• review and summarize the current state of the art of the selected topic
• reflect on possible future directions,
• provide constructive feedback on a research report

As a project for the seminar, you are asked to write a report about the literature review you will conduct during the seminar period.

You are asked to select a main topic, and then to come up with a subtopic on which focus. You will receive all the indications to review the literature and produce a report, including how to write a document in LaTeX, during the lectures.

Project instructions

• Version 1.4 (April 27th, 2020): Added a table with the description of the final decision values from reviewers.
• Version 1.3 (April 21st, 2020): Added some details about the submission and reviewing process.
• Version 1.2 (April 16th, 2020): Added the instructions for report submission and changed some deadlines.
• Version 1.1 (March 15th, 2020): Changed the deadline for the focus selection.
• Version 1.0 (February 18th, 2020): First version.