Analysis of software engineering principles from an engineering perspective

Software engineering has recently emerged as a new engineering field in a continuing evolution. Software engineering is a discipline whose aim is the production of high quality software, but lacks maturity compared to other traditional engineering fields. Traditional engineering fields have their own principles originating from physics, chemistry and mathematics. However, since the software engineering discipline is not based on natural laws, establishing a set of principles is more challenging. This research on the set of candidate fundamental principles will contribute to a better understanding and possibly, to the teaching of the principles of software engineering and it will help improve the content of the software engineering body of knowledge (SWEBOK) Guide from an engineering perspective. This research work investigated the issue of software engineering as an engineering discipline using Vincenti categories of engineering knowledge; identified engineering fundamental principles from a set of candidates; and finally investigated the lack of explicit and systematic descriptions of these principles and their application, as in the SWEBOK Guide. The two main research objectives are the identification of the fundamental principles of software engineering from the 34 candidates principles; and the description of operational guidelines for these principles, based on the content of the SWEBOK Guide. To achieve these objectives, the following research methodology was used. The main phases of this research methodology are: the analysis, from an engineering perspective, of software engineering and the set of 34 ftandamental principles candidates; the identification of the software engineering principles in the content of the SWEBOK Guide - ISO TR 19759; the description of the operational guidelines on the basis of the content of the SWEBOK Guide and aligned with the IEEE standard 1362-1998 Concept of Operations (ConOps) Document. The main outcome of this research study is the identification of a set of nine software engineering fundamental principles and the description of operational guidelines

Software Engineering for Big Data Systems

Software engineering is the application of a systematic approach to designing, operating and maintaining software systems and the study of all the activities involved in achieving the same. The software engineering discipline and research into software systems flourished with the advent of computers and the technological revolution ushered in by the World Wide Web and the Internet. Software systems have grown dramatically to the point of becoming ubiquitous. They have a significant impact on the global economy and on how we interact and communicate with each other and with computers using software in our daily lives. However, there have been major changes in the type of software systems developed over the years. In the past decade owing to breakthrough advancements in cloud and mobile computing technologies, unprecedented volumes of hitherto inaccessible data, referred to as big data, has become available to technology companies and business organizations farsighted and discerning enough to use it to create new products, and services generating astounding profits. The advent of big data and software systems utilizing big data has presented a new sphere of growth for the software engineering discipline. Researchers, entrepreneurs and major corporations are all looking into big data systems to extract the maximum value from data available to them. Software engineering for big data systems is an emergent field that is starting to witness a lot of important research activity. This thesis investigates the application of software engineering knowledge areas and standard practices, established over the years by the software engineering research community, into developing big data systems by: - surveying the existing software engineering literature on applying software engineering principles into developing and supporting big data systems; - identifying the fields of application for big data systems; - investigating the software engineering knowledge areas that have seen research related to big data systems; - revealing the gaps in the knowledge areas that require more focus for big data systems development; and - determining the open research challenges in each software engineering knowledge area that need to be met. The analysis and results obtained from this thesis reveal that recent advances made in distributed computing, non-relational databases, and machine learning applications have lured the software engineering research and business communities primarily into focusing on system design and architecture of big data systems. Despite the instrumental role played by big data systems in the success of several businesses organizations and technology companies by transforming them into market leaders, developing and maintaining stable, robust, and scalable big data systems is still a distant milestone. This can be attributed to the paucity of much deserved research attention into more fundamental and equally important software engineering activities like requirements engineering, testing, and creating good quality assurance practices for big data systems

Using Cybersecurity Body of Knowledge (CyBOK) Case Studies to Enhance Student Learning

One of the central aspects of specialization in modern software engineering is security engineering. With contemporary systems being networked and entrusted with mission-critical functionality, cybersecurity is an essential quality that must be developed into the system from the first moment. This comprises issues such as privacy, authentication, robustness against vulnerabilities, and hardness against external attacks. To do so, software engineering specialists with appreciation for the detailed intricacies of security engineering as well as broad experience are required. The Cybersecurity Body of Knowledge (CyBOK, [1]) has been developed to serve, among other uses, as an instructional reference for educators to prepare the next generation of security engineers in this respect. While the CyBOK describes the intricacies of security engineering in plentiful detail, it remains up to the instructor to convey this curriculum in a way that fosters understanding and forms experience as well as competencies in the learner. To aid the instructors who use the CyBOK, we have devised a library of 18 case studies that are specifically designed to target CyBOK knowledge areas. The case studies are sufficiently detailed to allow adoption with minimal overhead on the instructor. In this paper, we describe the case study mapping to the CyBOK, and classroom results of one exemplary case study, demonstrating improved understanding by students

Business computing - A shared curriculum proposal for the spanish-portuguese border under the auspices of the new european higher education area

The Bologna Declaration is leading to a change of paradigm in the context of higher education in many countries of the European Community; it has a significant impact at the level of curriculum and learning models. Therefore, any reflection and decision work on the processes of teaching/learning imposes the curricular reformulation of higher courses in an innovating way, supported by new references and assumptions. In the context of a project financed by European Community program Interreg III A, we have created a workgroup to o propose the reformulation of several courses that belong to Business Computing, from ESTiG-Portugal and from ESPZ-Spain, in an attempt to create harmony between both study plans, considering the socio-economic specific context of the border region between Braganca (Portugal) and Zamora (Spain). This article intends to describe a case-study related to the work done to achieve a curriculum for Business Computing; it describes the changes due to the recent recommendations of Bologna and governmental reflections of Portugal and Spain.This study was partly financed by the European Union with INTERREG III A funds