Calibrated Peer Reviews in Requirements Engineering Instruction: Application and Experiences

Instructing Requirements Engineering (RE) is a challenging task due to the absence of single absolute and correct solutions computer science students so often strive for. Instead, there is often a variety of compromise solutions for each RE problem. Therefore, it is essential that aspiring Software Engineers are exposed to as many solution alternatives as possible to experience the implications of RE decisions. To facilitate this, we propose a learning-by-multiple-examples process, in which we make use of a calibrated peer review grading model for assignments. Paired with a think-pair-share model of semester-long, industry-realistic, project-based low-stakes milestones, we were able to generate a rich collaborative learning atmosphere. In this paper, we report the course design and experiences from the application of calibrated peer reviews in an undergraduate RE course. Qualitative and quantitative application results show that calibrated peer reviews significantly improve students’ learning outcomes

Industry Projects in Requirements Engineering Education: Application in a University Course in the US and Comparison with Germany

Project-based learning has proven useful in software engineering education to increase student engagement and learning performance. In this paper, we contribute our experiences from applying industry projects in an undergraduate requirements engineering course in the United States. We furthermore discuss our experiences from courses conducted in Germany and the US course in light of difference in the educational systems. Results show that our course design is well received in both countries in terms of learning outcomes, student motivation, teamwork, attention to detail, and performance in the exam

Three Major Instructional Approaches for Requirements Engineering

In this talk, we report on our findings from the paper A Survey of Instructional Approaches in the Requirements Engineering Education Literature [DGT21], which has been accepted at and published in the proceedings of the 2021 IEEE International Conference on Requirements Engineering. The paper reports the findings of a systematic literature review to define and investigate the current state of research on requirements engineering education

A Systematic Literature Review of Requirements Engineering Education

Requirements engineering (RE) has established itself as a core software engineering discipline. It is well acknowledged that good RE leads to higher quality software and considerably reduces the risk of failure or budget-overspending of software development projects. It is of vital importance to train future software engineers in RE and educate future requirements engineers to adequately manage requirements in various projects. To this date, there exists no central concept of what RE education shall comprise. To lay a foundation, we report on a systematic literature review of the feld and provide a systematic map describing the current state of RE education. Doing so allows us to describe how the educational landscape has changed over the last decade. Results show that only a few established author collaborations exist and that RE education research is predominantly published in venues other than the top RE research venues (i.e., in venues other than the RE conference and journal). Key trends in RE instruction of the past decade include involvement of real or realistic stakeholders, teaching predominantly elicitation as an RE activity, and increasing student factors such as motivation or communication skills. Finally, we discuss open opportunities in RE education, such as training for security requirements and supply chain risk management, as well as developing a pedagogical foundation grounded in evidence of effective instructional approaches

26th Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting (CNS*2017): Part 3 - Meeting Abstracts - Antwerp, Belgium. 15–20 July 2017

This work was produced as part of the activities of FAPESP Research,\ud Disseminations and Innovation Center for Neuromathematics (grant\ud 2013/07699-0, S. Paulo Research Foundation). NLK is supported by a\ud FAPESP postdoctoral fellowship (grant 2016/03855-5). ACR is partially\ud supported by a CNPq fellowship (grant 306251/2014-0)

Integrated validation of behavioral requirements and functional design

Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Unterstützung der Validierung der interaktionsbasierten Verhaltensanforderungen und des funktionalen Entwurfs. Während der Entwicklung kommt es zu Änderungen der Stakeholder-Intentionen, die in die interaktionsbasierten Verhaltensanforderungen und den funktionalen Entwurf eingearbeitet werden müssen. Durch inkorrekte Überarbeitungen eines Artefakts oder das ausbleibende Einarbeiten einer Änderung der Stakeholder-Intentionen in eines oder beide Artefakte entsteht eine Situation, in der die interaktionsbasierten Verhaltensanforderungen und der funktionale Entwurf auf Korrektheit geprüft werden müssen. Zur Unterstützung der Validierung der interaktionsbasierten Verhaltensanforderungen und des funktionalen Entwurfs schlägt diese Arbeit die automatisierte Erzeugung eines Review-Modells vor, das die in den interaktionsbasierten Verhaltensanforderungen und im funktionalen Entwurf spezifizierten Interaktionsfolgen in einem integrierten Modell zusammenfasst. Im Rahmen der Evaluation zeigt diese Arbeit, dass das vorgeschlagene Review-Modell im Vergleich zum Review der originalen Spezifikationen effektiver und effizienter ist. Ferner führt der Einsatz des Review-Modells zu einer höheren Nutzerselbstgewissheit und wird als unterstützender für den manuellen Review wahrgenommen. Zusammengefasst liefert diese Arbeit drei Hauptbeiträge: 1) Definition eines Review-Modells zur Unterstützung der Validierung der interaktionsbasierten Verhaltensanforderungen und des funktionalen Entwurfs. 2) Algorithmus zur automatisierten Erzeugung des Review-Modells aus den interaktionsbasierten Verhaltensanforderungen und dem funktionalen Entwurf. 3) empirische Untersuchung des Nutzens des vorgeschlagenen Review-Modells.This thesis proposes a review model to support the validation of behavioral requirements and functional design. During system development, stakeholder intentions change, which has to be reflected in the behavioral requirements and the functional design. Erroneous incorporation of changed stakeholder intentions as well as the failure to incorporate changed stakeholder intentions in the behavioral requirements and/or the functional design leads to the need to validate the behavioral requirements and the functional design against the stakeholder intentions. To support the validation of behavioral requirements and functional design, this thesis proposes the use of an automatically generated review model, which integrates all interaction sequences specified in the behavioral requirements or the functional design. Evaluation results show that reviewing the proposed review model is more effective and efficient compared to reviewing the original specifications. Furthermore, use of the review model leads to a higher confidence of the reviewer and is seen as subjectively more supportive. In summary, this thesis provides three main contributions: 1) A definition of the review model to support the validation of behavioral requirements and functional design. 2) An algorithm to automatically generate the proposed review model from the behavioral requirements and the functional design. 3) An empirical evaluation of the proposed review model