MITS5002 Software Engineering Methodology

{`
Assignment 1 and 2
Presentation and Research Report
Victorian Institute of Technology
`}

Objective(s)

This assessment item relates to the unit learning outcomes as in the unit descriptor. This assessment is designed to improve student presentation skills and to give students experience in researching a topic and writing a report relevant to the Unit of Study subject matter.

INSTRUCTIONS

These instructions apply to both Assignment 1 - Presentation and Assignment 2 Research Report.

Assignment 1 - Presentation and Participation - 10% (Sessions 5-12) Individual Assignment

For this component you will be required to do a 5-10 minute presentation on a recent academic paper on a topic related to Software Engineering or Software Engineering Methodologies. Some possible topic areas include but are not limited to:

• Software Engineering for Data Warehouse systems
• Risk Analysis in Software Engineering
• Project Management methodologies
• Advances in Prototyping for software engineering
• Cleanroom methodology
• Test Driven methodologies
• Advanced human Interfaces
• Artificial Neural Networks
• Cloud Computing
• Agent Oriented Software Engineering

The paper you select must be directly relevant to one of the above topics or another topic and be related to Software Engineering. The paper must be approved by your lecturer and be related to what we are studying this semester in Software Engineering. The paper can be from any academic conference or other relevant Journal or online sources such as Google Scholar, Academic department repositories, or a significant commercial company involved in research such as IBM etc. All students must select a different paper. Thus, the paper must be approved by your lecturer before proceeding. In case two students are wanting to present on the same paper, the first who emails the lecturer with their choice will be allocated that paper. Please note that popular magazine or web-site articles are not academic papers.

A grade of 10% of the Units mark will be awarded for your presentation and your participation in other student presentations. You are to prepare a set of powerpoint slides for your presentation. If you do not participate in at least 70% of other student’s presentations you will forfeit a significant proportion of the marks for this component.

Note: if class numbers are large the presentations may be organized into groups, but students will still all need to select their own individual paper for assignment 2. In the case where presentations are arranged in groups each group can decide which students paper will be used for the presentation.

The presentations will occur in sessions 5-12 on the academic calendar for the semester and the order of presentations will be by arrangement, but these will be evenly spread over those sessions.

What to Submit.

There is no submission for this component, you are allocated marks based on your presentation and participation

Assignment 2 - Research Report - 10% (Due Session 9) Individual Assignment

For this component you will write a report or critique on the paper you chose from Assignment 1, the Presentation and Participation component above.

Your report should be limited to approx. 1500 words (not including references). Use 1.5 spacing with a 12 point Times New Roman font. Though your paper will largely be based on the chosen article, you should use other sources to support your discussion or the chosen papers premises. Citation of sources is mandatory and must be in the IEEE style.

Your report or critique must include:

Title Page: The title of the assessment, the name of the paper you are reporting on and its authors, and your name and student ID.

Introduction: Identification of the paper you are critiquing/ reviewing, a statement of the purpose for your report and a brief outline of how you will discuss the selected article (one or two paragraphs).

Body of Report: Describe the intention and content of the article. If it is a research report, discuss the research method (survey, case study, observation, experiment, or other method) and findings. Comment on problems or issues highlighted by the authors. Report on results discussed and discuss the conclusions of the article and how they are relevant to the topics of this Unit of Study.

Conclusion: A summary of the points you have made in the body of the paper. The conclusion should not introduce any ‘new’ material that was not discussed in the body of the paper. (One or two paragraphs)

References: A list of sources used in your text. They should be listed alphabetically by (first) author’s family name. Follow the IEEE style.

The footer must include your name, student ID, and page number.

Note: reports submitted on papers which are not approved or not the approved paper registered for the student will not be graded and attract a zero (0) grade.

What to Submit

Submit your report to the Moodle drop-box for Assignment 2. Note that this will be a turn-it-in drop box and as such you will be provided with a similarity score. This will be taken into account when grading the assignment. Note that incidents of plagiarism will be penalized. If your similarity score is high you can re-submit your report, but resubmissions are only allowed up to the due date. If you submit your assignment after the due date and time re-submissions will not be allowed.

Please Note: All work is due by the due date and time. Late submissions will be penalized at the rate of 10% per day including weekends.