1. General Information

CSE 8317 will be organized as a research seminar, with active student participation. This course attempts to enhance the advanced research component in the SMU's software engineering program. It is particularly suited for students interested in pursuing a Ph.D. degree in software engineering, and for MS/SE students who want to get a firsthand knowledge about some advanced research affecting their field of study.

For students in SMU's MS/SE program, this course can be counted either as an "advanced major elective" or as a "general elective" course.

2. Course Contents

• Software reliability engineering: reliability concepts applied to software domain, software reliability models and analysis methods, data collection and analysis, related tools and practices, and relation to operational profiles and statistical testing techniques.

• Software safety engineering: safety concepts applied to computer-intensive systems, safety and hazard analysis using fault trees and event trees, integration of safety assurance into the software processes, formal verification for safety, and general techniques to deal with safety issues.

• Recent developments in these areas, particularly relevant research done at SMU, including tree-based reliability modeling, data clustering and censoring techniques, prescriptive specification checking for hazard prevention, early estimate and risk management techniques for reliability and safety improvement.

3. Textbooks and Class Material

• Required: Class notes, including research papers related to the above three topics, presentation slides, and other material.

• Required: N. G. Leveson, "Safeware: System Safety and Computers", Addison-Wesley, 1995. ISBN 0-201-11972-2.

• Highly recommended: Michael R. Lyu, editor, "Handbook of Software Reliability Engineering", McGraw-Hill, 1995. ISBN 0-07-039400-8.
  A CD-ROM containing software reliability tools and actual data is included in the book. The book is out of print at this time, but if you can get a second hand copy, with the CD-ROM, it's quite useful to our class.

• Recommended: J. D. Musa, A. Iannino and K. Okumoto, "Software Reliability: Measurement, Prediction, Application", McGraw-Hill, 1987. ISBN 0-07-044093-X.
  A classic in software reliability engineering. There are two editions, original (1987) and professional (1990). The student should get the original edition for in-depth mathematics used in reliability models.

• Recommended: J. D. Musa, "Software Reliability Engineering", McGraw-Hill, 1998. ISBN 0-07-913271-5.
  This one focuses a bit more on operational profiles and usage-based testing. We have used it in CSE 7314 for the last couple of years.

4. Workload and Grading

• Project: See the online project information for more details.

• Homework: See the online homework assignments.

• Student presentation: See the online student presentation information for more details.

• Final Quiz: There will be a comprehensive final quiz to cover the breadth of the students' knowledge in SRE and SSE (as the students' depth of knowledge is demonstrated in their projects). We'll jointly choose between two options: an one hour written quiz at the official final time, or a 15min oral quiz to be scheduled close to that time.

• Project: 50%
• Final quiz: 25%
• Homework/presentation/participation: 25%

Notice (SMU policy for Disability Accommodations):
If you need academic accommodations for a disability, you must first contact Ms. Rebecca Marin, Coordinator, Services for Students with Disabilities (214-768-4563), to verify the disability and to establish eligibility for accommodations. Then you should schedule an appointment with the professor to make appropriate arrangements.