Assignment #A: Background/Literature Research

Assignment#A-part 1: Literature Research

• Browse through at least 3 recent (see below) periodical/proceeding issues where some of the relevant papers in the subject area appear.
• Classify and list related papers for each issue by the following topic areas:
  1. defect analysis and risk analysis related to software quality and dependability
  2. software reliability engineering
  3. software safety engineering
• Be sure to glance through the abstracts because some titles may not be informative enough for your to make the above categorization.
• For sample reference listing, refer to either of our textbooks.
• If you plan to do a individual study presentation from these papers, please let me know of your desired candidate paper and presentation date.
• In addition, if you plan to do a "literature survey" type of project, indicate which paper(s) will be among your candidate papers.

Some specifics about your literature sources:

• When I say "recent", it means no more than 10 years old under most circumstances, but typically within the last 5 years.
• You may use online sources if you prefer, but try to stay with online version of "published" literature only. (I.e., not just some personal opinion posted by individual web users.) One good source for such online publications/subscriptions is the SMU Library "Online Resources" link, which you can all access using your SMU ID card (Library barcode on back).
• When you use online sources, make sure you have access to at least the paper abstracts for this assignment, and the full papers for future ones.
• Try to use different publications to achieve better diversity. I.e., Do not limit yourself to three issues of the same journal.
• You may want to use some of the more recent papers from our textbooks and online papers/references as index into selected periodical/proceedings issues. However, this may work better for older issues instead of newer ones.

Assignment#A-part 2: Background Research on Analysis Techniques

• Causal analysis for individual defects and groups of defects, and related analysis techniques and processes. A good example is Ishikawa's "fishbone" diagram.
• Overall statistical defect analysis, including trend analysis (e.g., Lyu/HSRE Ch. 10), distribution analysis (lots of papers on this), general defect models.
• Defect classification and analysis (e.g., read one of the original ODC papers referenced in Tian/SQE Ch.20, Ma/Tian web-ODC paper, or Lyu/HSRE Ch.9, or recent development/applications of ODC such as Lutz/Mikulski paper in our online list).
• Risk identification techniques, particularly newer ones such as PCA/DA, NN, OSR, TBM (e.g., read one of the references cited in Tian/SQE Ch.21, or Lyu/HSRE Ch.17), and their application in software quality assessment/prediction.

Write a short summary of the paper/chapter, and discuss its relevance to our class and to your work (total length not to exceed 2 pages).

If you find the paper/chapter interesting and useful, you might want to prepare a presentation as your individual study presentation for the class on 10/31/09. In that case, please let me know before class time (the earlier, the better).

Due Date for hw#A: 10/31/09

Assignments #R and #S

1st due date: 11/14/09 for one of (hw#R or hw#S)
2nd due date: 11/21/09 for the other

Assignment #R: Paper Summary/Critique

• The summary should be your own summary, based on your understanding of the paper, not the authors' summary/abstract.

• The analysis and critique is an important part of your essay (at least as important as your summary itself), which may include, among other things, an analysis based on what we covered in class on related topics, your subjective assessment of the paper, what you would do differently, practical impact of the reported work, possible followup research and/or applications of the reported work.
• It is desirable if you can make it relevant to what you are doing at work.

• Give full citation details (for example reference listing, see either of our textbooks), and provide a copy of the original abstract. If the paper was not publicly available (e.g., internal report) or hard to track down (e.g., regional or industry specific conferences), you need to include a copy of the paper(s) with your homework submission.

Due Date for hw#R: 11/14/09 or 11/21/09 (See above)

Assignment #S: Paper Summary/Critique

Due Date for hw#S: 11/14/09 or 11/21/09 (See above)

Assignment #4: Preparing for the Final Quiz

• Sample final quiz to be distributed in class on 11/21/09.
• Problems from Tian/SQE book: 2.4, 15.1, 15.3, 15.4, 15.6, 15.7, 16.1, 16.2, 16.7, 16.8 (add "fishbone"-diagram here), 16.9, 18.5, 20.1, 20.3, 20.4, 20.5, 20.6, 21.2, 21.7, 21.9, 22.1-6 (all).
• Problems from Lyu/HSRE book: Chapters 1&6 problems.
• Reivew of class slides.

Due Date for hw#4: (None, but see note below.)

Alternatively, you can treat hw#4 as an on-going self-evaluation assignment, and finish the questions as we go along throughout the semester when relevant topics are discussed in class.

Individual Study Presentation