2017-2018 / PROJ0010-1

Integrated software project, including fundamentals in project management

Duration

10h Th, 290h Proj.

Number of credits

 Master of science in computer science and engineering (120 ECTS)10 crédits  
 Master in computer science (120 ECTS)10 crédits  

Lecturer

Jean-Louis Binot, Benoît Donnet, Guy Leduc, Laurent Mathy

Coordinator

N...

Language(s) of instruction

English language

Organisation and examination

All year long, with partial in January

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

In this course, teams of ± 5 students will carry out a substantial integrated software project, which mainly builds on the knowledge, know-how and skills achieved during their bachelor studies (i.e., programming, software engineering, data bases, operating systems and networks), with the goal of consolidating and integrating them, while achieving a realistic project for real users. The project will include several sprints during which a usable and potentially releasable product increment will be created. Seminars and continuous project reviews will also be organized to teach fundamentals in project management, group coordination, and communication.

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

The project aims at developing the students' ability to carry out a realistic, complex and incompletely defined software project from the conceptual to the operational phase.
The students will also learn and practice actively project management, including project and team leadership, reporting, oral presentations and defence, thereby improving their autonomy, their abilities to work efficiently in teams, and their communication and writing skills.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

A bachelor degree in computer science or in engineering with a major in computer science.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

  • Seminars on fundamentals in project management;
  • Seminars on communication skills (oral and written);
  • Sessions on team working;
  • Monthly project reviews, including oral presentations;
  • Feedback on technical progress and project management;
  • Writing of a final report;
  • Creation of a poster;
  • Defence and demonstration of the project.

Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)

  • Face-to-face seminars;
  • Monthly review meetings;
  • The project is mainly carried out remotely.

Recommended or required readings

Slides used during the seminars.

Assessment methods and criteria

The evaluation will be based on:

  • the intermediate review meetings (progress achieved, quality of project management) (45% overall, i.e., 10% per review meeting, except the Sprint 0 review that accounts for 5%),
  • the project completion report (10%),
  • the delivered software (30%),
  • the final project defence, poster and demonstration (15%).
Templates are available for the various reports (product vision, product backlog, sprint backlog, project budget, timesheets).  Those reports are used by students to describe the project and their proposed solution with appropriate justifications about design choices. Those reports should also tackle the solution evaluation, some outstanding items, and the lessons learned.
The project defence consists of an oral presentation and a live demonstration of the system, followed by a question/answer session. The final grade takes account of the amount and quality of the achieved work, the quality of the written report and of the oral presentation, as well as the relevance of the provided answers.
Typically, grades are assigned to the whole group.  However, in some particular cases (e.g., when there are evidences that a member of a group has not participated enough in the project), the grade may be assigned more individually, reflecting the personal involvement of each member of a group. Finally, as the course is essentially a single team project, no resit will be provided. This means that, no second chance to improve the grade will be given to students in case of failure in June.

Work placement(s)

Organizational remarks

  • Teams of +/- 5 students, randomly chosen, while ensuring a diversity of student profiles in each group (e.g., computer scientists and engineers).
  • Presence at the seminars and intermediate reviews is mandatory.
  • The project will start at mid-September.
  • The final report must be submitted by mid-May.
  • The defences and demonstrations will be scheduled mid-May.
  • Detailed guidelines can be found at: http://www.montefiore.ulg.ac.be/~proj0010

Contacts

Coordinators:

Teaching assistant:

Items online

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