Software project engineering and management

Duration

20h Th, 280h Proj.

Number of credits

Lecturer

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

Language(s) of instruction

English language

Organisation and examination

All year long, with partial in January

Schedule

Schedule online

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);
• Seminars on software engineering (static/dynamic diagrams, testing);
• Sessions on team working;
• Monthly project reviews, including oral presentations;
• Feedback on technical progress and project management;
• Writing of a final report;
• 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) (40% overall, i.e., 10% per review meeting),
• the project completion report (10%),
• the delivered software (35%),
• the final project defence and demonstration (15%).

Work placement(s)

Organizational remarks

• Teams of +/- 5 students, built based on project subject preference, 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 early during the 1st semester.
• The final report must be submitted by mid-May.
• The defences and demonstrations will be scheduled mid-May.
• Detailed guidelines can be found on the course web site

Contacts

Coordinators:

• Jean-Louis Binot (jean-louis.binot@uliege.be)
• Benoit Donnet (Benoit.Donnet@uliege.be)
• Guy Leduc (Guy.Leduc@uliege.be)
• Laurent Mathy (laurent.mathy@uliege.be)

• Benoît Mattheus (benoit.mattheus@uliege.be) 

Adaptation of teaching commitments following the COVID-19 pandemic for the May-June 2020 session

Teaching methods implemented : distance-learning

All seminars have been organized before the covid-19 issue.
All remaining meetings/reviews will be remotely organized.

Assessment subjects

The Integrated Project continues as expected.  Teams are expected to work remotely, heavily relying on source code management tools (e.g., BitBucket) and remote communication tools (LifeSize, WebEx, Skype, ..)

Assessment methods

Review 3 will not be organized but teams are expected to provide self-contained slides (Review 3 will thus be evaluated solely on written support -- i.e., slides).
The final review will be organized as expected but remotely through videoconferencing system.

Contacts

Coordinators:

• Jean-Louis Binot (email)
• Benoit Donnet (email)
• Guy Leduc (email)
• Laurent Mathy (email)

• Benoît Mattheus (email)

Adaptation of teaching commitments following the COVID-19 pandemic for the Aug-Sept 2020 session

Assessment subjects

In case of failure in June, teams have to work on their code for improving it and for reaching an acceptable quality level.   The resit will be achieved in team, as during the regular Academic Year. The piece of code produced during the resit must correspond to substantial improvement compared to the one proposed during the Final Review.  The Pedagogical Team may guide the resit by providing a list of essential functionalities that absolutely must be implemented by mid-August (if so, it will be provided early July)   Updated piece of code must be submitted for the 1st day of the resit (usually mid-August) on the Montefiore Submission platform.   The piece of code must come with a short document (PDF file, whatever the overall formatting of the document) describing the improvements and providing information about the exact contribution of each team members (i.e., who has done what).  The document must also briefly describe how the work achieved during the summer has improved the overall quality of the software.   To achieve this, it is of the highest importance that each team member carefully looks at the feedback provided throughout the year, in particular with respect to the IT aspects of each review.   Note that no support will be provided during Summer by the Pedagogical Team.

Assessment methods

Code produced will be reviewed and will possibly lead to an improvement in the June grade. The piece of code and the document (PDF file) must be submitted as a tar.gz archive on the Montefiore Submission platform.   It will be followed by a live review during which the team will demonstrate (max 10min) their final product and each student will respond to questions (max 20min of Q/As) related to parts she has implemented during the Summer.   On the contrary to the regular Academic Year (i.e., June Exam Session), the grade provided will be individual and based on the overall quality of the software, the demo, the personal contribution to the software and answers to questions raised during the review.

Contacts

Coordinators:

• Jean-Louis Binot
• Benoit Donnet
• Guy Leduc 
• Laurent Mathy

• Benoît Mattheus

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