CSE 7314/5314: Project

CSE 7314/5314 (Fall 2004): Course Project

Prof. Jeff Tian (tian@engr.smu.edu)

Assignment

You project is a major part of your CSE 7314/5314. It will consist of the following parts:

A project proposal: due date for in-class students: 9/29/04; for Lockheed-Martin students: 10/20/04; and for video students: 10/12/04.
A project summary: due date for in-class students: 12/1/04; for Lockheed-Martin students: 12/4/04; and for video students: 12/13/04.
For video students, I'd appreciate it if you can make an effort to submit your project summary to me by 12/2/04, so that we could at least share some of your project experience with the rest of the class.
An optional project presentation: Please e-mail me to schedule your presentation.
A final project report: due date for in-class students: 12/2/04; and for Lockheed-Martin and video students: 12/15/04.

The details are given below.

Acceptable projects and project proposals

There are two types of basic choices for your course project:

An application of some specific testing techniques/models to some programs/products you are developing/testing/maintaining/supporting. For example, you may choose to construct control flow and data flow models to test a module you are developing at your work. Another concrete example is the paper by Chruscielski and Tian included in your course notes, an application of Musa's approach to construct an operational profile for a specific product (LMTAS/CSS).
Pay special attention to the evaluation of your testing/analysis results. Be prepared to answer this type of questions:
- How do you know if the testing technique works?
- What's the basis for comparison (baseline)?
- What about some other testing techniques that might be appropriate?
You answer can be based on either the practical evidence (executing several types of testing cases and observing the results) or based on logical arguments (suitability of certain testing technique on certain types of products), or both.
Quality analysis and modeling for practical applications. For example, you may collect inspection/testing records for a product at your work, and construct quality models to analyze the results, to assess the effectiveness of your inspection/testing techniques, or to identify high-defect modules for focused quality improvement actions.

You project proposal should be around 3-4 double spaced pages in length, and should include the following information:

clearly identify the problem that you are going to address,
brief background information,
the solution strategy you intend to use (which testing technique? what kind of analyses? etc.),
expected results,
analysis of result to be performed,
followup actions,
a rough schedule,
indicate whether you'll be making a project presentation, and, if possible, your preferred presentation date.

In case of a group project, please also provide information regarding roles and responsibilities. The amount of work proposed for a group project should be appropriate for the group size.

Notice to video students: Once submitted, you can assume that your proposal is acceptable and proceed to avoid lengthy delays. You can make adjustments once you receive your graded proposal back.

Project summary and/or presentation

All the graduate students (those enrolled in CSE 7314 or through NTU) are required to submit a 2 page project summary, in presentation slide format, suitable for in-class presentation by the professor. You summary should focus on the main results from your project for us to get the basic picture.

You may choose to do a project presentation yourself. In that case, you don't need to submit the project summary nor a full project report (see next section). For the on-campus and TAGER students, as well as video students living in the DFW metro area, an in-class live presentation need to be scheduled with me ASAP. For video students outside the metro area, you can either send me a set of slides with scripts for me to present your material in class, or, preferably, video-record your presentation for us to show in class. Each presentation could last anywhere between 10 and 30 minutes. You need to highlight the problem/solution-strategy/results/analysis for us to get the basic picture, but not necessarily too much details.

Project report

Depending on your decision above regarding the project presentation, you are required to submit one of the two following reports:

Full report: If you are not doing a project presentation, you must submit a full report. A full report should be treated as a term paper, around 15 double-spaced pages in length, and clearly and comprehensively states the background, problem, strategy, activities, results, result analysis, lessons learned, followup actions, and a high level summary (or an abstract at the beginning). A good example of a full report is the paper by Chruscielski and Tian in your course notes.
Concise report: If you are doing a project presentation, you may submit a concise report instead of a full report (of course you are welcome to submit a full report if you choose to do so). A concise report can be about 10 double-spaced pages, covering the same contents as full report, but without repeating much of the information presented in the project presentation already. You may also include the project presentation slides/pictures as attachments to the project report.