Computer Science Department, Bucknell University

Course Information
CSCI 476 Senior Design Project

Spring 2004 MW 3-5 PM in 165 Breakiron

Professor Dan Hyde
338 Dana; 577-1281
hyde at bucknell.edu
(Email is a great way to contact me.)

Overview of Spring Semester of Course

CSCI 476 is a continuation of "Computer Science Senior Design Project" (CSCI 475), that Computer Science and Engineeering seniors took in the Fall semester.

There are a number of differences between the fall and spring sessions of Senior Design. In particular, the spring session is a full-credit course (with expectation of an honest 10 hours a week of effort) in which most of your effort will be put into building, testing, and documenting your system for your Customer. You will be spending less time in class talking about the process, and more time with your Team working on the project. As a result, there are a number of procedures I want to implement in order to make sure that communications and the software development process go smoothly:

• Minutes of Team Meetings A lot of the work will be done individually or by small groups. Thus it is important that others in the group be kept apprised of progress made. Also, we will be meeting less frequrently in class, so I (as de facto project manager) will want to be kept abreast of what your group is doing. Therefore, a weekly Team meeting will be required this semester. You must record all significant business (progress reports, decisions made, problems encountered) in meeting minutes. These minutes must be emailed to me as well as your Team members and a copy placed in your Team Notebook. Minutes are due to me by 5 PM Friday each week.

  Minutes should list all attendees, their roles, and explain any absences, excused or unexcused. You should document all issues discussed (technical or organizational), status reports, and decisions. I understand that some things may occur outside of meetings, but they should be reported during the weekly meetings. As with any meeting, reports may be read into the record without taking actual time in the meeting.

  At the end of each meeting, a facilitator, recorder, "Devil's Advocate" and, perhaps, a consultant should be selected for the next meeting. The role of the facilitator is to make sure every one attends the next meeting and to run the next meeting. The recorder takes notes and writes up and distributes the minutes. The Devil's Advocate's role is to question all decisions to make sure the Team is not forgotting something. A role of the consultant is to become an expert in some aspect that the Project needs. I encourage that the Team members rotate the roles.

• Schedule of Meetings with Project Manager We will meet as a class on Wednesdays from 3-5 PM. On Mondays, I, as de facto project manager, will meet with each Team individually on the following schedule:

     Team A 3:00 - 3:20 PM
     Team B 3:20 - 3:40 PM
     Team C 3:40 - 4:00 PM
     Team D 4:00 - 4:20 PM
     Team E 4:20 - 4:40 PM
     Team F 4:40 - 5:00 PM
  

  For scheduling reasons if two Teams decide to swap time slots, that is ok. Just let me know.

• Programming Style Your Team must chose a programming style standard and Team members must adhere to it. For example, if your Team is using the programming language Java, we recommend Sun's Java Programming Style Standard found at http://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~csci204/2005-spring/JavaStyle.pdf

• Change Control Procedure It is likely that as you do your designs that questions will come up about exactly what needs to be done. In an ideal world, your requirements document (XP Stories) would provide the answers. However, we live in a fallen and corrupt world. Even the best requirements writers aren't prefect. Thus you will need a change control procedure. You must come up with a way to decide whether questions need to be referred to the Customer for answers, or whether the issue is minor enough to be dealt with on your own. You must also have a procedure for coming up with answers in your group. This may not be easy when a couple of people have strong, differing opinions.

  I will expect that all changes will be documented in your requirements section of your Team Notebook, that the changes will be indicated as such and dated, and that I will be informed of these changes.

• Version Control System In developing code, there are a number of problems that can cause you to lose work. For example, two people may decide to simultaneously modify a code module in vastly different ways. Only one version of the module will exist when they are done. Or someone may start modifying a module, and, after deleting large chunks of code, realize that the modifications under way don't make sense. How should the system be recovered? In order to avoid such problems, you will use a version control system this term. I propose that Teams use CVS.

The class will continue to use modern software engineering techniques including eXtreme Programming (XP), an agile (light-weight) methodology which requires pair programming, unit testing, timely interactions with a Customer as well as other aspects. Each Team is teamed with an outside Customer who will specify through XP stories the details of the actual system to be designed.

Milestones in the form of XP iterations (every two weeks) and releases (every four weeks) are due during the semester. In XP, an "Iteration" is a short period of time (in this case two weeks) where the Team designs, implements and tests a part of the product as specified by the stories selected by the Customer. The Customer tries out the system and provides feedback. Also, the Customer selects the next set of stories (or part of a story) for the next Iteration. A "Release" is a major milestone. A Release might mean that a suitable but not quite complete product is given to real Customers to try out. In our case, a Release means a working product, associated documents (e. g., user manual, javadoc web pages, report) and 10-minute class presentation.

At the end of the semester, each Team presents a formal 20-minute talk and writes a paper which includes a technical manual for the software and where they reflect on the process of using XP and working on Teams. Each Team will be required to maintain a Project Notebook that will be periodically graded by the instructor. Each Team will create a Team contract of expected Team behavior. From their Team contract, each Team will create an evaluation form. This form will be used to assess each individual's participation several times during the semester and will be worth 10% of the student's grade.

Each Team member must act in an ethical, legal and professional manner.

Students take the course as a Bucknell University Half Course (equivalent to two-credit hours) in the first semester in their Senior year and a Full Course (equivalent to four-credit hours) in the second semester.

Many seniors in the past have found that the senior design project was a very rewarding experience as they found they could study an area in depth. Also, they say the senior design project was a great vehicle for discussion during job interviews and gave them an edge in the job market. Also, from the research experience on your senior design project, you may decide to attend graduate school.

Course Structure

The course meets twice a week for two hours.

Textbooks

The same as last semester.

1. Extreme Programming Installed by Ron Jeffries, Ann Anderson, Chet Hendrickson, Addison Wesley, 2001.

2. Java: How to Program by H. M. Deitel and P. J. Deitel, 6th edition, Prentice Hall, 2004. The 4th or 5th edition is OK as well.

3. The Team: Memory Jogger, A Pocket Guide for Team Members, GOAL/QPC-Joiner Publication.

4. UML Distilled, by Martin Fowler, 3rd edition, Addison-Wesley, 2004.

Resources

• People
  Your Team should seek out individuals who are possible experts in the field. Don't limit your search to people on campus.

• Internet
  You should already be an active user of the Internet. If not, now is the time to learn. The Internet has a wealth of information. Become familiar with search engines such as Google. The course has a home web page at URL:
  http://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~cs475/F04-S05/

• Library
  There are plenty of references in the library. Though I expect you to have some familiarity with the library, we will discuss strategies for finding the right references. If an article or book is not in the library, you may request it from Inter-Library Loan. But remember Inter-Library Loan may take one to two weeks.

Expectations

Since there are no exams in the course (however, maybe a quiz if I feel you need it), attendance and participation in class is required and counts 5% of your grade.

Assignments are due in class on the day assigned. No late assignments will be accepted.

Since this is a Full Course, I expect an honest ten (10) hours a week spent on the course outside of class. With the demands of your other courses and activities, it is easy to let work on your design project slip by.

We suggest you keep a laboratory notebook (daily journal) where you scribble your thoughts and comments, for example, while reading the assigned readings and journal articles. Also, the Team must keep a Project Notebook which contains all the material pertaining to the project. This will be collected and graded several times during the semester. A good place to store the Project Notebook is in the assigned Team Locker in room 124 Dana.

You must use a word processor for all your memoranda, papers and documents handed in. The documents may be attached to email messages.

Grading

• Individual Attendance, Participation in Class 5%
  
• Individual Homework and Quizzes 5%
  
• XP Iterations/Releases 50%
  
• Team Assessments 10%
  
• Team Presentations 10%
  
• Team Project Notebook 10%
  
• Team Final Report 10%

All but the first two items are Team activities. Individual and Team activities will be graded by the Instructor.

Back to Back to CS475's Home page.