James Cook University Subject Handbook - 2003

CP3110:03

Fundamentals of Software Engineering

Townsville, Cairns HECS Band 2

26 hours lectures, 13 hours tutorials, 26 hours workshops. Semester 1.

Software specification; formal methods; software design; programming environments; software validation; software management; project management.

Learning Objectives:

  1. understand the importance of software engineering to computer science and the most important general approaches to structuring the software production process;
  2. analyse the requirements for a software system and produce a software design (including user interface) from requirements;
  3. use formal specification techniques to aid the specification process;
  4. appreciate the benefits and difficulties of performing software engineering in a group, including the development of requirements and design documents and interaction with a client;
  5. understand how reliability, reusability, verification and validation are vital concerns for any software engineering effort;
  6. understand the important issues for managing and supporting the software engineering process at both the group and individual level.

Assessment in this subject involves significant on-course assessment including assignments and tests and an examination at the end of the semester. The full details of the assessment are handed out to students in the class in the first week of the semester in which the subject is offered and posted on the Web.