Some basic information

Workload

Lectures: 9 x 2 hour lectures
Practicals: 5 x 2 hour practicals
Private study: 44 hours
Assessment: 28 hours

Assessment

This module has an open assessment which will consist of a single essay based on material that has been covered in the seminars. The essay should be in the region of 3,000 words in length, although quality, conciseness of description and depth of analysis are more important than length.

The assessment will be issued on Weds/3/Summer and submitted on Weds/6/Summer and will be an integrative exercise designed to build on the material that has already been covered. In addition to the assessment, a number of formative unassessed revision / practice essay questions will be issued towards the end of the spring term. Details of the marking scheme will be supplied with the assessment.

Learning Outcomes

• To be able to recognize and apply the main techniques employed by a representative selection of design methodologies
• To be able to identify and understand the important assumptions that are made by a particular design methodology
• To be able to identify under what circumstances it might be appropriate to apply a particular class of design methodology
• To be able to identify the assumptions that are being made at any particular point in the systems design lifecycle

Content

The module is split into two distinct parts:

• Part 1 - (Weeks 2, 3, 4 and 10) consists of stand alone lectures that introduce an number of key theoretical concepts
• Part 2 - (weeks 5 to 9) consists of a series of lectures that introduce some examples of the various software design methodologies. These lectures form the basis for a seminal paper which is presented in the following week

This is a research-oriented module. Students are expected to undertake their own research and to find suitable material for themselves. In addition, lecture notes, articles and web based links to relevant material (follow the appropriate links from the overview page) paper copies of relevant research papers and/or reports will also be distributed during the lectures and/or seminars.

Recommended Books

There are a number of books on the topic of systems design methodologies (SDM) which are suitable for this type of course. To simplify the search, I have created a list of SDM text books that I used with this course.