The Bachelor of Software Engineering (BSE) was introduced in 1998 and took its first students in 1999 as a joint program between the Faculties of Engineering and Information Technology.

One of the third year subjects offered in the current BSE is Software Engineering: Analysis and Design CSE3308. Some of the key topics of CSE3308 are now part of the IT Common Core, particularly FIT2001.

The new unit builds on foundations provided in FIT2001 to address higher-level software engineering issues such as software architecture, configuration, systems-level modelling, refactoring, middleware, patterns and theoretical design principles.

This unit has been updated as part of a 2009 review and comparison of data with current Handbook, Syllabus + and Callista data.

7/6/2010- Amended under 'workload' section - change of name from tutorial to laboratory. For Semester 2,2010 implementation.

1/12/2011 - Added FIT2024 as an alternative prerequisite to FIT2004. For S1 2012 implementation.

FIT2024 has been added as a alternative prerequisite to FIT2004. The reason for having FIT2004 as a prerequisite was to ensure that students had completed a significant second year programming unit before attempting FIT3077. FIT2024 also meets this criterion, and its addition will ease course progression for many students.

10 Feb 2015: Unit Learning Outcomes (Objectives) updated using the recommended style and wordings.

Sept 2015: Updated for course architecture.

12/06/2017: Admin - updating location of offering to reflect actual campus offerings at the ADE's request.

7/8/2017: Added justification for 3 hour exam to Assessment Summary.

20/9/2019: Admin - updating exam duration to include additional 10 minutes as per University requirement.

6/10/2019 Aldeida - I am proposing to remove the exam. The previous rationale for introducing an exam: "This unit requires a three-hour exam in order to properly assess learning objectives 1, 2, 3, and 5. These require students to be able to analyse software development scenarios, and then to demonstrate this analysis through producing conceptual models, selecting appropriate architectural or design patterns and demonstrating how they would be adapted to the scenario, and indicating how specific design principles would be applied.

All this takes a large amount of time: complex scenarios (typically several A4 pages in total) must be read and analysed. This typically involved multiple passes over the scenario, and annotation. Diagrams must be produced - often a first draft is created and discarded as part of this process. To assess that the students have the skills and knowledge required to meet these learning objectives requires scenarios of sufficient complexity that the tasks necessarily take a long time. The integrity of the unit would be compromised if this were not so. "

I propose to remove the exam since the current in-semester assessments cover all learning outcomes in a more comprehensive and suitable way. As the above rationale mentions, this unit includes "complex scenarios (typically several A4 pages in total) must be read and analysed.". This is very difficult to assess in an exam of 3 hours. In addition, the previous rationale mentions that "to meet these learning objectives requires scenarios of sufficient complexity that the tasks necessarily take a long time.". Again, this is not possible to achieve in an exam of 3 hours. (Re-added on behalf of CE 12/11/2019)

9/1/2020 Admin - removing duplicated rationale from assessments section.

4/5/2020: As the MSA course 4307 Bachelor of Computer and Information Sciences is in teach-out, the MSA offering of this unit has been re-coded to FZA3077 effective Semester 1, 2021. These units will be managed by South Africa and therefore no separate Monatar entries will be made

18/09/2020 Admin: Update to include new assessment and teaching approach fields as per Handbook requirements.

The unit is a level-3 core unit in the new Bachelor of Software Engineering (Honours) degree to be introduced in 2016.

This unit builds on the introductory unit to design and implementation. It provides the professional software engineer with advanced knowledge and skills in high-level architectural design, its theoretical foundations, industrial best practice, and, relevant application context. In the software life-cycle, software architecture sits between analysis/specification and design/implementation.

The unit provides concrete architectural examples and a background and need-to-know for advanced software architecture and design for large-scale systems. Architecture modelling and analysis can be seen as core considerations in any engineering discipline, since they are essential in documenting and evaluating decisions on designs and alternatives. Modelling and analysis is first applied for the analysis, specification and validation of requirements. Software design is focused on strategies, techniques, patterns and representations used to decide how to implement a component or a system.

At the completion of this unit, students should be able to

1. model and design flexible software at the architectural level using various tools and techniques;
2. analyse and design software systems taking into consideration various quality attributes and requirements;
3. take requirements for simple systems and develop software architectures and designs at a high level;
4. use configuration management tools effectively;
5. apply a variety of design patterns, frameworks and architectures in designing software;
6. locate and use off-the-shelf components in the construction of software.

020103

This unit builds on introductory units to analysis and design. It provides the professional software engineer with advanced knowledge and skills in high-level architectural design, its theoretical foundations, industrial best practice, and relevant application context. In the software life-cycle, software architecture sits between analysis/specification and design/implementation. The field of software architecture has come of age with a thriving research community and numerous high-level models, methods, tools and practices widely used in industry.

Recommended resources

On-campus

Lecture and tutorials or problem classes This teaching and learning approach provides facilitated learning, practical exploration and peer learning.

In-semester assessment: 100%

Assignment 1 - week 4, 20% Assignment 2 - week 8, 45% Assignment 3 - week 13, 35%

1. From specifications to design: - 20% - ULO: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
2. Building high quality software with design patterns: - 45%: - ULO: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
3. Extending and refactoring design: - 35% - ULO: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

6

Minimum total expected workload equals 12 hours per week comprising:

(a.) Contact hours for on-campus students:

(b.) Additional requirements (all students):

FIT

FIT2099 or (FIT2001 and (FIT2004 or FIT2024 or CSE2304)) or (FIT2001 and FIT2081)