🎉🎉 Welcome to COMP1531 🎉🎉
COMP1531 is the first station on a very long voyage to becoming the best software engineer you can be. We're going to have a great term - even if we're all not physically together. COMP1531 has a teaching team of 35 passionate teaching staff - nearly all of whom have been in your shoes within the last few years. Everyone here will primarily interact with two tutors throughout this term. We're all excited to meet you.
Through the term you'll all working not only with your tutor(s), but also with our course admins and lecturers.
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| Emily Luxa 🍍 | Hayden Smith 🫐 | Jake Renzella 🥭 | Nick Patrikeos 🍓 |
This page offers an outline of this course. Take the time to read it, as it covers everything that we expect you from this term, and everything you should expect from us!
- COMP1531 teaching team
Contents
- 1. Course Details
- 2. Course Summary
- 3. Teaching Strategies
- 4. Assessment
- 5. Schedule / Timetable
- 6. Student Conduct
- 7. Resources for Students
- 8. Course Evaluation and Development
1. Course Details
Find information relating COVID-19 and this offering here and here .
| Course Code | COMP1531 |
| Course Title | Software Engineering Fundamentals |
| Convenor | Hayden |
| Lecturer(s) | Hayden , Jake |
| Admin(s) |
Nick
,
Emily
|
| Units of Credit | 6 |
| Course Website | http://cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs1531/21T3/ |
| Handbook Entry | http://www.handbook.unsw.edu.au/undergraduate/courses/current/COMP1531.html |
2. Course Summary
This course is teaches students about software engineering principles via exposure to the important practice of building correct products in effectively functioning teams.
You will be exposed to agile software practices, team collaboration and effective communication through implementing a group project based on agile software methodologies that requires you to analyse, design, build and deploy a web-based application. This course is typically taken in soon after completing COMP1511, but could be delayed and taken later. It provides essential background for the teamwork and project management required in many later courses.
2.1. Assumed Knowledge
We assume all students have completed COMP1511 (or equivalent).
Students should be familiar with the basic concepts of programming, including loops, functions, libraries of code, compiling, and writing code to follow specifications.
2.2. Student Learning Outcomes
After completing this course, students will be able to:
- Demonstrate effective use of applying the python programming language to solve problems in relation to web-based applications
- Demonstrate proficiency in use of system schematics, data modelling, and state modelling, to analyse complex software systems
- Identify the complexities of software design and development, including design smells and common best design practices
- Demonstrate effective usage of testing methods (e.g., unit tests, integration tests, test plan/cases, test automation)
- Understand the software engineering life cycle and agile software development practices, to elicit requirements, design, implement, and iterate on software projects.
- Understand key characteristics of a functioning team, both in terms of understanding professional expectations, and the use of git as a source code management tool for collaboration.
3. Teaching Strategies
This course uses the standard set of practice-focused teaching strategies employed by most CSE foundational courses:
- Lectures
- Tutorials
- Laboratories
- Help Sessions
- Major Group Project
- Final Exam
This course aims to provide the students with a strong foundation in the fundamental principles and practices of software engineering that will prepare them for the advanced software engineering workshops. As such, a broad range of key software engineering topics will be taught and reinforced through a group project, that will enable students to apply the theoretical concepts acquired to solve a practical software engineering problem. An agile software delivery style has been chosen for the implementation of the group project, to make students familiar with modern agile development methodologies.
3.1. Lectures
Lectures will be used to present the theory and practice of the techniques in this course. Although the lectures will primarily focus on the key concepts of software engineering, some lectures will also include practical demonstrations of various key technologies required for the implementation of the group project. Lecture slides will be available on the course web page.
3.2 Tutorials
Tutorials help clarify ideas from lectures and work through exercises based on the lecture material. You should make sure that you use them effectively by examining in advance the material to be covered in each week's tutorial, by asking questions, by offering suggestions and by generally participating.
Tutorials will often involve collaborative and break-out work where you will work with a group of other students to solve or answer problems. This will often be done in your major project group.
Tutorial information on it's release can be found by going to the tutorial page . Tutorial solutions will be released at the end of the week the tutorial is in.
Tutorials contribute to your class mark.
Tutorials will be run via zoom. Zoom is chosen in preference to Blackboard Collaborate due to the relatively higher degree of reliability zoom provides, the ability to remote control if necessary, and that the features of of Blackboard Collaborate that are useful in other courses (e.g. COMP1511) are not needed in the structure of how COMP1531 is operated.
3.3. Laboratories
In terms of the weekly workload, each week with a tute/lab you will be given a "lab" (i.e. take-home activities to complete in your own time) that is due at the end of that week.
In terms of the 2 hour period each week allocated for labs, these sessions run immediately after your tutorial. For any given class, your tutor and lab assistant will run two separate video calls at the same time during the 2 hours.
- (1) Project check-ins . Your tutor will run a 2 hour session where each group will be scheduled 20 minutes for a project check in.
- (2) Marking labs off . Your lab assist will run a 2 hour session where each group will be scheduled 15 minutes for them to mark your labs off and answer questions about labs. Your tutor will mark your lab off with your other group members in the "room", so be prepared in advance that your group members will be there for part of the marking.
A schedule of what times your group should attend which sections can be found on the tutorial and labs schedule page .
Lab solutions will be released 1 week after the end of the week they are due (with exception of first few weeks where lab solution releases will be delayed due to late enrollments).
Appropriating responding to, and actioning any feedback given by tutors in previous labs is expected by all students.
Labs contribute to your class mark.
3.3.1. (1) Project check-ins
In weeks 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, and 9, your project check ins are a chance your group and your tutor to sync up about your progress and work through problems together.
In weeks 4, 7, and 10, your project check in periods will consist of a presentation and Q&A as specified in the project specification.
3.3.2. (2) Marking labs off
Labs will typically be due at the end of the week they are provided. You are required to show & discuss your lab with your lab in the lab of the week immediately following the week the lab is due. Submitting the lab is not enough to be awarded a mark. You cannot obtain marks by emailing your tutor your labs. If you are unable to submit your lab on time due to extenuating circumstances, please apply for special consideration.
3.4. Help Sessions
Help sessions are unprepared drop-in "clinics" where students and groups can go to seek help about course related matters, whether that be the project, tutorials, or labs. Current tutors or lab assistants will supervise each help session.
Help sessions will be run via Blackboard Collaborate.
The timetable for help sessions can be found
here
.
3.5. Major Group Project
There will one main group project which will run through the teaching period from weeks 1-10 and contributes to 50% of the overall course mark.
The course staff will form groups of 4-5 students in your allocated tutorials at the beginning of the course. You will be notified of what group you're in during your week 1 tutorial & lab. A short survey will be sent no later than the 8th of September 2021 that will allow you to make preferences of who is in your group. These groups will and must be within your own tutorial group.
The group project will be implemented using an agile software delivery mode. As such, your team will be required to build and deliver the project in milestones. Each milestone will deliver a part of the requirements of the project and will encompass all the SDLC activities, namely analysis, design, coding and testing. At the end of the milestone, you (as a team) will demonstrate to your lab class the functionality implemented during that milestone. Changes to project requirements are a natural and unavoidable part of any software project life-cycle. Hence, students will need to bear in mind that project requirements may be subject to change and enhancements to functionalities may be made at the end of each milestone. You will need to carefully design the solution for your current milestone, such that the solution is extensible to accommodate these changes.
After each milestone due date, your group will present your work in the next lab that occurs. This is outlined in the major project specification. To receive a mark for that milestone, each team member must be present for the demonstration during the relevant lab time, with working audio and with their camera on. Having no audio or video will result in a loss of marks. If you are unable to attend, you must apply for special consideration and have your application accepted.
Tutors will continually monitor the GitLab repositories to see the team's progress and individual member's contribution to the group project.
3.6. Final Exam
There will be a centrally timetabled final exam which will in your UNSW exam timetable. The exam may contain a mixture of short answer questions and programming exercises. More specific details of the exam will be provided through the course.
If you cannot attend the final exam because of illness or misadventure, then you must submit a Special Consideration request, with documentation, through MyUNSW within 72 hours of the start of the exam exam. If your request is reasonable, then you will be awarded a Supplementary Exam. No supplementary exams will be provided for students who score marks 49 or below on grounds of being "close" to a pass.
4. Assessment
| Item | Due | Weighting |
| Class Mark (Tutorials + Labs) | Weeks 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9 | 15% |
| Major Project |
Milestones due beginning of weeks 4, 7, 10
|
50% |
| Final Exam | Exam period | 35% |
4.1. Class Mark (15%)
Your class mark is made up of marks associated with tutorials, and marks associated with labs. There is a total of 18 marks that can be gained between tutes and labs throughout the course (i.e. 3 bonus marks), although it will be capped at 15 overall.
- Your Labs mark is out of 10. Each lab you submit is worth up to 1.25% of the course. Each lab has a series of questions, where each question has a number of points associated with it. Each lab has a target number of points (e.g. 8) where if you score 8 points in that lab you receive the full 1.25%. This means for any given lab you only need to complete a subset of the questions satisfactorily to get full marks. This varies per week - lab instructions have the full info. If you score more points than the maximum for that lab, you will not receive bonus marks beyond that lab.
-
Your Tutorial
is out of 8 marks. attendance and participation in tutorials 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9 will add up to 8% of the course. A number of factors contribute toward you receiving a high grade in this area, including but not limited to:
- Attending the full tutorial
- Asking good and logical questions throughout the tutorial
- Taking initiative to answer questions and be engaged
- Attending with your webcam on for online tutorials (or your phone if you don't have)
You will be notified by the course authority in week 5 as to how your tutorial attendance and participation mark is progressing.
This marking structure is designed so that students can make choices in how they want to learn. Some students may want to spend time attacking challenge exercises, while others want to spend time engaging more in tutorials. With 4 extra bonus marks there is plenty of wiggle room to gain the marks.
Labs have no late penalty
,
because late submissions are not accepted
. While this may seem harsh, some courses have their labs due on the previous Friday - so we are giving you the full weekend to complete your lab. The reason we have no late penalties is because we have to run automarking and provide feedback to you between your lab submission and lab the following week, and therefore once the labs are submitted and marked, solutions will be known to all students.
Please don't ask for bonus marks for your labs - you can get 100% in your class mark without ever doing any challenge exercises, so there are bonus marks implicitly built in.
4.2. Major Project (50%)
The marking criteria for your major project will be specified in the major project specification which can be (once released) found
here
.
4.3. Final Exam (35%)
The marking criteria for your final exam will be specified in the exam specification which can be (once released) found here .
5. Course Schedule / Timetable
The schedule for this course is outlined clearly in the timetable for lectures , tutorials/labs , and help sessions .
6. Student Conduct
The Student Code of Conduct ( Information , Policy ) sets out what the University expects from students as members of the UNSW community. As well as the learning, teaching and research environment, the University aims to provide an environment that enables students to achieve their full potential and to provide an experience consistent with the University's values and guiding principles. A condition of enrolment is that students inform themselves of the University's rules and policies affecting them, and conduct themselves accordingly.
In particular, students have the responsibility to observe standards of equity and respect in dealing with every member of the University community. This applies to all activities on UNSW premises and all external activities related to study and research. This includes behaviour in person as well as behaviour on social media, for example Facebook groups set up for the purpose of discussing UNSW courses or course work. Behaviour that is considered in breach of the Student Code Policy as discriminatory, sexually inappropriate, bullying, harassing, invading another's privacy or causing any person to fear for their personal safety is serious misconduct and can lead to severe penalties, including suspension or exclusion from UNSW.
If you have any concerns, you may raise them with your lecturer, or approach the School Ethics Officer , Grievance Officer , or one of the student representatives.
Plagiarism is defined as using the words or ideas of others and presenting them as your own. UNSW and CSE treat plagiarism as academic misconduct, which means that it carries penalties as severe as being excluded from further study at UNSW. There are several on-line sources to help you understand what plagiarism is and how it is dealt with at UNSW:
Make sure that you read and understand these. Ignorance is not accepted as an excuse for plagiarism. In particular, you are also responsible that your assignment files are not accessible by anyone but you by setting the correct permissions in your CSE directory and code repository, if using. Note also that plagiarism includes paying or asking another person to do a piece of work for you and then submitting it as your own work.
UNSW has an ongoing commitment to fostering a culture of learning informed by academic integrity. All UNSW staff and students have a responsibility to adhere to this principle of academic integrity. Plagiarism undermines academic integrity and is not tolerated at UNSW. Plagiarism at UNSW is defined as using the words or ideas of others and passing them off as your own.
If you haven't done so yet, please take the time to read the full text of
The pages below describe the policies and procedures in more detail:
You should also read the following page which describes your rights and responsibilities in the CSE context:
At any time in this course, when you push code to gitlab from your own machine (locally or on CSE account), you are acknowledging that this code you push is your own work, except here permitted by the originality rules for this course and this assessment. You acknowledge that this pushed code has not been submitted for academic credit elsewhere, and you acknowledge that you have read an understood the University Rules in respect of Student Academic Misconduct.
7. Resources for Students
There is no single text book that covers all of the material in this course at the right level of detail and using the same technology base as we are. The lectures should provide sufficient detail to introduce topics, and you will then study them in further depth in the tutorials, labs and group project. For some lectures, further reading material may be given for students who wish to gain a deeper understanding. There is also a section on Webcms3 that
8. Course Evaluation and Development
This course is evaluated each session using the MyExperience system.
However, during the term students are encouraged to provide feedback both during lectures, during tutorials, and generally to course staff via email. Anonymous feedback forms will be provided to students throughout the course.
The main improvements to be made from the previous offering are to include reducing the impact and burden of labs, having more consistent peer reviewing throughout the course, and improving on the quality of some lecture resources.
Resource created Saturday 15 May 2021, 11:20:58 PM, last modified Tuesday 21 September 2021, 04:33:34 PM.