Software Systems Requirements Engineering

Code:

EIC0053

Acronym:

ERSS

Keywords
Classification	Keyword
OFICIAL	Software Engineering

Instance: 2017/2018 - 2S

Active?	Yes
Responsible unit:	Department of Informatics Engineering
Course/CS Responsible:	Master in Informatics and Computing Engineering

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
MIEIC	27	Syllabus since 2009/2010	4	-	6	42	162

Teaching language

English

Objectives

This course unit aims to endow students with planning and management skills, so that they can analyse and specify the requirements of a software system.

Learning outcomes and competences

By the end of the course, students should be able to:

- define information system requirement;

- explain the importance of the requirements engineering process in the success of an information system;

- describe the requirements engineering process;

- identify and explain the roles and actors in the requirements engineering process;

- describe the application of problem solving techniques the requirements engineering process;

- describe and apply requirements workshops and prototyping for requirements identification;

- describe and apply scenarios and storyboarding techniques;

- describe and apply observation and other ethnographic methods;

- describe and explain requirements analysis techniques and their importance;

- explain the importance of requirements classification;

- classify requirements in terms of priority and risk;

- explain the importance of requirements negotiation;

- apply techniques of requirements negotiation;

- describe the several forms of requirements representation;

- describe the general structure of a requirements document;

- build complex use case based requirements descriptions;

- write a complete requirements document.

Working method

Presencial

Program

Introduction to Requirements Engineering Notion of requirement: functional and non-functional requirements; importance of requirements; the role of analysis and specification; application domains, socio-technical requirements; requirements of human activities systems; Process of Requirements Engineering: interdisciplinary aspects of Requirements Engineering; organisational aspects; process models of Requirements Engineering; stakeholders; support and process management of Requirements Engineering; quality and process improvement of Requirements Engineering Identification, analysis and negotiation of requirements Identification processes, requirements discovery and refinement: organisational polices; launched by problems; launched by example; external environment imposition General techniques to identify, discover and refine requirements: problem analysis; organisation and business modelling; brainstorming; queries; interviews Specific techniques to identify, discover and refine requirements: workshops; storyboarding; prototyping; social observation and analysis (ethnographic methods); General conversation structures: dialogues and contexts; dialogue structure; non-verbal communication; dialogue standards and acts (identification, analysis and modelling, refinement, validation, negotiation); Requirements analysis: analysis checklists; interaction and dependence matrixes; requirements risks and priorities; requirements classification; architecture design and requirements division; verification of metric consistency Documentation and requirements communication Requirements representation: criteria; representation and information requirements; ways of representation; selection of representations; representation paradigms; representation quality; Textual description of requirements: structure of requirement documents; IEEE 830-1998 standard; requirements description (discourse); Requirements representation by use cases: development of an use case model; extension and inclusion of use cases; integration of use cases in requirements identification techniques; use of other UML diagrams in requirements representation- class diagrams, activities, sequence, packets; Representation of organisational context: modelling of organisational processes; objectives modelling; analysis and business standards in UML; Modelling and formal specification: overview of modelling techniques and formal specification; Requirements validation, testing and traceability Requirements validation: requirements revision; prototyping; model validation; requirements tests; revision of use cases; Requirements tests: basic concepts; test cases; derivation of test cases and use cases; Requirements traceability: role of traceability in the development of systems; relation of traceability; general model of traceability; tools to support traceability Requirements management Requirements management and alteration: reasons of change; stable and volatile requirements; processes to manage alterations; management of requirements configurations; tools of requirements management; Requirements management: project quality; quality assessment; quality control checklists

Mandatory literature

Klaus Pohl; Requirements Engineering: Fundamentals, Principles, , Springer, 2010. ISBN: 978-3-642-12577-5
IAN ALEXANDER AND NEIL MAIDEN; SCENARIOS, STORIES, USE CASES Through the Systems Development Life-Cycle, John Wiley & Sons. ISBN: 0-470-86194-0

Complementary Bibliography

Alexander, Ian F.; Writing better requirements. ISBN: 0-321-13163-0
Alistair Stutcliffe; User Centered Requirements Engineering: Theory and Practice, Springer, 2002
Crabtree, Andy; Designing collaborative systems. ISBN: 1-85233-718-4
Gottesdiener, Ellen; Requirements by collaboration. ISBN: 0-201-78606-0
Withall, Stephen; Software requirement patterns. ISBN: 978-0-7356-2398-9
Maciaszek, Leszek A.; Requirements analysis and system design. ISBN: 0-201-70944-9
Kurt Bittner, Ian Spence; Use Case Modelling, Addison-Wesley, 2003
Gibson, John E.; How to do systems analysis. ISBN: 978-0-470-00765-5
Kotonya, Gerald; Requirements engineering. ISBN: 0-471-97208-8
Sommerville, Ian; Requirements engineering. ISBN: 0-471-97444-7

Teaching methods and learning activities

Project-oriented learning. Students will have to carry out a group assignment, in which they have to cover all the stages of a requirements engineering process. Theoretical classes endow students with all the necessary knowledge to carry out the projects.

Evaluation Type

Distributed evaluation without final exam

Assessment Components

Designation	Weight (%)
Apresentação/discussão de um trabalho científico	40,00
Trabalho escrito	30,00
Trabalho prático ou de projeto	30,00
Total:	100,00

Amount of time allocated to each course unit

Designation	Time (hours)
Elaboração de projeto	54,00
Estudo autónomo	35,00
Frequência das aulas	33,00
Trabalho escrito	40,00
Total:	162,00

Eligibility for exams

Students have to reach a minimum mark of 40% in every assessment components.

Calculation formula of final grade

30% - PS - Project (group) 

30% - EI - Essay (individual)

20% - DA - Discussion of paper (group)

20% - AA - Paper reading sheet (individual)

Special assessment (TE, DA, ...)

According to the course rules

Classification improvement

Students can improve the mark of their individual essays (EI). Project component (PS) and papers discussion and analysis (AA) can only be improved in the following academic year.