CPEN 321: Software Engineering (Winter 2023)

1. Overview

The course explores engineering principles for building non-trivial software-intensive systems: requirement specification, design, implementation, verification, and maintenance. The course uses a development project as the basic learning vehicle, providing students with an environment for applying the learned principles in practice while coping with constraints encountered when working on a real team: uncertain requirements, tight deadlines, etc. Students are evaluated based on their understanding of the software engineering principles and their ability to apply these principles in practice.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the course, students will learn several fundamental skills in modern software development:

• software engineering principles: requirements specification, design, implementation, verification, and maintenance of software;
• client-server application development paradigms, including mobile and cloud-based development;
• teamwork, inter- and intra-team communication;
• management of uncertainty in customer demands;
• ability to adapt quickly to new toolsets;
• strengths and weaknesses of modern generative AI technologies in assisting with software engineering tasks;
• efficient technical communication and presentation.

Course Format

• The class meets two times a week for lectures (2x1.5h) and once a week for a lab section (2h). All sessions are held in person and are not recorded.
• The grading is based on the development project, midterm, and participation marks. There is no final exam.
• Lectures focus on fundamentals of software engineering and interactive in-class activities and assignments.
• Labs focus on the course project and are facilitated by TAs. They provide:
• the opportunity to present the current milestone to the TAs and to receive their feedback and assessment
• the opportunity to ask clarification questions/get help with the next milestones
• time for each team to meet and work on the milestone
• Attendance and active participation in lectures and labs is part of the grade.
• Two mid-term exams will be held during two of the lectures.

Course Prerequisites

CPEN 221, CPSC 210, or equivalent.

Course Corequisites

CPEN 332.

2. Staff

Instructor	Prof. Julia Rubin Lectures: Mon. and Wed. 3:30-5pm, MacMillan 360 Office hours: Mon. 5-6pm, KAIS 4053 (or by appointment)
TAs	Sahar Badihi Faridah Akinotcho Michael Tegegn Yunhao Tian Yingying Wang Labs: Wed. 1-3pm, MacLeod 3018, 4002, 4006

3. Communication and Important Links

• Canvas is the main info hub. Full syllabus, assignments, lecture slides, tutorials, grades, etc. are available there: https://canvas.ubc.ca/
• Grades for the assignments will be posted throughout the term. Students are encouraged to check it frequently and let the staff know of any mistakes and inconsistencies.
• Discussions, Q/A, private messages to the course staff are on Piazza: https://piazza.com/ubc.ca/winterterm12023/cpen321
• Like most online services, Piazza is hosted outside Canada. If you have issues using Piazza, please email the instructor immediately (by the end of the first week of classes)

4. Project

A major part of the course is the development project. The project simulates real development settings, where development teams communicate with customers to implement software that satisfies the customers’ requirements. The intent of this project is to give you the opportunity to apply the course concepts to a real system.

Scope: You are required to develop a client-server software system with the client (front-end) running on a mobile device and the back-end running on the cloud. Several examples of reasonably-scoped projects can be found here.

Client side: a mobile application

• Must run natively on Android (not in a browser)
• Must run on at least one real device and on a Google Pixel 3 emulator running Android Q (API 29).
• Must be written in Andoid/Java
  • Using other frameworks, e.g., Expo, ReactNative, etc. is not permitted.

Server side: Node.js backend

• If your back-end uses a database, you may choose between MySQL and MongoDB. Using MongoDB Atlas/Realm is not allowed.
• Must run in a cloud (AWS, Azure, Google, IBM, etc.)
  
  • Most vendors, such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and IBM, provide free student subscriptions.
  • The course staff can also provide you with a pre-paid subscription to Microsoft Azure. If interested, send a request to the instructor on Piazza with (a) your full name, (b) your project name, and (c) your Microsoft account id, if available, or an email address that will become your account id.

Code Management: All development artifacts must be stored in GitHub - a popular platform and cloud-based service for software development and version control using Git.

• All code of each project (front-end and back-end) should be stored in one public GitHub repository
  • Well-structured internally
  • (https://www.wired.com/2015/09/google-2-billion-lines-codeand-one-place/)
• You must give all TAs access to your repository
• Feel free to create a throw-away/anonymous GitHub account for this course.
• Use the Atlassian Git Introduction, which can get you started with Git. A shorter, less formal, guide is also available.

Milestones and Deliverables

• M1: Android App with Node.js Backend (individual)
• M2: Requirements (group)
• M3: Design (group)
• M4: MVP (group)
• M5: Code Review (group)
• M6: Testing (group)
• M7: Final Release (group)

The detailed specification for each milestone deliverable is attached to the Canvas assignment. The milestone submission schedule is also outlined in the Course Schedule table.

Project Groups

• Milestone M1 is performed individually.
• Milestones M2-M7 are performed in groups of 4 students (2 students for the front-end and 2 for the back-end).
• Use Piazza “Search for Teammates” page to find team members.
• Choose your team members wisely as they contribute to the success of your team; no changes will be permitted.
• If you do not have a team organized by the Friday, September 22, 11pm PST deadline, we will assign you to a team randomly.
• We will “fill up” all teams to have 4 members, potentially “breaking” teams of 3 or less to multiple teams.

5. Use of ChatGPT (3.5)

The use of ChatGPT in this course is allowed, but all usages should be explicitly declared and documented. Moreover, one of the educational objectives of this course is to expose students to the use of AI tools in software engineering processes and teach the students the need to apply their critical thinking skills when working with these tools.

As such, throughout the course, students will systematically use ChatGPT as an assistant in completing their assignments, such as preparing requirements and design, and also some coding and testing tasks. The students will document and critically analyze the results, identifying strengths and weaknesses of the AI technologies. The analysis must be submitted as part of the assignment and will be graded.

The teaching approach responds to a dramatic shift in the software industry, where AI tools are starting to be introduced to automate knowledge worker tasks. Understanding how to best use AI agents and identifying their limitations is thus an important educational objective of the course.

After the course is completed, the instructors might document the experience in a report which should be of interest to software developers and educators. More communication on this, including the means that will be taken to protect student privacy, will follow.

6. Course Schedule

Note that this is a tentative week-by-week guide and thus is subject to change.

	Date	Topic	Major deadlines
W1	Wed, Sept 6, 2023	Intro, what is SE
W2	Mon, Sept 11, 2023	Software Lifecycle, Development Processes
	Wed, Sept 13, 2023	UML
W3	Mon, Sept 18, 2023	Requirements	M1: Android App with Node.js Backend (individual, 12%) - Monday, Sept 18, 9pm Sept 18: Last day to withdraw without a W standing
	Wed, Sept 20, 2023	Requirements	Groups and project presentations - Friday Sept 22, 9pm
W4	Mon, Sept 25, 2023	Project presentations
	Wed, Sept 27, 2023	Project presentations	Communities are formed - Friday Sep 29, 9pm
W5	Mon, Oct 2, 2023	Reconciliation Day	M2: Requirements (group, 5%) - Tuesday, Oct 3, 12pm (noon)
	Wed, Oct 4, 2023	Architecture, Design
W6	Mon, Oct 9, 2023	Thanksgiving Day
	Wed, Oct 11, 2023	Design, REST, Microservices
	Thu, Oct 12, 2023	Free for working on design	M3: Design (group, 7%) - Monday, Oct 16, 12pm
W7	Mon, Oct 16, 2023	Recap, preparation for mid-term 1
	Wed, Oct 18, 2023	Mid-term 1
W8	Mon, Oct 23, 2023	Teamwork, Advanced Version Control
	Wed, Oct 25, 2023	Code Reviews, Anti-patterns	M4: MVP (group, 12%) - Friday Oct 27, 9pm
W9	Mon, Oct 30, 2023	Testing
	Wed, Nov 1, 2023	Testing	Oct 31: last day to withdraw
W10	Mon, Nov 6, 2023	Verification and Validation, Analysis	M5: Code review (group, 5%) - Monday, Nov 6, 9pm
	Wed, Nov 8, 2023	Verification and Validation, Analysis
W11	Mon, Nov 13, 2022	Reading week
	Mon, Nov 15, 2022	Reading week
W12	Mon, Nov 20, 2023	Recap, preparation for mid-term 2	M6: Testing (group, 7%) - Monday, Nov 20, 9pm
	Wed, Nov 22, 2023	Mid-term 2
W13	Mon, Nov 27, 2023	Continuous Integration, DevOps
	Wed, Nov 29, 2023	Recap, Q/A, preparation for the final project presentations	M7: Final release (group, 12%) - Thursday, Nov 30, 9pm
W14	Mon, Dec 4, 2023	Top project presentations and awards ceremony
	Wed, Dec 6, 2023	Reflections

7. Grading

Grading for this course is based on four components:

• Project – 60%
1. M1 (App Frontend and Backend): individual, 12%
2. M2 (Requirements): group, 5%
3. M3 (Design), group, 7%
4. M4 (MVP): group, 12%
5. M5 (Code Review): group, 5%
6. M6 (Testing): group, 7%
7. M7 (final release): group 12% (assessed based on both the quality of the final deliverable and the quality of the SE process followed)
• Mid-term 1 – 12%
• Mid-term 2 – 14%
• Participation – 14%
1. Peer-evaluation by team members – 6%
2. Active participation in class and labs – 4%
3. Helpful answers to piazza questions – 4%

Project Grade Appeals

You can appeal your milestone grade by submitting a private post on Piazza (to all instructors), with the subject “<Mx> grade appeal”, where Mx can be one of the milestones, e.g., M1.

Appeals can be submitted within 5 days after the milestone grades are posted and should include:

• The criterion for which marks were deduced
• Your understanding of the criterion (1-2 sentences)
• Explanation for why your assignment satisfies the criterion (1-2 sentences)
• Evidence (screenshots, network traffic, etc.) demonstrating how your assignment satisfies the criterion

Notes:

• An appeal is not an opportunity to argue about the grading scheme (e.g., this item should not be worth this number of points or this item should not be included in the rubric). It is a chance to address situations where the grading scheme was applied incorrectly to your assignment.
• Appeals without proper reason/explanation or that do not follow the rules (e.g., submitted after the appeal deadline) will not be considered.

8. Absence

Attending lectures, labs, and the mid-term exams is mandatory and is graded.

Late Deliverables for Milestones

• Each group is given 5 grace days per term in total that can be used for milestones M2-M6.
• You can use the grace days as you wish, i.e., all five days on one deliverable, distribute across deliverables, etc.
• Grace days are counted as integers, i.e., if you are one hour late, that counts as one grace day.
• Once all grace days are used, late submissions will receive a grade of 0.
• There are no grace days for M1 and M7. Late submissions will be deducted 30% for each late day (which also count as integers).

In exceptional circumstances, if you need to make up for a missed grade, you should submit a request for APSC's academic concession here.

9. Academic Integrity

The academic enterprise is founded on honesty, civility, and integrity. As members of this enterprise, all students are expected to know, understand, and follow the codes of conduct regarding academic integrity. At the most basic level, this means submitting only original work done by you and acknowledging all sources of information or ideas and attributing them to others as required. This also means you should not cheat, copy, or mislead others about what is your work. Violations of academic integrity (i.e., misconduct) lead to the breakdown of the academic enterprise, and therefore serious consequences arise and harsh sanctions are imposed. For example, incidences of plagiarism or cheating may result in a mark of zero on the assignment or exam and more serious consequences may apply if the matter is referred to the President’s Advisory Committee on Student Discipline. Careful records are kept in order to monitor and prevent recurrences.

For more information, see here.

10. APSC and UBC-wide Policies

Academic Concession

The University is committed to supporting students in their academic pursuits. Students may request academic concession in circumstances that may adversely affect their attendance or performance in a course or program. Students who intend to, or who as a result of circumstance must, request academic concession must notify their instructor, dean, or director as specified in the link below.
https://www.calendar.ubc.ca/vancouver/index.cfm?tree=3,329,0,0

Students seeking academic concession due to absence from the final exam for any reason must apply to Engineering Academic Services (EAS) within 72 hours of the missed exam. This is a standard practice for all final examinations at UBC. For more information, see: https://academicservices.engineering.ubc.ca/exams-grades/academic-concession/

Health and Wellness

UBC provides resources to support student learning and to maintain healthy lifestyles, while recognizing that challenges and crises can arise for students. There are resources in ECE and at UBC where students can find can help and support, including wellness, equity, inclusion and indigeneity, resources for survivors of sexual violence, and health. Some frequently used resources are as follows:

• ECE Wellness Hub: https://ece.ubc.ca/student-life/student-wellness/
• ECE has an EDI.I committee whose goals are to improve equity, diversity and inclusion in the ECE Department, and support the UBC Indigenous Strategic Plan. The committee welcomes feedback from all students, and can be contacted by emailing help@ece.ubc.ca.
• Central resource for supporting student success (medical and crisis support, Centre for Accessibility, and support for survivors of sexual violence): https://senate.ubc.ca/policies-resources-support-student-success/
• UBC Office of the Ombudsperson for Students: https://ombudsoffice.ubc.ca/how-we-can-help/

UBC values respect for the person and ideas of all members of the academic community. Harassment and discrimination are not tolerated nor is suppression of academic freedom. UBC provides appropriate accommodation for students with disabilities and for religious, spiritual and cultural observances. UBC values academic honesty and students are expected to acknowledge the ideas generated by others and to uphold the highest academic standards in all of their actions. Details of UBC’s respectful environment policies, which all students, staff and faculty are expected to follow, can be found here: https://hr.ubc.ca/working-ubc/respectful-environment

University Policies

UBC provides resources to support student learning and to maintain healthy lifestyles but recognizes that sometimes crises arise and so there are additional resources to access including those for survivors of sexual violence. UBC values respect for the person and ideas of all members of the academic community. Harassment and discrimination are not tolerated nor is suppression of academic freedom. UBC provides appropriate accommodation for students with disabilities and for religious, spiritual and cultural observances. UBC values academic honesty and students are expected to acknowledge the ideas generated by others and to uphold the highest academic standards in all of their actions. Details of the policies and how to access support are available here.