• Description

Software engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation and maintenance of software; that is, the application of engineering to software. This approach is adopted in order to achieve the levels of quality, productivity and cost control of the rest of the engineering areas. But software, unlike other products, is intangible and, therefore, its production does not consume raw materials. On the other hand, it is not manufactured (all copies are identical and the cost of creating one is practically zero) nor does it wear out, but it quickly becomes obsolete.

The application of software engineering involves to follow a method that describes the characteristics of the disciplined process that we use. More specifically, this method will tell us what tasks have to be carried out, who has to carry them out (the roles) and what artifacts will be the inputs and the results of each task. Tasks defined by a method can belong to various fields such as project management, requirements identification and management, modeling, software construction, testing, quality management, maintenance or reverse engineering, among others. Each method can define different roles, such as the person responsible for the project, the expert in the domain, the functional analyst, the architect, the team in charge of programming, etc., although there are certain roles that usually appear (maybe with different names) in most of the methods. Finally, software engineering also provides us with a set of techniques and tools that help us put into practice the methods we have chosen to develop our software project.

This course provides an overview of software engineering, with special emphasis on practical contents directly applicable in the future professional work of the students. In addition, the practical activities have an important weight within the time that students must devoted to the course.

• Prior knowledge

This course does not presuppose any prior knowledge.

• Information prior to enrolment

This course does not presuppose any prior knowledge of this discipline or of any other course in this Bachelor's Degree.

• Learning objectives and results

The objectives that the students must acquire in this course are the following:  

• Being able to explain what software engineering is and contextualize it.  
• Being able to list some of the most commonly used development methods.  
• Being able to explain the fundamental concepts of object oriented modeling.  
• Being able to identify and select the requirements of a software product.  
• Being  able to use the UML notation to document object-oriented analysis models.
• Being able to document the functional analysis of a software using use cases.  
• Being able to do model a domain using UML diagrams.  

These objectives are related to the following competences of the Bachelor's Degree in Techniques for Software Development:  

• Evaluate software solutions and draw up proposals for development projects, taking into account the resources, the available alternatives and the market conditions.  
• Understand and use the scientific bases of software development to analyse each problem at the appropriate level of abstraction and apply the skills and knowledge acquired in order to solve them.

• Content

The teaching material of the course consists of 4 modules:  

1. Introduction to Software Engineering. It describes what software engineering is, how it is organized and presents some of the methods, techniques, tools and standards that characterize it.  
2. Object Orientation. It describes what object orientation (OO) is and some of its main characteristics: classification and abstraction; information hiding and encapsulation; and inheritance and polymorphism.  
3. Requirements. It introduces the concept of requirements and describes how to obtain, manage and document them throughout a software development process.  
4. UML Analysis. It presents UML as a language to model various aspects (use cases, interface, domain) of a software system.

These contents are studied in relation to various challenges: 

1. What is software engineering and object orientation? 
2. What do customers want? 
3. The language of software engineering
4. How are the "blueprints" of a software system?

• View the UOC learning resources used in the subject

• Additional information on support tools and learning resources

In the classroom, you will find the necessary resources to carry out each of the proposed activities. 

To carry out some of the course activities it is advisable to use a modeling tool, which allows to represent UML diagrams. There are currently many modeling tools available on the market (both free and proprietary), as you can see in the following list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unified_Modeling_Language_tools 

We suggest the use of free tools such as VisualParadigm or diagrams.net , although you can choose any other (or even make freehand diagrams). In any case, the course instructor do not offer technical support on use of these tools.

• Guidelines on assessment at the UOC

The assessment process is based on students' own work and the assumption that this work is original and has been carried out by them.

In assessment activities, the following irregular behaviours, among others, may have serious academic and disciplinary consequences: someone else being involved in carrying out the student's assessment test or activity, or the work being not entirely original; copying another's work or committing plagiarism; attempting to cheat to obtain better academic results; collaborating in, covering up or encouraging copying; or using unauthorized material, software or devices during assessment.

If students are caught engaging in any of these irregular behaviours, they may receive a fail mark (D/0) for the assessable activities set out in the course plan (including the final tests) or in the final mark for the course. This could be because they have used unauthorized materials, software or devices (e.g. social networking sites or internet search engines) during the tests, because they have copied text fragments from an external source (internet, notes, books, articles, other student's projects or activities, etc.) without correctly citing the source, or because they have engaged in any other irregular conduct.

In accordance with the UOC's academic regulations , irregular conduct during assessment, besides leading to a failing mark for the course, may be grounds for disciplinary proceedings and, where appropriate, the corresponding punishment, as established in the UOC's coexistence regulations.

In its assessment process, the UOC reserves the right to:

• Ask the student to provide proof of their identity, as established in the university's academic regulations.
• Request that students provide evidence of the authorship of their work, throughout the assessment process, both in continuous and final assessment, by means of an oral test or by whatever other synchronous or asynchronous means the UOC specifies. These means will check students' knowledge and competencies to verify authorship of their work, and under no circumstances will they constitute a second assessment. If it is not possible to guarantee the student's authorship, they will receive a D grade in the case of continuous assessment or a Fail in the case of final assessment.
  For this purpose, the UOC may require that students use a microphone, webcam or other devices during the assessment process, in which case it will be the student's responsibility to check that such devices are working correctly.

• View the assessment model