Software Design Patterns Code:  22.617    :  6
View general information   Description   The subject within the syllabus as a whole   Prior knowledge   Information prior to enrolment   Learning objectives and results   Content   View the UOC learning resources used in the subject   Additional information on support tools and learning resources   Guidelines on assessment at the UOC   View the assessment model  
This is the course plan for the second semester of the academic year 2023/2024. To check whether the course is being run this semester, go to the Virtual Campus section More UOC / The University / Programmes of study section on Campus. Once teaching starts, you'll be able to find it in the classroom. The course plan may be subject to change.
This course focuses on the study of patterns and their application during the analysis and design of the different layers (presentation, domain and technical services) of a software system. All the contents follow the Object Orientation methodology - currently the most accepted - and use the UML notation.
Patterns (for software analysis, design, and architecture, among others), are one of the innovations that have had the greatest impact on object-oriented development in recent years together with the introduction of UML. Their main advantages are that they save time and improve the quality of the system by applying solutions (called patterns), which have already been widely tested by other designers.

For this reason, the use of patterns is considered a basic skill that any object-oriented software designer must acquire today. However, the development of this skill requires practice, where the detailed information found in books about patterns - which are already increasing in number - is usually used. This way of working is recommended to students for their future professional work.

This course provides brief descriptions of many of the most well-known and accepted patterns today, as well as some general concepts about patterns and their use.

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This course is strongly linked to the knowledge acquired in the Software Engineering course. It is also related to the Object Oriented Programming course, which deepens in the practical aspects of the behaviour of OO designs; and the Software Architecture course, which covers complementary aspects related to the engineering of distributed systems.

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Solving a practical activity with UML and patterns requires students to have prior knowledge about the UML modeling techniques, object-oriented (OO) methodology, object-oriented programming (OOP), and relational databases.

In order to unify the prior knowledge of all students, and given that the object-oriented software development method will be used throughout the course, a collection of Review Exercises are provided as part of the classroom resources.

The concepts of the method and the corresponding UML notations are introduced by means of an example that is developed and discussed in detail. For those students who have already studied the content presented in this module, it will serve them as a review, which is especially convenient if they learned it some time ago and have not used it much since.

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To enroll in this course, it is mandatory to have passed the Software Engineering course.

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The general objective of the course is twofold. It aims to ensure that students master the analysis and design of software using object-oriented development methods, as well as to ensure that they acquire a solid understanding of the use of patterns. All of this as a way to simplify the software development thanks to the reuse of solutions to typical problems that appear in a recurrent manner.

The specific objectives that the student must acquire in this course are the following:
  • Assimilate the concept of pattern.
  • Get to know a selection of patterns applicable to the analysis and design phases of software development.
  • Be able to select the most suitable pattern for each situation.
  • Be able to apply a specific pattern in a specific situation.
  • Be able to analyze and design object-oriented software.
These objectives are related to the following competences of the Bachelor's Degree in Techniques for Software Development:  
  • Design and build computer applications using development, integration and reuse techniques.
  • Apply specific software engineering techniques to the different stages of a project's life cycle.
  • Propose and evaluate different technological alternatives for solving a specific software development problem.

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The teaching material of the course consists of three didactic modules:

Module 1: Introduction to patterns
This module introduces UML by means of practical examples that cover the different modeling techniques. It includes an example of analysis and an example of design.

Module 2: Patterns catalogue

The most significant patterns are discussed in this module. Patterns covering mostly the entire life cycle of the software are described.

Module 3: Case study of pattern application

It includes the detailed development of a practical case similar to the Practical Exercise that students will need to solve.
The materials of this course are not designed to be studied sequentially. Once the introduction (Module 1) has been read, it is recommended to combine the study of theory (Module 2) and practice (Module 3) simultaneously. In the description of each activity, you will find a detailed description of which specific sections of each module must be studied for each activity.

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The main resources for the course are the teaching modules, available in the Learning resources section in the classroom.

To carry out some of the course activities it is advisable to use a CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) tool, which allows to create well-formed UML diagrams. There are currently many CASE and 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. In any case, the course instructor does not offer technical support in the installation and use of these tools.

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The assessment process is based on the student's personal work and presupposes authenticity of authorship and originality of the exercises completed.

Lack of authenticity of authorship or originality of assessment tests, copying or plagiarism, the fraudulent attempt to obtain a better academic result, collusion to copy or concealing or abetting copying, use of unauthorized material or devices during assessment, inter alia, are offences that may lead to serious academic or other sanctions.

Firstly, you will fail the course (D/0) if you commit any of these offences when completing activities defined as assessable in the course plan, including the final tests. Offences considered to be misconduct include, among others, the use of unauthorized material or devices during the tests, such as social media or internet search engines, or the copying of text from external sources (internet, class notes, books, articles, other students' essays or tests, etc.) without including the corresponding reference.

And secondly, the UOC's academic regulations state that any misconduct during assessment, in addition to leading to the student failing the course, may also lead to disciplinary procedures and sanctions.

The UOC reserves the right to request that students identify themselves and/or provide evidence of the authorship of their work, throughout the assessment process, and by the means the UOC specifies (synchronous or asynchronous). For this purpose, the UOC may require students to use a microphone, webcam or other devices during the assessment process, and to make sure that they are working correctly.

The checking of students' knowledge to verify authorship of their work will under no circumstances constitute a second assessment.

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This course can only be passed through continuous assessment (CA), the mark for which is combined with a practical (Pr) mark to give the final course mark. It is not planned to have any final test.The formula for accrediting the course is as follows: CA + Pr.

 
 

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