UC Institute for Software Research
 |
Computer
Science Department, University of Maryland and Fraunhofer
Center - Maryland
The Role
of Empirical Study in Software Engineering
(slides
- PDF)
|
February
24,
2006
Friday
Refreshments and
Networking: 1:00 - 1:30
Presentation: 1:30 - 3:00
Note: this presentation time is 30 minutes earlier than ususal.
Faculty Host:
André van der Hoek
RSVP: Email RSVP required to Nancy Myers at nmyers@ics.uci.edu
by Monday, February 20.
Location: University Club (UClub) Library
Cost: No cost to attend.
Directions and parking information are available.
Abstract: Although most scientific and engineering disciplines
view empiricism as
a basic aspect of their discipline, that view has not been the tradition
in software engineering. There should be a symbiotic relationship
between the development of theories and empirical studies that test and
evolve that theory. This talk discusses the role of empirical study in
the understanding and improvement of the software product and process.
It offers a personal, historical perspective of the use of empiricism
through a series of example applications that demonstrate the various
roles that empiricism can play. The examples are taken from the author's
own experience and include the use empirical study to improve an
organization's product quality and productivity in the Software
Engineering Laboratory at NASA/Goddard and to evaluate and evolve the
effectiveness of various software technologies for use in improving the
dependability of software. It also suggests research directions for
empirical study in software engineering.
About the Speaker: Dr. Victor R. Basili is Professor of Computer
Science at the University
of Maryland. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University
of
Texas and honorary degrees from the Universities of Sannio (Italy) and
Kaiserslautern (Germany). He was Executive Director of the Fraunhofer
Center - Maryland and a founder and principal of the Software
Engineering Laboratory (SEL) at NASA/GSFC. He works on measuring,
evaluating, and improving the software development process and product
via mechanisms for observing and evolving knowledge through empirical
research, e.g., the Goal/Question /Metric Approach, The Quality
Improvement Paradigm, the Experience Factory. He is a recipient several
awards including a NASA Group Achievement Award, a NASA/GSFC
Productivity Improvement and Quality Enhancement Award, the 1997 Award
for Outstanding Achievement in Mathematics and Computer Science by the
Washington Academy of Sciences, the 2000 Outstanding Research Award from
ACM SIGSOFT and the 2003 Harlan Mills Award from the IEEE Computer
Society. Dr. Basili has authored over 200 papers, served as
Editor-in-Chief of several journals (IEEE TSE, Journal of Empirical
Software Engineering) and program chair and general chair of several
conferences (ICSE). He is an IEEE and ACM Fellow.