Automated Software Engineering: Whats missing in education

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Automated Software EngineeringWhats missing in
education?

• Debra J. Richardson
• Department of Informatics
• Donald Bren School of Information and Computer
  Sciences
• http//www.ics.uci.edu/djr/

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What is ASE?

• ASE is about automating the activities involved
  in software development, assisting human
  participants
• human participants remain in the loop
• mundane tasks are automated (downstream,
  accidents)
• not so mundane tasks are assisted (upstream,
  essential)

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ASE Topics
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ASE Essentials

• ASE is different in focus from traditional
  computer science and also from software
  engineering
• Aiming for some degree of knowledge-based,
  software-based assistance for software-intensive
  system developers
• Requires understanding the work, context, and
  participants that will be assisted
• Requires human-centered analysis and design
• Software tools to mediate work
• Evaluation is critical of conceptual frameworks
  and tools

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Teaching ASE

• Computer science doesnt do it well
• neither do software engineering programs
• whats needed is CS SE in context
• both for the purpose of teaching ASE and also to
  excite students about the topic

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Crisis in CS/SE Education

• Decreasing enrollments in CS-related fields
• Continuing attrition of good students
• Virtual lack of diversity in participants
• Increasing breadth of computer science

challenge opportunity! ASE should take this on
by contextualizing CSSE
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Partly its an image problem

• High attrition due to
• boredom with programming
• loss of focus
• appearance of irrelevance

• Low enrollments due to
• dot com crash
• fear of off-shoring
• geek image
• misunderstanding of computer science

Recruitment and retention is proportionally lower
for womenminorities More likely to seek
something socially-relevant and/or people-oriented
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Four issues of contexttwo dimensions

• Software / Information
• Development / Design
• Technical / Social
• Creation / Study
• To be effective, we must teach ASE as a
  discipline broader than CS or SE alone

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How should we teach ASE?

• Novel, engaging, problem-based, and
  creativity-oriented integrated coherent
  curriculum
• multi-course sequences for depth and continuity
• apply spiral approach (just-in-time learning)

• Studio and design courses as well as cap-stone
  projects
• collaborative, team-oriented assignments,
• practical experiences with realistic, socially
  relevant projects in a safe educational setting
• showcase of projects done throughout the year,
  excellent internship preparation

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ASE has a challenge! and an opportunity!
Contextualize and Lead in CS/SE Education
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Informatics_at_UCIwhat do we mean?

• Interdisciplinary study of the design,
  application, use, and impact of information
  technology
• software but also information
• development but also design
• technical but also social
• synthesis but also analysis
• Broadly speaking computing and software
  engineering in context
• inherently inter-disciplinary
• more on designing real-world solutions, less on
  building infrastructure