CS851 Software Economics Seminar

Spring 2002 

Instructor:Kevin Sullivan
Department of Computer Science 

Place: Olsson 228E 

Time:  Wednesday 4:00 to 5:00.

Class e-mail list address is cs851-econ@cs.virginia.edu

Announcements

Wednesday, April 10: 
Barry Horowitz, Assembling Off-The-Shelf Components: “Learn as You
Go” Systems Engineering
Powerpoint slides >>.

PowerPoint presentation by Susan Donohue is now online: first and second parts.  And here's the paper itself: "Value based software reuse investment" (pdf)
 

Reading list
  • Selected readings from Barry Boehm, Software Engineering Economics, Prentice Hall, 1981 (ISBN: 0138221227). 
    Additional readings to be defined.

 

Course Description: 

Software design theory remains remarkably disconnected from concepts and models of value creation over time. Most work to date in software economics has focused on cost and schedule estimation and on risk management. Largely ignored have been issues of upside benefits and opportunities. Thus, we lack intellectual and mathematical tools for reasoning about the net value of investments in software development. The purpose of this seminar is to explore the emerging discipline of modern economics-driven software development, including both foundational and recent works.

CS 851 will be organized as a one-credit, one-hour-per-week seminar, with an optional project component to bring the course up to the three-credit level for selected students who wish to pursue the topic in significantly greater depth. 

In each session, one or more students will present critical analyses of scholarly papers and selected chapters from Boehm's classic book on software engineering economics. 

Prerequisites: Graduate standing in Computer Science or Systems Engineering 

Grading: Based on quality of presentations and participation and (optional) project. 

Credits: 1 (no project, for the typical student) or 3 (with project, requires instructor approval, granted based on a demonstrated commitment to doing research in this area)
 
 

Please address all complaints about this page to Pavel: ps7k@cs.virginia.edu