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Seminar: Empirical Software Engineering

Seminar Organization

The first seminar meeting will be on Thursday, 07.04.22 at 12:00 - 13:30 in room 1.421, Sibille-Hartmann-Str. 2-8, 1st floor

Course Content

The development of software can be seen as a chain of design decisions. In modern software development, these decisions are increasingly made based on data (e.g., data about the usage). In addition, software itself is increasingly controlled by algorithms that are trained by data (e.g., using machine learning). Therefore, a sound understanding of empirical research methods and data analysis is becoming increasingly important for software developers. Empirical Software Engineering deals with the collection and analysis of data about software engineering artifacts in order to derive knowledge that can be used to improve the software or the software development process. This module teaches the foundation of Empirical Software Engineering. The topics include:

  • What is empirical research and what forms of empirical studies exist in software engineering (e.g. interviews, surveys, case studies, experiments)?
  • The structure of empirical studies
  • Data collection
  • Data analysis (theory building, validation of hypotheses)
  • Validity of empirical results

The basics are taught in an open education manner, consisting of lectures, labs (programming examples) and self study phases. In an accompanying project, students design, conduct, and evaluate their own empirical study on a self-selected or provided research questions related to software engineering.

Time Schedule

The seminar is held every Thursday from 12:00 - 13:30. The addtional material and excercises will be updated throughout the semester.

Date Time Topic
07.04.2021 12:00 - 13:30 Introduction and Lecture 1: Introduction to Empirical Software Engineering
14.04.2022 12:00 - 13:30 Lecture 2: Theories in Software Engineering and How to Create Knowledge
21.04.2022 12:00 - 13:30 Lecture 3: Research Strategies and Measurements
28.04.2022 12:00 - 13:30 Lecture 4: Controlled Experiments and Hypothesis Testing
05.05.2022 12:00 - 13:30 Study Marketplace
28.04.2022 - 12.05.22 self study Lecture 5 (recorded): Statistical Tests and How to Select the Right One
12.05.2022 12:00 - 13:30 Lecture 6: Recap - Descriptive Statistics and Hypothesis Test 
19.05.2022 12:00 - 13:30 Lab 1
26.05.2022   Himmelfahrt
02.06.2022 12:00 - 13:30 Lab 2
09.06.2022   Pfingsten
16.06.2022   Fronleichnam
23.06.2022 12:00 - 13:30 Intermediate Presentations
30.06.2022 12:00 - 13:30 Lab 3: How to write an Empirical Paper
07.07.2022 12:00 - 13:30 Open Session: Paper Discussions
14.07.2022 12:00 - 13:30 Final Presentation
29.07.2022 23:59:59 Paper Submission Deadline

Team

  • Prof. Dr. Andreas Vogelsang
  • Patrick Ebel

Registration and Size Constraints

Due to the close supervision the seminar is currently limited to 15 participants. If you are interested in the seminar, please register for the repsective KLIPS course.

Workload

The seminar is designed for 2 SWS and is worth 6 ECTS points.