Calendar

The course calendar summarizes the important dates for the term, including assignment due dates. It starts out as a plan, and is updated to provide more detail and better fit reality as the term progresses.

All grades are due by the end of the term, and I (the customer) need time to evaluate them (acceptance testing). Therefore, you (the developers) need to deliver your final product no later than the end of the last week of classes. The sooner you complete them, the better. If all of the projects are complete enough to give the presentation by Monday 01 December (the last week of classes), we will have the final project oral reports and demonstrations on that day. If not, we will need to schedule one hour during Final Exam Week. If worst comes to worst, we will shorten the final examination to one hour, and have the presentations during one of the two hours reserved for the final examination.

Since project planning and schedule management are a big part of the software engineering process, and since the schedule for delivery also depends on the software process model applied (e.g., compare waterfall against incremental models), it is educationally better for team to negotiate its own set of intermediate deliverables and times of delivery witht he customer. If the class size is large, there is little room for negotiation, since the instructor needs to schedule the evaluation of all the work products. Therefore, you will find a specific set of deliverables and dates in the calendar, for the whole class. However, since we have only three teams this term, I have decided to offer each team the option of following that schedule or negotiating another one with me.

Unless specified otherwise, deliverables will be due at midnight on the due date shown below, or the date and time negotiated. Where a fraction appears after a deliverable name, as in "SDS: 2/3", that means that you are expected to turn in a draft of what you have produced so far, and that it is expected to be about 2/3 complete by that date. Clicking on the name of a deliverable should take you to the description of what is expected.

Textbook readings are shown in the calendar. They are subject to change, but you can count on them being stable out to at least one week in the future. I am serious about them. If I get the impression you are not keeping up with the readings, I will give surprise quizzes, as mentioned in the syllabus.

In addition to the textbook readings, you will need to read other materials, not shown in the calendar, as background for specific assignments. Pointers to those will be provided in the daily class notes and in the assignment instruction files. In addition, you are encouraged to use the Web to look up additional references.