Projects

The projects below reflect activities of research group members that are related to component-based software development. These efforts fall into both research and education categories. All of these categories (either directly or indirectly) support our principal NSF-supported project discussed above. In particular, while our education/curriculum development efforts are directly related to the project, the research activities lead to the creation of new knowledge that is suitable for curriculum integration. Additionally, our research activities in the area of conceptual foundations directly support curriculum integration, as this work has been motivated by a need for well-defined, fundamental concepts suitable for introduction into the curriculum.

1. Component-based software effort estimation

   This work was initiated by Dr. Randy Smith as part of his Ph.D. dissertation, in conjunction with Drs. Allen Parrish and Joanne Hale. The nature of this work was to attempt to identify factors that may influence software effort in conjunction with a component-based development paradigm. The following reference relates to this work:

   • Smith, R., J. Hale, A. Parrish, "An Empirical Study Using Task Assignment Patterns to Improve the Accuracy of Software Effort Estimation," IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 1999.

2. Conceptual foundations

   This work involves several sub-areas:

   • Defining taxonomies for classifying components. For a position paper on this subject, click here.
   • Defining taxonomies for classifying component-based development products. This work involves the classification of component-based software development tools and technologies.
   • Safety rules for component-based software deployment. This work involves the development of a conceptual model for the deployment and installation of component-based software applications. The following reference relates to this work:
     • Parrish, A. and B. Dixon, "A Conceptual Framework for Component-Based Software Distribution," Proceedings of the AoM/IAoM 17th International Conference on Computer Science, 1999.

3. Curriculum Development

   This work has involved the development of courses in the component-based development area. As discussed above, this curriculum development has two parts: (a) the development of a fundamentals course and (b) the development of a project-oriented course which applies the fundamentals. To date, we have completed a prototype of the fundamentals course and are in the process of designing the project-oriented course. Some useful references include:

   • Presentation made to University of Alabama MIS Forum, April 1999
   • CS 391 Web site for Spring 1999
   • CS 491-B (Capstone Project) Web site for Fall 1999
   • CS 491-A (New version of CS 391) Web site for Fall 1999
   • Software deployment case study (developed as part of curriculum)

4. CARE Project Re-Engineering

   The CARE project is a major data warehousing project currently under way within the Department of Computer Science at The University of Alabama. CARE, which stands for Critical Analysis Reporting Environment, provides basic statistical and information mining analysis of warehoused data. This application, which is funded by a variety of sponsors including several state Departments of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration and NASA, is currently undergoing a major re-engineering effort based on the use of COTS components. Our group is using this application as a case study for exploring component-based development ideas. Manuscripts discussing this case study are currently in progress. For more on the CARE project in general, click here to visit the CARE Web site.