MALAI KA G H U F RAN 1

MAJOR ASSIGNMENT

MALAIKA GHUFRAN

10470 SECTION A

SUBMITTED TO

SIR SHARJEEL
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MAJOR ASSIGNMENT

A Methodology for Collecting Valid Software Engineering Data

SUMMARY

This research paper is about the methodology that was developed as part of studies

conducted by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and by NASA's Software Engineering

Laboratory (SEL).

This research paper is all about an effective data collection method for evaluating

software development methodologies and for studying the software development process. Data

can be collected at the same time using software development process in a software production

environment. As long as we keep the developmental process in a controlled manner, the resulted

data will be more accurate and complete. For every project validating the data is necessary even

interviews with project managers. Results from using the methodology show that data validation

is a necessary part of change data collection. If these things are not kept in mid then as much as

50 percent of the data may be incorrect.

The purpose of this paper was to tell us how to obtain valid data that may be used both to

learn more about the software development process and to evaluate software development

methodologies in production environments.

The methodology explained in this paper has been used in two different environments to

study five software projects developed by groups with different backgrounds, using very

different software developmental methods. There are some basics steps which need to be kept in

mind while indexing the schema of a software data collection methods.

a) Establish the Goals of the Data Collection

b) Develop a List of Questions of Interest

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c) Design and Test Data Collection Form

d) Establish Data Categories

2. Course Importance in light of paper.

According to me data collection methodology, error analysis, error classification,

software engineering experimentation are important courses in the light of this paper.

3. Accurate and Best Methodology for data collection.

Certain attributes must be in data collection methodology to make it accurate and best.

For its accuracy we need to proceed data collection and validation at the same time in

development. Validating the data very carefully means that the data which is collected must be

very specified so that everyone can see the consistent view of the data that is collected.

For greatest usefulness, projects from software production environments involving teams

of programmers would be very approachable.it is also very important to specify the goals

because without them we can be at high risk of collecting the unrelated and meaningless data.

If the goals are specified for data collection then we can create a list of questions to be

answered by the study further. Both interviews and questionnaires are very important on asking a

series of questions. To use these two attributes interviews and questionnaires effectively,

questions and forms must be crafted carefully to ensure that the data collected is meaningful.

4. Conclusion.

From this research paper I have draw the following conclusions as a result in main points.

a) After studying all cases we came to known that we can collect data at the

same time using software development process in a software production

environment.
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b) As long as we keep the developmental process in a controlled manner, the

resulted data will be more accurate and complete.

c) For every project validating the data is necessary even interviews with project

managers.

d) As long as we defined the methodology very well, we can get the goals of data

collection very precisely.

5. Direction and Indication for Future Work.

In this research paper there has been comparison of data collection in two different

environment there are some points which seriously need to be avoid or if they happened then

they need to be encountered which includes Clearly understanding the working environment and

specifying the data collection procedures.

Similarly misunderstanding by the change analyst of the circumstances that required a

change to be made will result in misclassification which needs to be not done in future. The

nature of the data collection methodology and its target environments do not generally permit

isolation of the effects of particular factors on the software development process.

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References

Jour B. Boehm, Information Processing/Data Automation Implications of Air Force

Command and Control Requirements in the 1980's (CCIP-85), Feb. 1972

B. Boehm, "Software and its impact: A quantitative assessment", Datamation, vol. 19,

pp.48-59, May 1973