BSE Students are invited (based on their grades) to undertake the research stream and complete a larger solo research project worth 24 points under a supervisors guidance. This is aimed at preparing them for critical analysis of advanced SE/CS/Engineering topics and for postgraduate research work. Final year students between 2002-2005 who were selected into the research stream had to complete 2 concurrent projects in their final year: 12 point industry-based group project and 12 point solo research project. From the feedback received from some of the students and supervisors, and from the experiences in other top Eng. schools in Australia, it was felt that some students may be overloaded in their final year. This may be discouraging even the brighter students to not continue with p/g studies. A 24 point Research unit which has the research skills/methods intertwined with the Research project is proposed in this amended version of the BSE program.

This unit has been updated as part of a 2009 review and comparison of data with current Handbook, Syllabus + and Callista data.

07/12/2017 - Unit disestablished at FEC 5/17 Item 7.3.

Bachelor of Software Engineering (BSE) students are invited to undertake the Research stream in the fourth year of study and complete a larger individual research project over two semesters. This unit prepares students for critical thinking and analysis and further postgraduate research study. This is similar to other Honours projects in the faculty in that it is an individual research project. However, it is modelled along the lines of Engineering Faculty research study, where the Research skills and methods are intertwined with the research project component.

At the completion of this unit students will have:

• acquired a significant level of expertise in the chosen field of research, including knowledge of current state-of-the-art, open problems and research methods used in the respective field;
• successfully addressed an open research question in the chosen field and reported these results;
• learned the skilled use of particular software packages that are relevant to the chosen research direction and/or acquires a significantly higher level of competence in programming.

Acquired general core research skills, including how to:

• find and analyse current research literature;
• critically evaluate research findings, including critical argument analysis and statistical analysis of experimental results;
• identify open problems in current research;
• identify promising new research directions based on previous results;
• define feasible projects based on such problems;
• set realistic timelines and intermediate deliverables for a medium-scale project;
• conduct such a project, including time and resource management, intermediate evaluations of results and re-assessment of original aims;
• communicate research results in a variety of forms, including informal oral presentations, written reports, seminar presentations, poster presentations and web sites;
• collaborate effectively in a (small) research team.

020103

This unit introduces the student to independent research. Most projects are software-oriented, although some projects may be purely theoretical and others may involve hardware work.

On-campus

Research Proposal (5%), Literature Review (10%), mid-year interim presentation (Hurdle), Final report and presentation (85%)

24

Regular meetings with supervisor(s) over the course of the unit enrolment

FIT

Entry to the Bachelor of Software Engineering Honours stream. By invitation only.