Memra

academic · intermediate · ≈ 13 h · Athabasca University

COMP 410 — Software Engineering

Write the paper, not just the code — 99 rubric-graded exam answers

A full software engineering course built for a closed-book written paper: the process framework and the prescriptive models, agility and the human side of a software team, requirements engineering and the functional/non-functional split, scenario, class, functional and behavioural modelling in UML, the design concepts (abstraction, modularity, information hiding, functional independence), architecture and component-level design with cohesion and coupling measured properly, user experience and pattern-based design, quality concepts, technical reviews and SQA, security engineering and the whole testing strategy, configuration management, metrics and support, and project planning, estimation and risk management. Every concept ends in the instrument the exam actually uses — a long-form answer you write, commit, then grade against the marking scheme, with the model answer and the technique note beside it. Prepares directly for the three-hour closed-book COMP 410 final examination: four 7-mark definitions, six 10-mark short answers, and one 12-mark thinking problem.

0 / 68 lessons
Reviews stop being scheduled for after it.

up next

What software is, and why it is engineered

11 m

Start course

The Discipline and the Process Framework

0 / 4 lessons
  1. What software is, and why it is engineered 11 m
  2. The process framework: five activities, eight bands 13 m
  3. Practice, principles, and process adaptation 12 m
  4. BorrowBox, and how to answer a COMP 410 question 12 m

Prescriptive Process Models

0 / 5 lessons
  1. The generic process model: activities, actions, tasks, task sets 11 m
  2. The waterfall model, and the projects where it is the right answer 11 m
  3. Prototyping, incremental delivery, and the spiral 12 m
  4. The Unified Process, and a prototype-driven model with a go/no-go gate 12 m
  5. Choosing a process model and defending the choice 12 m

Agility and the Human Side of Software Engineering

0 / 5 lessons
  1. Agility and the cost-of-change argument 11 m
  2. Scrum: roles, artifacts, events 11 m
  3. XP, Kanban and DevOps 12 m
  4. Software teams: jelling, toxicity and structure 12 m
  5. Global teams and social media 13 m

Understanding Requirements

0 / 5 lessons
  1. Requirements engineering: seven tasks, one bridge 11 m
  2. Stakeholders, viewpoints, and the first questions 10 m
  3. Functional and non-functional requirements, and traceability 14 m
  4. Elicitation: the meeting, the scenarios, the work products 11 m
  5. Use cases, negotiating requirements, and validating them 13 m

Scenario- and Class-Based Modelling

0 / 5 lessons
  1. Requirements analysis and the requirements model 10 m
  2. Scenario-based modelling: actors, use cases and exceptions 11 m
  3. Class-based modelling: the grammatical parse and the six criteria 12 m
  4. UML class models: attributes, operations, associations, multiplicity 11 m
  5. CRC modelling 12 m

Functional and Behavioural Modelling

0 / 4 lessons
  1. Activity and swim-lane diagrams 11 m
  2. Sequence diagrams 10 m
  3. State diagrams: events, guards and actions 12 m
  4. Which diagram, and why 11 m

Design Concepts and the Design Model

0 / 5 lessons
  1. Design in the software engineering context 11 m
  2. Abstraction, architecture, patterns, and separation of concerns 12 m
  3. Modularity, information hiding, and functional independence 13 m
  4. Stepwise refinement, refactoring, and design classes 12 m
  5. The design model: five element sets 12 m

Architecture and Component-Level Design

0 / 6 lessons
  1. Software architecture, and the decision record 11 m
  2. Architectural styles and architectural patterns 12 m
  3. Doing architectural design, and assessing the alternatives 11 m
  4. Components, and the principles that govern their design 12 m
  5. Cohesion and coupling 14 m
  6. Conducting component-level design, and refactoring 11 m

User Experience, Mobility, and Pattern-Based Design

0 / 5 lessons
  1. UX elements and the three golden rules 11 m
  2. The four interface models and the design spiral 11 m
  3. Design evaluation, usability, and accessibility 12 m
  4. Design for mobility 12 m
  5. Pattern-based design, frameworks, and anti-patterns 14 m

Quality, Reviews, and Software Quality Assurance

0 / 6 lessons
  1. What software quality means 11 m
  2. The quality dilemma and the cost of quality 11 m
  3. Quality control versus quality assurance 11 m
  4. Reviews: defect amplification, metrics, and choosing a review type 12 m
  5. Formal technical reviews, postmortems, and agile reviews 11 m
  6. SQA, statistical SQA, reliability, availability and safety 15 m

Security Engineering and Software Testing

0 / 6 lessons
  1. Security across the life cycle: secure SDLC, SQUARE, misuse cases 12 m
  2. Threat modelling, STRIDE, attack surface, and secure coding 12 m
  3. Testing strategy: V&V, organizing for testing, scaffolding, and stopping 11 m
  4. White-box testing, basis path testing, and cyclomatic complexity 12 m
  5. Black-box testing, boundary values, and object-oriented testing 12 m
  6. Integration, regression, smoke, validation, acceptance, and specialized testing 14 m

Configuration Management, Metrics, and Support

0 / 6 lessons
  1. Configuration management: baselines, SCIs and the repository 12 m
  2. The change management process 11 m
  3. Measures, metrics, indicators, and software analytics 12 m
  4. Product, process, project and quality metrics 12 m
  5. Software support: maintenance, reverse engineering and evolution 12 m
  6. Software process improvement and the CMMI 10 m

Managing the Project, and the Thinking Problem

0 / 6 lessons
  1. The management spectrum and the planning process 12 m
  2. Estimation: sizing, decomposition, and reconciling 13 m
  3. Scheduling: task networks, the critical path, and tracking 14 m
  4. Risk: reactive versus proactive, categories, and the risk table 13 m
  5. Risk refinement, RMMM, and the risk information sheet 12 m
  6. The thinking problem, and sitting the paper 15 m
~/memra/learn/comp-410