16:332:567            Software Engineering I

Homework Reading Assignments and Questions

Before each lecture, a reading list will be assigned and all registered students should read the assigned material and email a list of critical questions about the material to the instructor, before the lecture.
Email your questions as plain text. Do not send attachments, unless you need to attach an image or a diagram. Put a subject line to your email, indicating what date the questions are for. For example, "Reading assignment questions for 01/21/2011".
This is important to help me with finding your questions in my mailbox at the end of the semester when I will do the grading.

Download the class lecture notes here:
        http://www.ece.rutgers.edu/~marsic/books/SE/

You should ask anything that you feel needs better explanation. It is impossible that you will find everything clear in the assigned material and careful reading and thinking about the material will surely lead to some doubts and questions.
Also, if a statement or diagram appears to be incorrect, or conflicting with another statement or diagram—that is also a good question to ask.
Just ask about any doubt that you encounter.

Please do not send vague statements, which are not even questions, such as these examples:
1. "I don't understand Example ___x____ fully."
2. "I understand the principles for assigning responsibilities, but I am confused about Figure 2-17?"
First, these are not questions. They are statements about person's state of understanding. Second, they are not at all specific about what is not clear. It is not possible even to try to answer them and clarify the refereed materials, because it could be anything.
Please be more specific in your questions. In the above example, what exactly are you finding confusing about Figure 2-17?
We will not consider such vague questions when grading your reading assignments.

A tyical mistake students do goes like this: I did not submit any reading assignments because most of the time I could either comprehend things or I would research the Web to understand them.
The purpose of the reading assignments is twofold: (1) for students to master the course material and (2) for instructor to know that students worked on the assignment. Therefore, if you don't submit any reading assignments, then the instructor does not know whether or not you did them.

Even if you find your answer to your doubts on the Web, please email the questions and where you found the answer (provide the exact URL, not just top-level domain name).
Students who invest extra effort and offer answers to their own questions by consulting other sources (e.g., search the Web or check other books) will receive double credit.
In this case, the source should be credited, by citing the URL or book name.

Because questions represent a significant component of the grade, the students are highly encouraged to send in their questions on time.
Because of high volume, we cannot guarantee to answer each question individually, but we guarantee to read all your emails and keep track of who is asking questions and about the quality of their questions for grading purposes.

We may also select some interesting questions to post (anonymized) on this webpage.

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