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Slowly
Reaching towards Software Engineering Professionalism: An Appraisal
of Recent Activities Across the World
Extended
Abstract
The call for papers highlights that the convergence of computing,
media and technologies means that people have become more and more
dependant on technology at work, at home, in travel, in learning
and in communicating and that systems based on computing are powerful
agents for change. Yet the production of such systems by the computing
sector too frequently appears to be carried out in an immature and
undisciplined way. It is also apparent that the world of Computing/Information
Technology/Informatics has not even reached a level of maturity
where there is an agreed terminology and understanding between one
geographical/special interest group and another. For example, attendance
at a major Information Systems conference will give a very different
view of "Computing" (my preferred term) than would be obtained from
attendance at a major Software Engineering conference. However,
whatever terminology and paradigms are used there is a clear need
for those who specify, design, implement, test, and maintain software
systems to approach their work in a systematic and professional
manner. These people are the Software Engineers that the sector
will need to rely on more and more. Just as Mechanical Engineering
shaped the 19th century and Electrical Engineering shaped the 20th
century it will be Software Engineering (SE) that will shape the
21st century. However, SE is different to these older disciplines
in that it must be viewed in a wider context. Already we have situations
where, for example, software can be specified in the USA, developed
in India, and then used globally on the Internet. It is thus of
paramount importance that the SE discipline is viewed at a global
level rather than at just at the continental or national level.
To
support the SE discipline there needs to be both educational and
professional infrastructures reflect a true "engineering ethos".
Also, as has been discussed by Ford and Gibbs (1996) SE education
and training must be linked to:
- Professional
practice and professional development
- Skills development
- Certification
and licensing
- Codes of
Ethics
- Professional
societies and accreditation
In addition,
there also needs to be defined at least a base line body of knowledge,
that has been internationally agreed, so that disparate flavours
of SE are avoided. SE is a discipline that must operate within a
global dimension and not be too constrained by national, continental
or other similar boundaries.
Until recently
it appeared that substantial progress was being made towards establishing
SE as a profession. In particular:
- The IEEE
Computer Society and the Association for Computer Machinery had
in 1993 created a Joint IEEE-CS and ACM Steering Committee for
the Establishment of Software Engineering as a Profession. The
committee's task was primarily to "establish the appropriate set(s)
of criteria and norms for professional practice of software engineering
upon which industrial decisions, professional certification and
education curricula can be based." In 1998 a successor to the
Joint Steering Committee was created. This IEEE-CS/ACM Software
Engineering Coordinating Committee (SWECC) was then made responsible
for coordinating, sponsoring and fostering all the various activities
regarding SE within the IEEE-CS and ACM's sphere of operation.
These included areas such as: standards of practice and ethics,
a body of knowledge, curriculum guidelines, and exam guidelines.
- The Texas
Board of Professional Engineers had in June 1998 enacted rules
that recognised Software Engineering as a distinct engineering
discipline (Speed, 1998). These rules went into effect on July
18th 1998 and applications for licenses were accepted from August
1st 1998. This legislation enables engineering licenses to be
issued to Software Engineers so that they could, within the State
of Texas, legally represent themselves to the general public as
an engineer, offer consulting engineering services to private
and public entities, and perform engineering design or construction
on public works.
- In 1999
and early 2000 a significant number of academic papers promoting
areas related to SE professionalism started to appear in major
computing journals [e.g. (Bourque et al, 1999), (Gotterbarn, 1999),
(Lethbridge, 2000), and (Pour et al, 2000) indicating that there
was indeed a groundswell of positive opinion in this area.
Then, in the
summer of 2000 ACM decided to withdraw from the IEEE-CS/ACM Software
Engineering Coordinating Committee (SWECC) (Bagert, 2000) and, with
this, much of the progress that had been made was thrown into question.
ACM's withdrawal,
although regrettable, does perhaps indicate that there may have
been some fundamental flaws in some of the projects that SWEEC had
been supporting and the perceived relationship between them and
the Texas licensing model. What is necessary now is to:
- Undertake
a critical review of all the activities that have been undertaken
under the auspices of SWECC in order to identify a common core
that is applicable not only to situations within the North American
continent but which is also acceptable to a world-wide community.
- Consider
other current initiatives that are relevant to establishing a
SE profession.
- Select what
is appropriate and start to move on.
The final paper
for ETHICOMP will attempt to commence this process by evaluating
two of SWEEC's projects which have made significant progress and
are very relevant to a world-wide audience. The projects are:
- The SWEBOK
project which is concerned with defining a Software Engineering
Body of Knowledge
- The project
on defining a Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional
Practice.
The paper will
then address work that has been carried out under the auspices of
the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) related
to the Harmonisation of Professional Standards in Information Technology,
which appears very relevant to the SE discipline. The match between
the proposals relating to the IFIP harmonisation project and the
work already carried out by IEEE-CS and ACM will be highlighted
and it will be shown that the IFIP proposals can be used as a framework
for SE professionalism across the world.
References
Bagert D.J.,
(2000), ACM Withdraws from SWEcc, in Forum for Advancing Software
engineering Education (FASE), Volume 10, Number 07, July, available
online at http://www.cs.ttu.edu/fase
Bourque, P.
et al, (1999) The Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge,
IEEE Software, Vol. 16, No. 6, pp35-44, November/December.
Ford, G. and
Gibbs, N.E., (1996), A Mature Profession of Software Engineering,
Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, Technical Report CMU/SEI-96-TR-004.
Gotterbarn,
D, (1999), How the New Software Engineering Code of Ethics Affects
You, IEEE Software, Vol. 16, No. 6, pp58-64, November/December.
Lethbridge,
T. C. (2000), What Knowledge Is Important to a Software Professional?
IEEE Computer, Vol. 33, No. 5, pp 44-50, May.
Pour, G., Griss
M. L. and Lunz, M. (2000), The Push to Make Software Engineering
Respectable, IEEE Computer, Vol. 33, No. 5, pp 35-43. May.
Speed J.R. (1998),
Software Engineering: An Examination of the Actions Taken by the
Texas Board of Professional Engineers, October 12th , Available
from Texas Board of Professional Engineers Web site at http://www.main.org/pebody/soft.htm
J. Barrie Thompson
School of Computing Engineering and Technology
University of Sunderland,
St Peter's Way,
Sunderland
SR6 0DD,
United Kingdom.
E-mail: barrie.thompson@sunderland.ac.uk
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