Empirical Software Engineering Research

In addition to the lectures, we plan for a couple of guest lectures on current topics in empirical software engineering research.

 

We hope that after taking this course, you will have achieved the following learning goals:

• Understand empirical methods in software engineering (research)
• Awareness of various experiment designs including their (dis)advantages
• Understand different types of data and how to describe and interpret them with statistical methods
• Awareness of critical topics and limitations surrounding empirical methods

Please note that we will not cover detailed statistical methods or a deep-dive into every research method.

This is a 6 CP course.

 

Important Note on Online Lecture Format

This course will be entirely online. The lectures will be uploaded as videos. For each lecture, we will offer a live, online Q&A in the subsequent week (Wednesday, 12:15–13:45).

In addition, we have weekly online mini-tests (Wednesday, 9:45–10:15) and three larger assignments, that are a prerequisite to be admitted to the exam. 

Details are provided in the kickoff session, which is already available online.
 

Limited Registration: First-Come-First-Serve and Waiting List

We are offering this course for the first time in this format. Additionally, we have limited staff to advise your learning and provide feedback. Thus, we have to limit the number of students that you can fully participate and take the exam in this semester to a maximum of 30 students.

Nevertheless, we believe that the course material is valuable for more students. Thus, the course registration is open and unlimited so that any student can still access and audit the materials (but unfortunately not obtain credit points).

To make it clear who is fully enrolled in the course, can submit assignments, and also take the exam (if the requirements are met), we display this status as a testing result. This means if you would like to participate in the assignments, take the exam, and get credits for this course, you must be one of the 30 students with the "passed" status in this testing.

Initially, we will enroll the first 30 students registered for the course. All other students will be on our waiting list with the possibility to be later admitted until the start of the first assignment (7th of May 2025).

Therefore, there are these possible scenarios:

• You enrolled very early and secured a spot in our course.
  If you want to take the exam, take part in every mini-test and submit the assignments.
  If you only want to access the material, do not take part in the mini-tests, and you will be excluded from the exam, opening your spot to the next person on the waiting list. You are still invited to join our Q&A sessions and watch the videos.
• You enrolled and only secured a spot on our waiting list. We will upload your position on the waiting list to your personal page, so you can estimate your chances of joining the course. We strongly recommend still taking the mini-tests even before you receive a spot, since you will need them to qualify for the exam.
• In general: If you did not take part in any of the mini-tests, you can not attend the exam and therefore your spot will be opened to the next person on the waiting list.
  (In case of illness, please contact as soon as possible via e-mail with a medical certificate.)

To obtain access to the course material, you must register via this CMS course. Registration starts on 1st of April 2025 at 8:00 am and ends on 16th of April 2025 at 11:00 am.

Update: The initial 30 spots have been taken. Everyone joining from now on will be on the waiting list. The displayed waiting list spot on the CMS does not update automatically. We will update it occasionally.

Mini-Tests

There will be 12 mini-tests, each mini-test is worth 4 points. The mini-test will take part on Wednesday 9:45 - 10:15 online, you can take the mini-test within these 30 minutes in the CMS. The mini-test itself has a time limit of 10 minutes, since started. The questions will focus on the lecture of the previous week.

Assignments

There will be three assignments in this course, each worth 20 points. For each, you have two to three weeks to work on. The three assignment topics are:

• Understanding empirical studies
• Data analysis
• Report writing

For each submitted assignment, you will receive personalized feedback to help you improve.

To qualify for the exam, you need to score, at least,

• 50% (24/48 points) on the mini-tests
• 50% (30/60 points) on the assignments
• 100% of the mini-tests must be submitted
• 100% of the assignments must be submitted.

Final Exam

The written exam will be 28.07.2025 HS002 in E1 3 at 10 am. There is written a re-exam on 01.09.2025 - HS003 in E1 3 at 12 am. Each exam will last 60 minutes.

You will need to register in the LSF/Hispos for the exam until 21.07.2025 for the exam and 25.08.2025 for the re-exam. We cannot help if you miss the registration deadline.

 

Literature

The library is providing access to the following books:

• Wohlin et al., Experimentation in Software Engineering, Springer, 2012/2024
• Juristo and Moreno, Basics of Software Engineering Experimentation, Springer, 2001
• Felderer and Travassos, Contemporary Empirical Methods in Software Engineering. Springer, 2020.
• Prechelt, Kontrollierte Experimente in der Softwaretechnik: Potenzial und Methodik, Springer, 2001/2014