Title: Joint Australian Computer Society & 
       Department of Computer Science Seminar
Date: Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Time: 3:30 pm to 5:00pm
Venue: Conference Room, Burgmann College,
       Daley Road, ANU Campus (south-west end)
       

##### note non-standard time and venue; see `Further Notes' below ######


Speaker:  Prof. Dieter Rombach, Fachbereich Informatik, Universität Kaiserslautern

Title: Software Engineering Technology Transfer: 
       Acceleration via Empirical Studies


                            Abstract

The role of software in products and services is ever increasing. 
However, the industrial ability to engineer such software according to
quality, cost and time goals lags still behind expectation.  One reason
is the inability to close the gap between state-of-the-research and
state-of-the-practice by transferring promising new methods and tools
into practice fast and effectively.  Experience shows that many
transferred innovative methods don't survive project pressure, don't get
lived, and consequently do not lead to sustained improvements. 

In this presentation the reasons for this unsatisfactory transfer story
will be analyzed and explained.  Empirical studies will be motivated as
a necessary prerequisite to change this situation.  After a short
introduction into the basics of empirical software engineering studies,
some industrial success stories from the experience of the author will
be presented.  Finally, some ongoing efforts to improve the competence
of software-intensive industry sectors via "evidence-based software
engineering" will be introduced and discussed. 

Biography:

Dr.  H.  Dieter Rombach is a Full Professor in the Fachbereich
Informatik (i.e., Department of Computer Science) at the Universität
Kaiserslautern, Germany.  He holds a chair in software engineering, and
is executive director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental
Software Engineering (IESE) which aims at shortening the time needed for
transferring research technologies into industrial practice.  His
research interests are in software methodologies, modeling and
measurement of the software process and resulting products, software
reuse, and distributed systems.  Results are documented in more than 120
publications in international journals and conference proceedings. 

For more information on Prof. Rombach's career, see
http://metric.cse.unsw.edu.au/Metrics2003/keynotes01.html.

URL: http://cs.anu.edu.au/lib/seminars/seminars03/dept20030827

Further Notes:
	* Professor Dieter Rombach's visit is sponsored by the Australian
	  Computer Society.
	* There is no charge for the presentation.
	* There will be the opportunity for networking after 5:00pm,
	  with refreshments with a charge of $10-15 (TBC).
	* Non-students should register with the Canberra ACS office:
	  	(02) 6290 0711 or acscanb[at]acslink.net.au
	  Please give your contact details & state if you intend to stay
	  for Refreshments (see ACS flyer below)
	* Could lecturers inviting students give a head count of the
	  expected number of students.

For Further Information, see the ACS flyer:	
   	http://cs.anu.edu.au/lib/seminars/seminars03/DieterRombachSeminar.pdf

	local contact: Mike Bowern (mike.bowern[at]anu.edu.au)