Research Area: Software Engineering
Description: Software engineering aims at improving software qualities such as reliability, safety, security and usability. It also aims to reduce cost and time-to-market in the context of both new system development and maintenance of existing software systems. Software engineering faculty members at the University of Ottawa concentrate on several types of software systems including telecommunication systems, software engineering tools, and e-commerce systems and other distributed web-based applications. Our interests cover the entire development process, from requirements through to testing and deployment. We investigate new methodologies and evolving best practices for software engineering, and work to bring our research results to application by collaborating with tool developers, participating in the development of international standards, using the methodologies in graduate and undergraduate education, and working directly with companies that develop software.
Applications:Improved software products, new sofware engineering tools, and improved software development processes. These can apply in all industries and all types of software used in those industries.
Professors:
| Amyot | Requirements engineering, User Requirements Notation (URN), scenario- and goal-oriented modelling, business process management, e-health, patterns, feature interactions |
| Bochmann (group) | Distributed systems, requirements engineering, workflow modeling, communication protocols, formal specifications, software testing |
| Felty (group) | Formal methods |
| Jourdan | Distributed systems, formal specification, software testing |
| Lethbridge (group) | Software engineering tools, usability, UML and modelling, software engineering education, empirical methods |
| Logrippo | Formal methods in telecommunications software engineering |
| Peyton | Service oriented architecture, business process management, e-health, e-commerce, software testing, security and privacy compliance |
| Somé | Use case based requirements engineering |
| Ural | Software testing and verification |
| Williams | Distributed systems, formal specification, software testing |
Research groups involving several professors:
- Communications Software Engineering Research Group (CSERG)
Leadership:
- jUCMNav is the first software engineering tool to support the User Requirements Notation, the first standardization effort to combine goal-oriented modelling with scenario-oriented modelling for requirements engineering activities (Daniel Amyot).
- Software engineering researchers at the University of Ottawa developed an undergraduate software engineering program that has served as a model for the SE2004 international standard program, and is widely emulated around the world (Timothy Lethbridge).
Some recent projects:
- jUCMNav: Open source, Eclipse-based editor and analysis tool for the User Requirements Notation [Daniel Amyot] - show details
- Evolving E-Health Business Processes Around Accessible Data Warehouses [Daniel Amyot - ORNEC project - Partners: Cognos, Telelogic, Sybase, The Ottawa Hospital] show details
- Scenario-based software performance engineering [Daniel Amyot - NSERC Strategic project - Partners: Nortel, IBM, Artisan Software] show details
- Requirements-driven development of distributed systems [Gregor v. Bochmann - NSERC Strategic project - Partners: Telelogic, Klocwork, Nortel, Industry Canada, Motorola Canada, Mitel Networks, TogetherSoft/Borland] show details
- UCM Scenarios with Requirements Management Systems [Daniel Amyot - NSERC CRD project - Partners: Telelogic, Nortel] show details
- Uniting Model-Centric and Code-Centric Software Engineering [Tim Lethbridge - Partner: IBM]
- Design of architecture, protocols and policy languages for advanced functionalities in VoIP, and the Feature Interaction problem [Luigi Logrippo]
- Deriving distributed system designs from global service and workflow specifications [Gregor Bochmann - NSERC Discovery grant]
Slide Show
Opportunities for collaboration: Opportunities for joint research exist at all levels, from exploratory research to contract research, from sponsoring a student to supporting a dedicated project, and many variations in between. University-based research can be very cost-effective for your company and in most cases your support can be used to leverage additional grants from government agencies resulting in a multiplying effect. To find out more about a specific lab/group, project, or to discuss your research needs, contact the Technology & Research Development Office at (613) 562 5800 x2440. Email: research@eng.uottawa.ca , or the researcher directly (The School of EECS).
Printable Handout 
Research Area Coordinator: Lethbridge