Monday afternoon, a crowd of 60 attended Harald's talk on our empirical results on UML diagram layout. The Fraunhofer Society is the largest German research organization in applied sciences. It employs over 20,000 engineers and scientists. The ESK Institute focuses on embedded systems and communication technologies.
The German Chapter of the ACM/GI Munich Special Interest Group on Requirements Engineering (AK RE), gathered for the last time this year in the new Munich office of method park for a synopsis of what evidence-based Software Engineering research has learned about RE over the last two decades.
This week, Harald visits again the Elite Software Engineering Graduate Program in Augsburg. He will be giving a talk in the CS Colloquium, where he provides an introduction to RE, highlighting current topics and research trends.
On invitation by the head of the CS department, Michel Chaudron, Harald visits Chalmers/Gothenburg University. He'll be giving a talk on the layout of diagrams, conducting some interviews with people from industry, and explore cooperation possibilities with Michel and his group.
The /Brandenburg Regional Professional Chapter has invited Harald to speak at its monthly gathering. The talk given will be "In god we trust, everyone else bring data". The Regional Professional Chapters are a cooperation between the German Chapter of the ACM and the German Informatics Society (GI).
Vlad and Harald have won the 2nd price in the Best Poster Contest of MODELS! Before that, the paper by Alexander and Harald was a runner up to the best paper award at the SAM conference.
The ACM/IEEE 17th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS) takes place in Valence. Harald is presenting a full paper in the technical programs of MODELS, and also one at the co-located SAM conference. Plus a paper at the CMSEBA workshop, four (4) posters, and a demo or two. Furthermore, he'll try to assess the contributions to the ACM Student Research Competition. If he manages to get hold of a cloning device or some such.
Henrik and Nick present their Master's thesis "Towards Diagram Understanding" where they study the impact of layout quality to UML diagram comprehension using eye tracking.
Harald got invited to the Dagstuhl Seminar 15222 "Human-Centric Development of Software Tools".
After the great success last year, the invited spring school earlier this year, and the tutorial at ECOOP'13, we are very happy to announce the 2014 International PhD Summer School on Empirical Research Methods in Informatics. Attendance is free, and includes catering and course material, possibly also a social event. There are still some seats left, so sign up quickly at !
The Software Technologies: Applications and Foundations multi-conference is held in York. It co-locates, among others, the 10th European Conference on Modelling Foundations and Applications where Harald is a co-host to the Doctoral Symposium. If you are a PhD student and want to get high quality feedback on your thesis (and maaybe win a prize), come to York!
On occasion of the doctoral thesis defence of Thorsten Arendt, Harald is visiting Gabi Taentzer's group at Marburg University. He'll be giving an invited talk on "Empirical Research Methods in Software Engineering".
My paper "On the impact of UML diagram layout to model understanding: Size matters" has been accepted as a full paper at MODELS'14 in Valencia - wupti! It defines and justifies a practical metric for diagram size, and shows, empirically, what the optimal size is for a number of UML diagrams. This concludes a trilogy of similar studies on various factors in UML diagram understanding. The existence of this effect can now be considered a fact - time to move on and explore the why behind this effect...
There is a new job opening (full professor) as head of the Software Engineering Section at DTU Compute. The deadline for applications is October 1st.
The successful Empirical Research Methods in Informatics course/summer school/tutorial series has a new branch: Harald was invited to give it as a special course for the PhD students of Trento University.
Every year, the Informatics societies in German-speaking countries award the price for the best Computer Science doctoral dissertation. Every Faculty in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland is entitled to nominate one candidate, and they present their thesis at the IBFI Dagstuhl, itself a prestigious place. Harald is a member of the jury, and while he cannot revela anything about the status and results so far, he can assert that the line-up was impressive this year, as every year!
In Denmark, major exams are not graded by the teacher/supervisor, but a so-called censor from an outside organisation. The new Censor Corps has now been instated for 4 years, and Harald has been appointed as a member. So he will be able to take exams and assess final theses at any institution of higher education in Denmark.
Harald is going to attend the MODELLIERUNG conference in Vienna, co-chairing the Free Models Initiative. We will host a workshop to kick-off the initiative, discuss how best to publish models as data sets to foster research.
This week, Prof. Alexander Knapp from Augsburg University, Germany, is visiting for some joint research. He will also give a guest lecture in course 02341.
On Tuesday, Prof. Björn Regnell comes visiting. Björn is the Vice Dean of Research of the Faculty of Engineering at Lund University, Sweden. He's a member of the Software Engineering Research Group. He will give a talk on "What are the (really) essential modelling concepts and capabilities needed in software requirements engineering teaching and practice?". Come to listen to Björn in room 060, building 324, on Tuesday, 14:00!
The 2014 issue of the course "Model Based Software Development" (02341) starts next today - welcome to all new students! Have a look at the "FileShare" section of CampusNet to find the slides/lecture notes, and several auxiliary documents. In particular, read the course guide - it tells you about course objectives, assignments, and grading.
After serving on the board of the German Chapter of the ACM for eight years, Harald's term has finally expired - my congratulations and best wishes go to the newly elected board!.