(contact: room ; email: jhan@it.swin.edu.au; Phone: )

Areas: software engineering, enterprise systems engineering, software/system engineering tools, distributed systems, Web services.

1. XML Technology for the Management of Enterprise Information

This project explores the use of XML technology (together with the Java technology) in the management of enterprise information. It involves an review of the XML technology and its potential applications. Then the project will focus on the use of the XML technology (as well as the Java technology) in managing enterprise system architectures.

Projects for using XML technology to manage other information are also available, eg, software documents, program code, and so on.

2. Tool Support for System Requirements Engineering

Requirements for software and systems need to be managed to support their development and evolution. Many project failures and deadline over-runs are due to poorly managed system requirements. In this project, we look at the issue of tool support for requirements management. In particular, we will review a number of requirements engineering tools, especially DOORS from QSS, and improve these tools by introducing high-level management functionalities for system requirements.

3. Rich Interface Definition for Distributed Objects

Currently, the interface definitions for distributed objects (eg, CORBA IDL) give only limited information about the objects. To find out the meaning of the services provided by the objects, we have to rely on other means (eg, system manuals). This project is to enrich these interface definitions with meaning and extend current middleware systems (such as CORBA) with necessary support for the use of such rich interface definitions.

4. Reverse Engineering of Software System Architectures

This project examines the implementation (code) of a large system, and re-discover the system's high-level design architecture. This will form the basis of investigating the impact of changes to the system from its architecture perspective, so that the changes can be realised with no or fewer side effects.

5. General

Any projects in the areas of software engineering, enterprise systems engineering, distributed systems, Web services, and tool support, that are proposed by the students and approved Prof Han.