Empirical Software Engineering Research

Dear students,

 

we would like to announce a few organizational topics.

 

1. LSF Registration

As far as we are aware, everyone should be able to sign up for the final exam now. While you might see the course twice, one of them should work. If this is not the case or you do not see the course at all, please let us know as soon as possible via email, ideally with a screenshot and which degree you're enrolled in.

Remember that you can always deregister from the exam when you have registered, but decide not to take it. 

 

2. Changed Lecture Release Order

To have a more balanced release of lectures and to better fit with the schedule of the third assignment, I have changed the order of upcoming lectures. The new order is available on the CMS: https://cms.sic.saarland/emse_25/termine/events/index

If you have downloaded the schedule to your calendar, you might want to do this again. Please note that this did not change any of the mini-test or Q&A schedule, just the order of the content. This does include that the guest lecture on performance analysis will be two weeks later.

 

3. No Mini-Test or Q&A Next Week

Just as a reminder, there is no mini-test or Q&A next week due to Pentecost. Thus, the next mini-test and Q&A will be on the 18th of June.

 

Have a good long weekend,

EMSE-Team

Dear students,

 

We have completed our individual review of Assignment 1. The feedback and scores are available on the CMS. We will discuss high-level topics, such as common mistakes, in the next Q&A on Wednesday.

 

Your individual feedback contains two different annotation methods. The red highlighting indicates our point scoring, where we generally use three different annotations:

- A checkmark ✔️ indicates correct or full point(s)

- A crossed checkmark (similar to an “x”) indicates partially correct, or roughly 0.5/0.25 points depending on the task

- An "f" indicates something incorrect

Please keep in mind that this is not an exam where the goal is to get full points. The point of the assignments is that you practice important elements of empirical research. You only need to fulfill 50% of the points across all assignments to qualify for the exam, so it is fine if you have missed some points.

 

The blue highlighting indicates individual feedback for your improvement. Please carefully review those as they will be relevant again for the next two assignments (and the exam).

 

Some solutions had major issues (e.g., discussing the wrong paper) such that we could not provide meaningful feedback. In those instances, we have left a note that you have the option to re-submit this task via email to get feedback. Please note that this does *not* change your grading in any way, it is just a voluntary option for you to get meaningful feedback.

 

If you have questions regarding your individual feedback that you would like to discuss one-on-one, Annabelle is offering an office hour on Wednesday, 28th of May, between 11:00 and 12:00 at her office E1.1, Room 2.14. In case you have something you would like to discuss, please write Annabelle a brief email so we can prepare the discussion and minimize wait times.

 

The next assignment (data analysis) starts on Wednesday. We will briefly introduce the assignment in our live Q&A. You then have three weeks until Tuesday, 17th of June, to work on it.

 

Best,

EMSE-Team

Dear students,

 

Unfortunately, I have to cancel tomorrow's Q&A due to illness. The other parts of the schedule will be unaffected and continue as usual. Thus, the mini-test about experiment design will still happen tomorrow starting at 9:45. The next lecture on data & measures will still be available starting from 14:00.

There were no submitted questions on the assignment so far. If you had planned to ask something tomorrow during the Q&A, please send either me or Annabelle an email as soon as possible. Just as a reminder, the assignment is due in one week (i.e., next Tuesday, 20th of May).

We will make up for the cancelled Q&A on the content of the experiment design lecture next week, so please still feel free to submit questions on the lecture content.

 

Thanks for understanding and apologies for the inconvenience,

Norman

Dear students,

 

We would like to welcome you to Empirical Software Engineering Research. We are excited that you joined this course and hope you already had a chance to watch the kickoff and introduction lectures.

 

This is a friendly reminder that we have our first mini-test tomorrow (Wednesday) between 9:45 and 10:15 am on the CMS. Please note that participation in all mini-tests is mandatory for students aiming to earn credits for the course. But, even if you are only auditing the course, feel free to participate in the mini-test as feedback for your own and the groups’ understanding of the concepts. The CMS automatically saves your answers, and there is no explicit “save” or "submit" button. You should see an indicator confirming your responses have been saved.

 

Later in the day, we are meeting for our first live Q&A, which will start at 12:15 sharp. You can find the Microsoft teams link on the CMS.

 

To avoid cluttering inboxes, this will be the only time we remind everyone for the upcoming mini-test and Q&A. We recommend downloading the course schedule from the CMS to your calendar and setting up your own reminders depending on your needs.

 

See you tomorrow,

EMSE-Team