Hall of Sciences 307
MF 2:30-3:45pm

Shannon Bradshaw, Ph.D.
302 Hall of Sciences
973.408.3198
sbradsha at drew dot edu
http://users.drew.edu/sbradsha

• Futures and Options for Dummies by Joe Duarte


• Extreme Programming Pocket Guide by chromatic


• We will also look at portions of many other texts in this class. A subscription to O'Reilly Safari is required. You will need the 10 slot bookshelf subscription ($19.99/month).

Collaboration with Fairfield Advisors: As we transition from the old curriculum to the new, we will increasingly incorporate projects in collaboration with real customers into upper level courses. This course represents the first of these. This semester we will work with Fairfield Advisors, LLC, a hedge fund based in Madison, NJ. Huh? What's a hedge fund? My response exactly when I first spoke with them in mid December. A hedge fund specializes in trading derivative securities. What? What's a derivative? Yeah, again, I had the same question. This semester we will be ramping up on these as well as several other concepts pertaining to financial applications of computing, requirements analysis, and other software engineering topics. In particular we will be developing an application that monitors profit and loss from one day to the next on equities and commodities positions held by Fairfield.

Class format: This course will function as if we were a development team at a software company. Rather than classes we will have team meetings. Prior to each meeting you will receive an agenda. Please contact me at least one day in advance if you would like to add something to the agenda. In addition, at nearly every meeting each us will walk away with action items and a deadline for completion. An action item might be to research and present an overview of a financial topic such as option calls and puts. More commonly, action items will involve a development task of one kind or another.

• Requirements analysis: This course will involve significant interplay between Fairfield and our development team in order to assess their need for a p&l monitor. We will develop our understanding of strategies for needs assessment in cooperation with professionals in another field.


• Evaluation and testing: At the end of this semester, many of you will graduate. Your "consulting" engagement with Fairfield will end at this time. In order to ensure that we have handed off a reliable system we first explore best practices in evaluation and testing and then implement such practices in this project. Through this process we also discuss issues of professional responsibility.


• Professional development: Computer science changes rapidly. As a computing professional or scholar in this field you will be faced with the almost daily challenge of maintaining familiarity the current state of the discipline. In this course we will develop strategies for lifelong learning.


• Project management: As a student in this course, you will gain familiarity with tools and techniques for project management. More importantly you will have opportunity to discover where your strengths and weaknesses lie with regard to teamwork, time management, and setting and meeting deadlines.

In this course my role is more accurately identified as mentor and manager rather than instructor. As a member of a team the work of each of us will have a direct impact on others participating in the class. Therefore, to determine a grade we will each evaluate the performance of everyone else every four weeks. A final grade will be based on your performance evaluations from your peers and I and on your attention to improving upon any shortcomings identified in prior performance evaluations.

To facilitate sharing of code specs, reviews, etc., please register for a Google account if you have not already done so. We will use Google Docs as a means of information exchange and knowledge management.

Please contact me as soon as possible if you have a disability or condition that may require some modification of seating or any class requirement, so that appropriate arrangements can be made. If you have any emergency medical information about which I should know, or if you need special arrangements in the event the classroom must be evacuated, please let me know.

It is my sincere hope that no student in this class submits work that is not his/her own. However, it seems prudent to clarify in advance the policy on cheating. If I determine that any work submitted for a grade was not created solely by the student(s) seeking credit for that work, the assignment grade for that student will be zero (0) and the course grade may be an F. All incidents of cheating will be reported to the appropriate deans and the student may be placed on disciplinary probation.