Software Systems Engineering
Key researchers: Professor Ian Sommerville
Software systems engineering is broadly concerned with techniques, processes, methods and tools that support the development of software and software-intensive systems. Although rooted in Computer Science, this area is interdisciplinary and research groups in Computing collaborate with researchers and practitioners from many other disciplines, notably the social sciences. InfoLab21's Computing Department is well-known for its work in requirements engineering (RE) and has pioneered the use of sociological techniques to understand the requirements of complex software systems in large organisations. The Sommerville / Sawyer RE process improvement model has also been disseminated widely and applied in a significant number of industrial settings and in domains as diverse as aerospace and banking.
InfoLab21 is at the forefront of research into Aspect-Oriented Software Development (AOSD) and is leading a European research Network of Excellence called AOSD-Europe. AOSD is a technology with the potential to transform the way we reason about, analyse, structure and develop software systems. More specifically, AOSD is concerned with the systematic identification, modularisation, representation and composition of crosscutting concerns such as security, mobility, distribution, persistence and real-time constraints.
There are also strong interests in the area of systems dependability, which include a strong focus on human and organisational factors in dependable systems and are part of national inter-disciplinary research collaboration (DIRC) with other leading universities in the area of system dependability. Research groups are also exploring the relatively new area of service-centric systems development, e.g. as currently used in the Grid, and are developing techniques for introducing dependability into Grid computing systems.
Case Study
Health Informatics - a multi-disciplinary approach to software engineering
Researchers from InfoLab21 and Lancaster's Sociology department have teamed up with the NHS to work on improving future Information Systems in hospitals across the country. Working closely with hospitals in London, Preston and Edinburgh, the researchers are investigating how different kinds of hospital Information Systems are used in order to design guidelines for future systems and help tailor software to the needs of medical professionals and administrators. The potential economic impact of this study is significant as improved efficiency of health Information Systems is essential if health service improvements are to be delivered.
