This is Block 18 (15 ECTS) on the 3+1 Integrated BSc/MSc Immersive Software Engineering and is the fourth block of the MSc track. It runs in the spring semester Weeks -2 to 6 (8 Weeks) and is classified as 2 2 in SITS. This is a residency block which is situated on a collaborating industry partner site. The purpose of this block is to equip students with the cognitive frameworks necessary to conduct effective Research and Development through the medium of a Master's dissertation in situ. Students will have selected a topic in Block 14, identified potential research question(s) and commenced the literature review. The literature review is substantially completed during Blocks 15 and 16, and the outlines of a research question have been agreed with the academic supervisor and an industry partner. During this block, students will clearly specify the research question, select an appropriate methodology, build the prototype necessary for the empirical study, conduct experiments, and then analyse and critique their work; all in an iterative manner. The assigned industry mentor will guide the student in this phase of the research on the topic which has relevance to the industry partner. The deliverable is a Taught MSc Software Engineering dissertation. It is expected that a majority of submissions will be of sufficient quality to merit submission to a conference or workshop. Under the joint supervision of academic and industry mentors the students will participate in periodic, cohort-based webinars open to all partners that build up the student's professional expertise in a systematic way. Student teams will be prompted to research a residency related topic and to present their findings during a webinar.

1. Identify a topic that has industry relevance and an industry champion 2. Conduct a Systematic Literature Review to establish state of the art 3. Specify a set of Research Questions that form the basis for the dissertation 4. Specify the research methodology in full with a focus on qualitative and quantitative approaches that will be necessary to answer the research questions. Confidence measures must also be part of the statistical toolbox. 5. Develop a robust prototype necessary for the empirical study 6. Evaluate the prototype using the identified research methodology 7. Refactor the prototype to address deficits in quality identified during evaluation, using refactoring techniques, idioms, and patterns where appropriate. Sample Topics: - Evaluation of Methods for Migrating from Monolithic to Microservices using MicroValid Framework - Identifying Microservices using a Clustering Approach based on Evolutionary Algorithms - Modelling Performance using the UML Profile for Schedulability, Performance, and Time - Development of a Smart App for Nutritional Monitoring using Deep Learning - Visualising Software Evolution using Software Cartography

On successful completion of this module, students will be able to: - Iteratively refine their research questions in the light of key findings in their literature review. - Define and execute an appropriate research methodology that leverages relevant qualitative and quantitative techniques for the analytics phase of the dissertation. - Identify high quality peer reviewed academic articles that collectively constitute the basis for a state of the art review. - Define research questions with clear measurable goals - Build a lightweight proof of concept prototype necessary to conduct empirical studies - Conduct initial studies to determine validity of research question(s), research methodology, and prototype - Reflect upon, evaluate, and critique all phases of the work.

On successful completion of this module, students will be able to: - Organise their research. - Justify the value of their research project.

On successful completion of this module, students will be able to:

This block is an Immersive Software Engineering residency and introduces students to professional practice in the context of research and development. While on residency, each student will have two mentors in their host company. One will be their technical mentor who will guide them through the process of writing and deploying software. The other will be their pastoral line manager who will be responsible for their overall experience. They will meet with their technical mentor every day, and their line manager once a week. It is anticipated that the time commitment from the technical mentor will be approximately 15 hours per week at the outset and decrease as the residency progresses, and that the time commitment from the line manager will be approximately 1.5 hours per week. Both mentors will be high performing software engineers and will normally have at least 4 years experience in the field of software engineering, and a BSc in Computer Science or a related field. Mentors will be required to complete online courses that provides insight in supporting teaching and learning in a collaborative context, ECTS, learning outcomes, and monitoring and report student progress. The matching process for this residency will be streamlined given that students and host partners have completed 3 iterations of the procedure previously. Students will submit a CV in September, be called to interview in October, and have an offer by early November. Industry partners will commit on a rotating basis to offer a residency to students who did not receive an offer. This residency will follow Student Selected Project mode. In this model, students are taught entrepreneurship and interfacing with users. Students talk to users of their host company's product, understand their problems, and use this knowledge to design and execute product improvements. The largest work product will be documentation of their interviews with users, user research and sentiment documents, and an understanding of the internal problems faced by the team. Students should spend a planning cycle talking with users, evaluating various priorities, and understanding the mission of their team before picking a project. It is not required that the student completely finish their project, but it is desirable that they at least be able to usefully hand off their prototype or preliminary findings to another member of their team for further work. The envisaged timeline for this residency is: - Week 1: spin up coding task + understanding the team - Week 2: investigations with users - Week 3-4: writing and circulating project proposal docs - Week 5: above + writing any metric measuring code that will be needed for before + after comparisons. - Week 6 onwards: work on project, document, check in with users in a cycle (should cycle 2-3 times) - Final Week: hand-off doc, conference preparation Residencies have specific learning outcomes that students will be evaluated against, and are normal-graded. Students will maintain a "logbook" that tracks their progress on these learning outcomes. Faculty are ultimately responsible for grading, and will issue grades based on (a) the student logbook (b) quality of prototype and relevant chapters in the draft dissertation, and (c) evaluation by industry mentor. Residencies have check-ins with academic support structures. Academic advisors will meet weekly with their students. There may sometimes be lectures for a class held in an online mode on topics pertaining to the residency such as design of APIs, dependency management, and professional practice such as performance review processes. Early detection and interventions will be in place to support students who are not achieving learning outcomes in a timely manner.