University of Limerick

Institute Name: University of Limerick, Department of Computer Science and Information Systems

Description: The Department of Computer Science and Information Systems forms part of the College of Informatics and Electronics. The Department has 20 permanent academic staff and about the same number of research students. It teaches courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. In keeping with the University's mission, and its location on the National Technologica Park, the Department has extensive links with industry in Ireland and abroad.

The Department has substantial involvement in a number of major projects in computer science and software engineering. These include EU supported projects in Software Maintenance and Re-engineering (REDO, RECYCLE), Systems Engineering Methods (ATMOSPHERE), Natural Language Processing (SIFT) and Computer Supported Work (COMIC). Numerous smaller projects have extended to areas such as Network Management, Software Process Improvement and Computer-aided Language Learning.

Interest in Requirements Engineering has sprung from two sources. Firstly, the Software Engineering activities, including ATMOSPHERE, have highlighted the crucial nature of early design and requirements. This led to a number of smaller projects in the capture and re-use of Requirements. Secondly, work on Software Re-engineering, including REDO and RECYCLE, leads naturally to a need to reconstruct the requirements specification of existing systems.

Prof. Kevin Ryan

Brief CVs of Key Researchers:

Name:Prof. Kevin Ryan

Nationality: Irish

Academic Qualifications & Experience: BA, BAI, PhD, MBCS, C Eng Prof. Kevin Ryan is currently Dean of the College of Informatics and Electronics at the University of Limerick. He has been working in the software engineering field for over 20 years and has held industrial and academic positions in Ireland, the UK, Sweden, Zambia and the USA. His main research interests have been in software engineering , structured system design methods, programming environments, requirements capture , CASE and expert systems. He has been a major contributor to two significant Esprit Projects in the area of software methods and tools, namely ToolUse (project 510) from 1985 to 1989 and Atmosphere (project 2365) from May1989 to July 1992. Other current funding addresses topics including requirements engineering, software lifecycle process modelling and natural language processing.

Selected Publications:

Ryan K. (1989): "Requirements Capture using Conceptual Graphs", 3rd International Workshop on Computer-Aided Software Engineering. London England,

Ryan K. (1990): "Interactively Supporting the Software Development Process", Proceedings of INTERACT"90, Cambridge

Ryan K., Mathews B., (1993): "Conceptual Graphs as an Aid to Requirements Reuse", IEEE Symposium on Requirements Engineering, San Diego, California

Ryan K. (1993): "The Role of Natural Language in Requirements Engineering", IEEE Symposium on Requirements Engineering, San Diego, California

Ryan K., Sheehan A. (1993): Methods Investigated, Chapter in Method Integration - Concepts and Case Studies, K Kronlof (Ed.), John Wiley & Sons

Ryan K., Sheehan A., Dick J. (1993) : Methods Investigated in Systems Engineering, Chapter in Systems Engineering - Principles and Practice of Computer-Based Systems Engineering, B Thome (Ed.) John Wiley & Sons

Principal Investigator: Prof. Kevin Ryan

Address: Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Limerick, Limerick, IRELAND

Telephone number: +353 61 202405

Telefax number: + 353 61 330027

EMail: kevin.ryan@ul.ie

List of Members