List of Members
Institute Name: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Department of Computing Science, Centre for Software ReliabilityDescription: The Department of Computing Science is one of the largest in the UK. It has been awarding PhD degrees since 1965, and was the first department of computing science in the UK to gain Science and Engineering Research Council approval for an advanced MSc course. There are approximately: 30 academic teaching staff, 30 postgraduate research staff and 70 postgraduate students. The Department conducts research in a wide range of topics, with an emphasis on computing systems research. Work is directed towards areas of broad and continuing applicability - avoiding topics that only relate to a narrow area of application whilst maintaining awareness of rapid developments in electronic component technology. We operate very much at an international level and have a particularly strong position in the European computing science scene (coordinating six European collaborative projects/networks). Our research programme incorporates both individual research work and projects funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the UK Government, the European Commission and industry.
The Centre for Software Reliability (CSR) is a research centre within the Department which conducts research on how to achieve improved levels of dependability from computing systems. Links to other investigators and practitioners are maintained via a national council and a sister research group at City University. Current primary areas of research include software and system requirements (their representation, evolution and analysis); formal specifications; dependable architectures; socio-technical engineering issues encompassing cost and dependability trade-offs. CSR is also responsible for the planning and organisation of an established programme of technology transfer events (more than ten each year, including two 3-day conferences). Most of this programme was originally sponsored by DTI/SERC under the auspices of the Safety-Critical Systems and the Software Reliability and Metrics community clubs. This highly successful approach for increasing industrial awareness of novel and best practice is being extended to other EU countries. CSR is funded by UK government and industry, and by the European Commission.
Within CSR there is an active research group in requirements engineering led by John Dobson, which is currently examining requirements in safety-critical systems (funded by EPSRC), and changing requirements (funded as a collaborative project with indiustry by the DTI through EPSRC).
Researchers associated with the project:
Mr J E Dobson Dr M R Strens Mr A J C Blyth
Brief CVs of Key Researchers:
Name: Mr. John Dobson
Nationality: British
Academic Qualifications & Experience: John Dobson obtained a M.A. in mathematics and philosophy from the University of Cambridge in 1963, and became first a Research Associate, and later Principal Investigator in the Cambridge Language Research Unit where he researched into mechanical translation. In 1968 he joined Rolls-Royce (later Systems International) as instructor in the computing department and became responsible for designing all the training courses for both the company's programmers and its computer operators. From 1971 to 1974 he taught computing at Newcastle Polytechnic (now the University of Northumbria), where he became a Senior Lecturer and was responsible for setting up a computer-assisted learning system in that institution. From 1974 to 1980 he was employed in the Computing Laboratory of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne developing the University's campus network. In 1980 he left the University to become one of a small group that set up MARI, an independent R & D company, where he reached the position of Technical Director of a company of 120 employees, with overall technical responsibility for software research in both information technology and telecommunications programmes. In 1986 Mr Dobson returned to the Computing Laboratory as a Principal Research Associate, initially carrying out research in computer security funded by the UK Ministry of Defence, and later in information technology and organisational change, funded by ESPRIT and UK government sources. Projects created and managed under his direction have brought to the University a sum well in excess of one and a half million pounds. He is also an consultant to a number of other projects and organisations, including for many years the ANSA project on distributed system architectures and the UK Defence Research Agency, and has on a number of occasions been undertaken special consultancy work for the Commission of the European Communities in the areas of computer security, distributed systems architectures, and telecommunications services. He is a founder member of two IFIP Working Groups: 11.3 (Security and Databases), of which he is vice-chairman, and 2.9 (Requirements Engineering). He has published over seventy technical papers and reports, is a member of a number of editorial boards of academic journals, and is a Fellow of the British Computer Society.
Name: Dr. Ros Strens
Nationality: British
Academic Qualifications & Experience: Ros Strens obtained a 1st class Honours degree and a PhD in Earth Science. Her entire career has been spent in academic research firstly in various computer modelling projects in the Earth Sciences and, since 1990, in the Computing Science Department of Newcastle University, where her main interests have been enterprise modelling and requirements engineering. She worked for 3 years on the ORDIT and Bainbridge projects, in particular on the development of the modelling process and notation. Since early 1993 she has been employed as a Senior Research Associate in the Centre for Software Reliability on Proteus, an EPSRC funded project on 'Understanding Changing Requirements'.
Name: Mr. Andrew Blyth
Nationality: British
Academic Qualifications & Experience: Andrew Blyth received his B.Sc. in Computing Science in 1988 and his MSc. in computer software and systems design in 1989 both from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne. He then worked for four years on an ESPIRT funded project called ORDIT (Organisational Requirements Definition for Information Technology), and for one year on a DTI/EPSRC funed project called SCHEMA. On the 1st of January 1995 he took up an appointment as a Research Officer in the Department of Computing Science, where his responsibilities include teaching and research. His research interests include Enterprise Modelling, Change Management, Requirements Quality Management and Organisational Requirements Capture, Definition and Validation.
Selected Publications:
A.J.C. Blyth, J. Chudge, J.E. Dobson and M.R. Stren.(1993): "A Framework for Modelling Evolving Requirements", in 17th International Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC '93)
A.J.C. Blyth, J. Chudge, J.E. Dobson and M.R. Strens.(1993): "ORDIT: A New Methodology to Assist in the Process of Eliciting and Modelling Organisational Requirements", in ACM Conference on Organisational Computing Systems, Milpilas CA, ACM Press
J.E. Dobson, A.J.C. Blyth, J. Chudge and R. Strens.(1994): "The ORDIT Approach to Organisational Requirements", in Requirements Engineering: Social and Technical Issues, ed. M. Jirotka and J. Goguen, pp. 87-106, Academic Press, London
J.E. Dobson and M.R. Strens.(1994): "Organisational Requirements Definition for Information Technology Systems", in IEEE International Conference on Requirements Engineering, Colorado Springs, CO, IEEE
J.E. Dobson and R. Strens.(1994): "Responsibility Modelling as a Technique for Requirements Definition", Intelligent Systems Engineering, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 20-26
Contact Details:
Principal Investigator: Mr. John Dobson,
Address:Centre for Software Reliability, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UNITED KINGDOM
Telephone number:+44 191 222 8228
Telefax number : +44 191 222 8788
EMail: John.Dobson@newcastle.ac.uk
List of Members