This course teaches the fundamentals of system engineering (requirements, analysis, design, implementation) and project management (teaming, planning, scheduling, tracking). The course is taught from the perspective of object-oriented systems and agile methods, and students learn how to use UML and design patterns to model software. The course makes use of Craig Larman's excellent textbook, Applying UML and Patterns : An Introduction to Object-Oriented Analysis and Design and Iterative Development.
A variety of additional case studies are used to illustrate the concepts from the textbook, with an emphasis on large-scale text processing frameworks such as IBM's Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA). Students in the Fall course work on a team project with 3-4 other students, and implement a system based on a pre-defined set of requirements plus existing code and data.