COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
Portland State University
SYSE 590 – Integrative Workshop
Professor: Herman Migliore
Course Description:
System Engineering is an acquired behavior to be developed throughout the Masters degree program. Students and faculty advisors will engage in creative workshop activities integrating technical specialty skills and project experience invoking systems engineering applications of communication, synthesis and creativity, team building, problem solving, management of time and resources, and system life-cycle thinking. A student portfolio will document the program plan and document that the desired behavioral change is taking place.
SYSE 590 tracks student maturity in learning and in using systems engineering as applied to an educational system - the individual's study plan. SYSE 590 also serves as another vehicle for the student to assess courses and the program. As a consequence of the student's assessment of courses and the program, and as a portion of the four credits, the student may wish to explore additional system engineering topics not explicitly covered in scheduled courses. The final product is an e-portfolio which will be posted on the systems engineering web site.
Reflection on Course:
I enjoyed this course because it makes you reflect on the past systems engineering courses and reminds you of the tools available in each one. In writing the course descriptions, I picked up each of the associated text books and found some great nuggets of information that I can apply to my daily work. This course also makes you put a form to the masters program. You define your plan, how everything is related, where you've been and where you want to go.
SYSE 573 – Requirements Engineeering
Professor: Dorothy McKinney and Jacob Goldstein
Course Description:
This course provides the knowledge and skills necessary to translate needs and priorities into system requirements, and develop derived requirements, which together form the starting point for engineering of complex hardware, software systems. The student will develop an understanding of the larger context in which requirements for a system are developed, and learn about trade-offs between developing mission needs or market opportunities first versus assessing available technology first. Techniques for translating needs and priorities into an operational concept and then into specific functional and performance
requirements will be presented. The student will assess and improve the usefullness of requirements, including such aspects as correctness, completeness, consistency, measurability, testability, and clarity of documentation. Case studies, many involving software-intensive systems, will be used.
Reflection on Course:
Overall, this was an excellent class! The flow of the class was perfectly paced, taking the student through all the steps of requirements engineering with very practical real-world examples. Each of the sections was very well defined, with step-by-step instructions on how to process a requirements document for success in a project. Dorothy and Jacob were very organized and extremely attentive to the student's needs and questions. I came away with a far better understanding of requirements engineering than I had from my classes at GW.
SYSE 595 – Hardware-Software Integration
Professor: John Blyler
Course Description:
Systems Engineering is applied to the integration of hardware-software systems, focusing on embedded computer products development and information technology systems. Factors that affect the selection of hardware and software solutions in design will be examined, as well as the use of trade studies to optimize the efficiency of integration issues. Techniques for partitioning of system-level functions and requirements to hardware/software components will be provided, as will practical guidance, through case studies, process templates and design check-lists.
Reflection on Course:
Unless you have a degree in Electrical Engineering AND work in the circuit industry, I would NOT recommend this class. When I saw "Prerequisite: Basic understanding of hardware and software development", I thought I had enough of the basic, but I was sadly mistaken. The class is at most 5% systems engineering and 95% computer engineering. The only way systems engineering is brought into the class is by working on a hardware/software trade study. Other than that, you better be ready to discuss Verilog models and RTL timing. If you are looking to better your systems engineering skills while applying it to hardware and software, find a different class. The class discussions are so far over my head that I'm praying for a pass. This should be part of a computer engineering program and not systems engineering.