A systems design course emphasizing interfaces

This paper describes an experimental course where students develop a (small) system focusing on the interfaces between diierent components of the system. The components are developed independently of each other using Web based documentation and focusing on techniques for modeling and analysis of interfaces. These techniques are supported by prototype tools. 1 Introduction The potentials of the Internet/Intranet as a means for sharing and updating common information has a signiicant potential for improving communication in large (systems) design projects. This paper describes an experimental systems design course where students develop a (small) system using Web based documentation supported by prototype tools focusing on mod-eling and checking the interfaces between the diierent components of a systems design. Using Web based documentation in an engineer-ing/design environment allows participants to share and update common information such as speciica-tions, design details, and status information. To fully utilize Web based information in a systems design environment it is important to avoid confusion and misinterpretation because of ambiguities. In person to person communication some imprecision in the shared documentation can be tolerated and compensated by direct personal interaction. This possibility is reduced if one relies on Web based (or other written) documentation where lack of precision is not compensated by direct human interaction.