Carolyn Seaman, UMBC IS Department Associate Professor, receives NSF research grant to study “technical debt” on long-term maintenance of large software systems

Date Posted: - 10/21/2009

Carolyn Seaman, IS Department Associate Professor received a new research grant, which became effective August 2009, from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The total amount of the grant is approximately $500,000 over 3 years. Dr. Seaman explains, “The objective of the project is to help software development organizations better manage the long-term maintenance of large software systems by formalizing the concept of ‘technical debt’—a metaphor that focuses on the common practice of delaying, or shortcutting, certain types of software maintenance tasks in order to improve short-term productivity, but which will compromise quality in the long run if delayed indefinitely.” Dr. Seaman explained that such delayed tasks include documenting changes to the system, fully testing changes, taking care to maintain the architectural design integrity of the system while making changes, augmentations, and similar processes.

The idea for the project grew out of a previous collaboration with software developers at Xerox Corporation, who supported Dr. Seaman’s NSF grant proposal. Dr. Seaman will be working closely with IS Department Ph.D. student, Yuepu Guo throughout this project. The research, which will be conducted in collaboration with several industrial partners including Xerox, will include developing measures and management procedures for identifying, measuring, and tracking the debt, as well as guidance for making management decisions based on the amount of debt in a system. As a result, maintenance projects will avoid the delays, software defects, and cost overruns associated with accumulated debt.

The grant includes a sub-award to the Fraunhofer Center for Experimental Software Engineering in College Park, which is affiliated with the Computer Science Department at the University of Maryland, College Park. The Fraunhofer Center’s role in the project will be to help evaluate and enhance a software tool that they have developed to support the project. Additional information on Dr. Seaman’s research interests can be found at http://userpages.umbc.edu/~cseaman/.