With computers controlling countless complex and safety-critical operations ranging from mass transportation systems to military installations to major factories, the need to ensure the integrity of the software has never been greater. DePaul University’s School of Computing (SoC) has received a $2 million Major Research Instrumentation grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to help researchers develop new and innovative ways to make these software systems even more reliable and secure.

“When building software, especially software that is safety-critical, such as that for the airline industry or the space program, it’s imperative to know that the software meets all regulatory codes and functions exactly as it was specified,” said Jane Cleland-Huang, associate professor of computer science and the grant’s principal investigator. “Furthermore, the agencies such as the Federal Aviation Administration require that every line of code must trace back to a requirement. That could, for example, prevent a rogue programmer from injecting malicious code.”

The research will develop an environment in which traceability researchers can design and run experiments, Cleland-Huang said. When fully deployed, the instrument, TraceLab, will help traceability researchers to be more productive and to comparatively evaluate the outcomes of their work using standardized benchmarks.

Incorporating traceability into a large software system is an arduous, highly complex task, Cleland-Huang said. “Our research community is working toward automating the task to make it much simpler. TraceLab will allow new researchers in the field to become productive much more quickly and will encourage innovation.”

The new grant is the sixth and largest traceability grant Cleland-Huang has received during her eight years at DePaul. In fact, the grant is the largest ever instrumentation grant awarded by the NSF for developing a purely software- based instrument. TraceLab will contain a library of reusable trace algorithms and utilities, a benchmarked repository of trace-related datasets and associated metrics, and an innovative experimental environment that creates templates and executes common types of traceability experiments. 

In addition to supporting research that can potentially improve software project productivity and the reliability of software, TraceLab also will facilitate the technology transfer of traceability solutions to industry and will be used to train students and practitioners in the field of software engineering.

Ed Keenan, a SoC senior instructor, and Mamoun Hirzalla, a doctoral candidate at DePaul, are collaborating on the grant. External partners are from the University of Kentucky, the College of William and Mary, Kent State University and Siemens Corporate Research.

By the end of the three-year grant, TraceLab will be open-sourced to the public and will be managed by researchers at the Center of Excellence for Software Traceability. Cleland-Huang is the organization’s North American director.

SoC is one of two schools in DePaul’s College of Computing and Digital Media (CDM), one of the most innovative and wide-ranging information technology and digital media programs in the country. The undergraduate programs enroll 1,369 students and offer 14 different degrees. Approximately 1,800 students are enrolled in its 18 graduate programs. CDM also features a doctoral degree program in computer and information sciences. For more information, visit www.cdm.depaul.edu.