Advanced Topics in Software Engineering

Explores how to mine actionable insights from software project data — version-control histories, issue trackers, and Q&A platforms — using data mining and machine learning, with a focus on defect prediction and model tuning through search-based techniques. Combines lectures on software repositories, ecosystems, and analytics with a critical reading of recent research papers, plus three hands-on assignments applying the covered techniques to real project datasets. Since the 2026–2027 academic year, its recent-success-stories component covers Agentic Software Engineering: building and engineering coding agents, human-agent collaboration, and the security and sustainability of agentic workflows.

Taught continuously since the 2021–2022 academic year, continuing the course previously named Capita Selecta of Software Engineering; co-taught with several specialised postdocs since the 2022–2023 academic year. See the VUB course catalog (Caliweb) for the current syllabus and schedule.