Title: A Rogue’s Gallery of V&V Practice (UQ/V&V Seminar Announcement)

Speaker: Bill Rider, Sandia National Laboratories, Dept. 1431

Date/Time: Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2:00-3:00 (NM), 1:00-2:00 (CA)         

Location: CSRI Room 90 (Sandia NM), Building 915 Room S101 (CA)

Brief Abstract: The purpose of this talk is quite simple: take a snapshot of V&V practice through examining the current state of the archival literature.  The snapshot is not a survey, but rather a “random” sample of what sort of verification and validation one might encounter while reading the latest articles in top-notch journals.  The methodology taken here is to visit the latest issue (or two) of each journal and examine papers that utilize a computational approach integrally in their investigation.  Each journal represents the apex of the research world and successfully publishing in any of these journals would be a notable professional accomplishment (or look good at your performance review or tenure review or to an employer, etc…). As such, these journals not just represent accepted practice, but ``the best work available in the field.    Within some of the selected subset of journals, their editorial policy includes standards for numerical calculation necessary for publication.  Other journals have an editorial policy on experimental or observational errors.  Finally, many journals have no particular statement with regard to either.  The conclusions that may be drawn from this study are stark.  The state of V&V practice remains quite crude and high standards in V&V are quite far from the norm.

CSRI POC: Laura Swiler, (505) 844-8093