Facing communication challenges in global software development

The main challenges during global software development projects are related to the lack of face-to-face communication. Since stakeholders satisfaction is crucial as a factor that can infl uence a team performance, we have focused our research on the need of people feeling comfortable with the technology they use. In this article we introduce an approach that proposes a way of choosing the most suitable technology for a given group of people, taking advantage of information about stakeholders' cognitive characteristics, and we present preliminary results of an experiment we have carried out to validate our proposal.VI Workshop Ingeniería de Software (WIS)Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Personality Dimensions and Temperaments of Engineering Professors and Students – A Survey

This research work aims to study personality profiles and temperaments of Pakistani software engineering professors and students. In this survey we have collected personality profiles of 18 professors and 92 software engineering students. According to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) instrument, the most prominent personality type among professors as well as among students is a combination of Introversion, Sensing, Thinking, and Judging (ISTJ). The study shows ITs (Introverts and Thinking) and IJs (Introverts and Judging) are the leading temperaments among the professors. About the students’ data, the results of the study indicate SJs (Sensing and Judging) and ISs (Introverts and Sensing) as the dominant temperaments

A New Constructivist AI: From Manual Methods to Self-Constructive Systems

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) systems has to date been largely one of manual labor. This constructionist approach to AI has resulted in systems with limited-domain application and severe performance brittleness. No AI architecture to date incorporates, in a single system, the many features that make natural intelligence general-purpose, including system-wide attention, analogy-making, system-wide learning, and various other complex transversal functions. Going beyond current AI systems will require significantly more complex system architecture than attempted to date. The heavy reliance on direct human specification and intervention in constructionist AI brings severe theoretical and practical limitations to any system built that way. One way to address the challenge of artificial general intelligence (AGI) is replacing a top-down architectural design approach with methods that allow the system to manage its own growth. This calls for a fundamental shift from hand-crafting to self-organizing architectures and self-generated code – what we call a constructivist AI approach, in reference to the self-constructive principles on which it must be based. Methodologies employed for constructivist AI will be very different from today’s software development methods; instead of relying on direct design of mental functions and their implementation in a cog- nitive architecture, they must address the principles – the “seeds” – from which a cognitive architecture can automatically grow. In this paper I describe the argument in detail and examine some of the implications of this impending paradigm shift

Co-ordinating distributed knowledge: An investigation into the use of an organisational memory

This paper presents an ethnographically informed investigation into the use of an organisational memory, focusing in particular on how information was used in the performance of work. We argue that understanding how people make use of distributed knowledge is crucial to the design of an organisational memory. However, we take the perspective that an ‘organisational memory’ is not technology dependant, but is an emergent property of group interaction. In this sense, the technology does not form the organisational memory, but provides a novel means of augmenting the co-ordination of collaborative action. The study examines the generation, development and maintenance of knowledge repositories and archives. The knowledge and information captured in the organisational memory enabled the team members to establish a common understanding of the design and to gain an appreciation of the issues and concerns of the other disciplines. The study demonstrates why technology should not be thought of in isolation from its contexts of use, but also how designers can make use of the creative flexibility that people employ in their everyday activities. The findings of the study are therefore of direct relevance to both the design of knowledge archives and to the management of this information within organisations

A cognitive approach to improve software engineering processes

Cognitive Informatics is a new research area that combines concepts from cognitive sciences and informatics. Particularly, classification according to cognitive styles or learning styles is a common practise in educational and business areas in order to obtain better performance from people involved in learning and collaborative tasks. Humanintensive processes in software engineering make it similar to those areas. In this paper, we propose using a kind of people classification to improve those processes of software engineering where human behaviour is a critical influence on their success.Eje: Ingeniería en SoftwareRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Transforming Learning Through Online Storytelling: : 'Making the News' Evaluation Report

This report presents the findings from an independent evaluation undertaken by the University of Hertfordshire of the ‘Making The News project’ as it functioned within the East of England Broadband Network region (E2BN). Making the News represents a set of simple tools that allow teachers and students to rapidly produce ‘news’ stories and publish them on line. It was developed by the Centre for New Media at the Open University in conjunction with E2BNFinal Published versio

Using ontologies to support and critique decisions

Supporting decision making in the working environment has long being pursued by practitioners across a variety of fields, ranging from sociology and operational research to cognitive and computer scientists. A number of computer-supported systems and various technologies have been used over the years, but as we move into more global and flexible organisational structures, new technologies and challenges arise. In this paper, I argue for an ontology-based solution and present some of the early prototypes we have been developing, assess their impact on the decision making process and elaborate on the costs involved