Teaching Container-based DevOps Practices in Higher Education Context

Teaching DevOps is challenging as it is inherently cross-functional between development and operations. This thesis presents an examination of a course and its development iterations in an attempt to find an approach that may be used in DevOps education in a higher education context. The course focuses on learning a tool in the DevOps toolchain, containerization with Docker, in a massively open online course (MOOC). By investigating a course during its design process and its attendees, challenges that students and course instructors faced are discussed. The primary source of information from students is a survey that students answered before and after participating in the course. The challenges of teaching DevOps practices vary from the teaching methods to types of exercises and level of industry imitation or abstraction. In comparison, students had fewer challenges than expected with the course contents. The survey results offered insight into the student experience concerning DevOps, unveiling a demand for both further development of the course as well as for new courses that link development and operations

Invited Paper: A Generalized, Enterprise-Level Systems Development Process Framework for Systems Analysis and Design Education

Current academic and industry discussions regarding systems development project approaches increasingly focus on agile development and/or DevOps, as these approaches are seen as more modern, streamlined, flexible, and, therefore, effective as compared to traditional plan-driven approaches. This extends to the current pedagogy for teaching systems analysis and design (SA&D). However, overemphasizing agile and DevOps neglects broader dimensions that are essential for planning and executing enterprise-level systems projects. Thus, a dilemma may arise: do we teach agile and DevOps techniques that may be inadequate for enterprise-level projects or do we teach the wider range of plan-driven skills and techniques that may conflict with the tenets and benefits of agile and DevOps? In this paper, we advocate for resolving this dilemma by adopting a generalized process framework that both fully supports enterprise-level projects but can also be selectively scaled back toward increased agility for smaller, less complex projects. In its full realization, this framework combines extensive project planning and up-front requirements with iterative delivery – an increasingly popular approach today for enterprise projects. In scaling back toward agile, the framework carefully accounts for system, environment, and team characteristics. Further, the model emphasizes issues frequently underemphasized by agile approaches, including the use of external software such as commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS), Software- as-a-Service (SaaS), and open source products and components; the need for business-oriented project planning and justification; and support for change management to ensure successful system adoption. The framework thereby flexibly accommodates the full range of activities that software projects must support to be successful

After the success of DevOps introduce DataOps in enterprise culture

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Information Systems and Technologies ManagementA lot of organizations implemented DevOps processes with success. This allowed different areas like development, operations, security and quality work together. This cooperation, and processes associated to the work with these areas are producing excellent results. The organizations are developing many applications that support operation and are producing a lot of data. This data has a significant value for organizations because must be used in analysis, reporting and more recently data science projects to support decisions. It is time to take decisions supported in data and for this is necessary to transform organizations in a data-driven organizations and for this we need processes to deal with this data across all teams. This dissertation follows a design science research approach to apply multiple analytical methods and perspectives to create an artifact. The type of evidence within this methodology is a systematic literature review, with the goal to attain insights into the current state-of-the art research of DataOps implementation. Additionally, proven best practices from the industry are examined in depth to further strengthen the credibility. Thereby, the systematic literature review shall be used to pinpoint, analyze, and comprehend the obtainable empirical studies and research questions. This methodology supports the main goal of this dissertation, to develop and propose evidence-based practice guidelines for the DataOps implementation that can be followed by organizations

Adopting DevOps practices: an enhanced unified theory of acceptance and use of technology framework

DevOps software development approach is widely used in the software engineering discipline. DevOps eliminates the development and operations department barriers. The paper aims to develop a conceptual model for adopting DevOps practices in software development organizations by extending the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). The research also aims to determine the influencing factors of DevOps practices’ acceptance and adoption in software organizations, determine gaps in the software development literature, and introduce a clear picture of current technology acceptance and adoption research in the software industry. A comprehensive literature review clarifies how users accept and adopt new technologies and what leads to adopting DevOps practices in the software industry as the starting point for developing a conceptual framework for adopting DevOps in software organizations. The literature results have formulated the conceptual framework for adopting DevOps practices. The resulting model is expected to improve understanding of software organizations’ acceptance and adoption of DevOps practices. The research hypotheses must be tested to validate the model. Future work will include surveys and expert interviews for model enhancement and validation. This research fulfills the necessity to study how software organizations accept and adopt DevOps practices by enhancing UTAUT

D1.1 DEMAND ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK

This report proposes the initial draft of the LeADS ADS Framework composed by three major elements; identification and definition of technologies in scope; skills included under those technologies, and definition of job roles, where other skills frameworks are considered for comparison and alignment. The report summarises the first workshop held by the project with external constituencies even though the feedback will be incorporated in the final version of the framework, where the layer of job roles will be completed, and the others revised according to additional input. This framework serves as reference for the next step in LeADS: the assessment of the demand and the supply

Software Infrastructure and Course Design of a Robotics Course

Käesolev töö käsitleb robootika kursuse disaini ja arenduse protsessi. Käsitletav kursus on Tartu Ülikoolis üheks võimalikuks lähtepunktiks robootika valdkonda sisenemiseks. Disaini protsessis on kasutatud elemente tegevusuuringu ülesehitusest ning DevOps nime kandvast süsteemiarenduse kultuurist. Mõlemale praktikale omane tsükliline paranduste tegemine harmoniseerub hästi tänapäevase robootika kursuse jaoks vajaliku kiire arenguga. Taristu kui kood (infrastructure as code), versioonihaldussüsteemid ja püüd rakendada pideva integratsiooni (continuous integration) põhimõtteid - on kõik osa kursuse arengust. Robootika kursus on teemaks oleva kahe toimumiskorra jooksul aidanud arendada enam kui saja tudengi teadmisi mõningatest tänapäevases robootikas kasutatavatest töövahenditest ja tehnoloogiatest. Töös kajastatud kursuse arendusprotsess on toetanud robootikaalaste teadmistega tudengite ning nende juhendajate järelkasvu, mis loob aluse keerukamate kursuste arendamiseks ja kasvatab tehnoloogiainstituudi - ning ülikooli üldisemalt - võimekust olla koostööpartner robootika valdkonnas. Autor kandis vastutava õppejõu rolli, juhtides kursuse arendust, uute tehnoloogiate kasutamist ning juurutamist. Töö eesmärk on olla läbitud arengu, tehtud valikute, ning nende põhjenduste süstematiseeritud dokumentatsioon.This thesis covers the design and development process of a robotics course. The course in question serves as an entry point into the field of robotics in the University of Tartu. The design of the thesis draws on the ideas of educational action research and the infrastructure of the course on the software development and information technology operations practices (DevOps). Cycles of improvements, which are core to both of these practices, are in tune with the rapid evolution required of a modern robotics course.Infrastructure as code, version control systems, and incentive towards continuous integration are all used in the development process. The two runs of the course covered by the thesis have advanced the knowledge of more than a hundred students in some of the modern tools and technologies used in robotics. Altogether, the development of the course has helped to reinforce the line-up of students and instructors available for projects andmore advanced courses in the Institute of Technology and the university as a whole. The author, being the lecturer in charge leading the development the course and also pushing for the use of new technology and maintaining chosen solutions. The thesis serves as an organised documentation on the evolution process and reasoning for the choices made

A Review of the Literature on Configuration Management Tools

Configuration management tools help administrators in defining and automating system configurations. With cloud computing, host numbers are likely to grow. IaaS (infrastructure as a service) offerings with pay-per-use pricing models make fast and effective deployment of applications necessary. Configuration management tools address both challenges. In this paper, the existing research on this topic is reviewed comprehensively. Readers are provided with a descriptive analysis of the published literature as well as with an analysis of the content of the respective research works. The paper serves as an overview for researchers who are new to the topic. Furthermore, it serves to identify work related to an intended research field and identifies research gaps. Practitioners are provided with a means to identify solutions to their organizational problems

Software Development with Scrum: A Bibliometric Analysis and Profile

Introduction of the Scrum approach into software engineering has changed the way software is being developed. The Scrum approach emphasizes the active end-user involvement, embracing of change, and /iterative delivery of products. Our study showed that Scrum has different variants or is used in combination with different methods. Some tools not normally used in the conventional software approaches, like gamification, content analysis and grounded theory are also employed. However, Scrum like other software development approach focuses on improvement of software process, software quality, business value, performance, usability and efficiency and at the same time to reduce cost, risk and uncertainty. Contrary to some conventional approaches it also strives to boost soft factors like agility, trust, motivation, responsibility and transparency. The bibliometric synthetic scoping study revealed seven main research themes concerned with the Scrum research

A New Kind of Data Science: The Need for Ethical Analytics

Ethics can no longer be regarded as an add-on in data science and analytics. This paper argues for the necessity of formalizing a new, practically-oriented sub-discipline of AI ethics by outlining the needs, highlighting shortcomings in current approaches, and providing a framework for ethical analytics, which is concerned with the study of the ethical issues surrounding the development, deployment, and/or dissemination of ML/AI systems and data science research, as well as the development of tools and procedures to mitigate ethical harms. While data science and machine learning are primarily concerned with data from start to finish, ethical analytics is concerned primarily with people – moral agents, the groups and societies they comprise, and the world they inhabit. Ethical analytics should be seen as complementary to the more techno-abstracted analytic disciplines, interfacing with the nuanced, ethical issues that stem from ill-defined or vague, socially-relative normative concepts. It studies the issues that arise in this holistic sociotechnical environment, and it seeks to develop concrete solutions or interventions where possible – from mathematics and algorithms to procedures and protocols

Guidelines to Establish an Office of Student Accessibility Services in Higher Education Institutions

The objective of this paper is to propose a set of guidelines to establish an office of Student Accessibility Services (SAS) in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The proposed guidelines help to integrate disjointed knowledge to facilitate its interpretation and implementation during deployment of basic support services in favor of students with disability. These guidelines can help to mitigate complexity in providing SAS for the first time in HEIs. These guidelines cover both the design and implementation of an office of SAS and its management. Knowledge was found through a multivocal literature review (MLR), which allowed to capture not only academic approaches but also vantage points and experiences from practice. Key concepts and aspects were organized into eight components (five related to the design and implementation, and three associated with the management context). An expert appraisal method was used as a proof of concept, which complemented a previously performed preliminary implementation example. Obtained results demonstrated the pertinence of the conceptual proposal and confirmed guidelines capability for full implementation in a real-world scenario.This research work has been co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, project EduTech (609785-EPP-1-2019-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP)