Evolving a software development methodology for commercial ICTD projects

This article discusses the evolution of a “DistRibuted Agile Methodology Addressing Technical Ictd in Commercial Settings” (DRAMATICS) that was developed in a global software corporation to support ICTD projects from initial team setup through ICT system design, development, and prototyping, to scaling up and transitioning, to sustainable commercial models. We developed the methodology using an iterative Action Research approach in a series of commercial ICTD projects over a period of more than six years. Our learning is reflected in distinctive methodology features that support the development of contextually adapted ICT systems, collaboration with local partners, involvement of end users in design, and the transition from research prototypes to scalable, long-term solutions. We offer DRAMATICS as an approach that others can appropriate and adapt to their particular project contexts. We report on the methodology evolution and provide evidence of its effectiveness in the projects where it has been used

What should we do with Jack-in-the-box? Anticipating surprises in mobile learning

Today's learners are the owners of multifunctional phones and other lightweight portable devices that many of them carry around wherever they go. Equipped with connected digital devices that make learning readily accessible 'anytime, anywhere', learners appear to be moving to a position of power with regard to their ability to influence how and where learning happens and even its content and form. The technologies are precipitating a shift from teacher-centred towards learner-centred education. However, the majority of teachers and learners are unprepared. There is anticipation of exciting opportunities, but also fear of what might happen. It is also becoming obvious that established methods of researching technology-enhanced learning do not transfer readily to mobile learning research. Projects report that learners behave in unexpected ways; context of use, mode of use, and learning process have all been described as 'unpredictable'. Our aim is to examine the implications of new manifestations of mobile learning for both teaching and research. Drawing on teaching experiences and research projects at The Open University and elsewhere, the paper identifies and illustrates the 'surprise' elements of mobile learning. The image of a 'Jack-in-the-box' toy is used here to symbolise both the playful and potentially unsettling aspects of mobile learning. Anticipating surprises means expecting and welcoming them, being happy when they occur, and being able to accommodate them in our plans

Collaboration Engineering: Foundations and Opportunities: Editorial to the Special Issue on the Journal of the Association of Information Systems

Collaboration is a critical phenomenon in organizational life. Collaboration is necessary yet many organizations struggle to make it work. The field of IS has devoted much effort to understanding how technologies can improve the productivity of collaborative work. Over the past decade, the field of Collaboration Engineering has emerged as a focal point for research on designing and deploying collaboration processes that are recurring in nature and that are executed by practitioners in organizations rather than collaboration professionals. In Collaboration Engineering, researchers do not study a collaboration technology in isolation. Rather, they study collaborative work practices that can be supported on different technological platforms. In this editorial, we discuss the field of Collaboration Engineering in terms of its foundations, its approach to designing and deploying collaboration processes, and its modeling techniques. We conclude with a Collaboration Engineering research agenda for the coming decade

Toward Building Self-Sustaining Groups in PCR-based Tasks through Implicit Coordination: The Case of Heuristic Evaluation

Usability flaws found in the later stages of the software development process can be extremely costly to resolve. Accordingly, usability evaluation (UE) is an important, albeit usually expensive, part of development. We report on how the inexpensive UE method of heuristic evaluation (HE) can benefit from collaborative software (CSW), implicit coordination, and principles from collaboration engineering. In our study, 439 novice participants were trained in HE methods and then performed HE. Our results show that traditional nominal HE groups can experience implicit coordination through the collaborative software features of group memory and group awareness. One of the key results is that CSW groups had less duplication of effort than traditional nominal groups; these differences were magnified as group size increased from three to six members. Furthermore, because they coordinated less, traditional nominal groups performed more work in the overall process of HE. We attribute the reduction in duplication for CSW-supported groups to the implicit coordination available to them; CSW-supported groups could see violations input by other group members, but could not directly discuss the violations. These findings not only show the power of implicit coordination in groups, but should dramatically change how HE is conducted. These results may also extend to other evaluation tasks, such as software inspection and usability assessment tasks

The Real World Software Process

The industry-wide demand for rapid development in concert with greater process maturity has seen many software development firms adopt tightly structured iterative processes. While a number of commercial vendors offer suitable process infrastructure and tool support, the cost of licensing, configuration and staff training may be prohibitive for the small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) which dominate the Asia-Pacific software industry. This work addresses these problems through the introduction of the Real World Software Process (RWSP), a freely available, Web-based iterative scheme designed specifically for small teams and organisations. RWSP provides a detailed process description, high quality document templates - including code review and inspection guidelines - and the integrated tutorial support necessary for successful usage by inexperienced developers and teams. In particular it is intended that the process be readily usable by software houses which at present do not follow a formal process, and that the free RWSP process infrastructure should be a vehicle for improving industry standards

Lessons learned: structuring knowledge codification and abstraction to provide meaningful information for learning

Purpose – To increase the spread and reuse of lessons learned (LLs), the purpose of this paper is to develop a standardised information structure to facilitate concise capture of the critical elements needed to engage secondary learners and help them apply lessons to their contexts. Design/methodology/approach – Three workshops with industry practitioners, an analysis of over 60 actual lessons from private and public sector organisations and seven practitioner interviews provided evidence of actual practice. Design science was used to develop a repeatable/consistent information model of LL content/structure. Workshop analysis and theory provided the coding template. Situation theory and normative analysis were used to define the knowledge and rule logic to standardise fields. Findings – Comparing evidence from practice against theoretical prescriptions in the literature highlighted important enhancements to the standard LL model. These were a consistent/concise rule and context structure, appropriate emotional language, reuse and control criteria to ensure lessons were transferrable and reusable in new situations. Research limitations/implications – Findings are based on a limited sample. Long-term benefits of standardisation and use need further research. A larger sample/longitudinal usage study is planned. Practical implications – The implementation of the LL structure was well-received in one government user site and other industry user sites are pending. Practitioners validated the design logic for improving capture and reuse of lessons to render themeasily translatable to a new learner’s context. Originality/value – The new LL structure is uniquely grounded in user needs, developed from existing best practice and is an original application of normative and situation theory to provide consistent rule logic for context/content structure

National Endowment for the Humanities Division of Preservation and Access Humanities Collections and Reference Resources

This white paper documents the work of the American Congress Digital Archives Portal project to aggregate congressional archives into a single, online platform and make them more broadly available. Congressional archives document the democratic process; the development of public policy; and multiple narratives related to the country’s social, cultural, and political development. Work of the project included developing standards and best practices; creating governance structures for the one-year project and future phases; developing a web portal that meets user needs and adding archival content; determining digitization priorities via a research survey; conducting usability testing; and communicating and publicizing the project. The project was made possible by funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities

The American Congress Digital Archives Portal Project White Paper

This white paper documents the work of the American Congress Digital Archives Portal project to aggregate congressional archives into a single, online platform and make them more broadly available. Congressional archives document the democratic process; the development of public policy; and multiple narratives related to the country’s social, cultural, and political development. Work of the project included developing standards and best practices; creating governance structures for the one-year project and future phases; developing a web portal that meets user needs and adding archival content; determining digitization priorities via a research survey; conducting usability testing; and communicating and publicizing the project. The project was made possible by funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities

metajelo: A Metadata Package for Journals to Support External Linked Objects

We propose a metadata package that is intended to provide academic journals with a lightweight means of registering, at the time of publication, the existence and disposition of supplementary materials. Information about the supplementary materials is, in most cases, critical for the reproducibility and replicability of scholarly results. In many instances, these materials are curated by a third party, which may or may not follow developing standards for the identification and description of those materials. As such, the vocabulary described here complements existing initiatives that specify vocabularies to describe the supplementary materials or the repositories and archives in which they have been deposited. Where possible, it reuses elements of relevant other vocabularies, facilitating coexistence with them. Furthermore, it provides an “at publication” record of reproducibility characteristics of a particular article that has been selected for publication. The proposed metadata package documents the key characteristics that journals care about in the case of supplementary materials that are held by third parties: existence, accessibility, and permanence. It does so in a robust, time-invariant fashion at the time of publication, when the editorial decisions are made. It also allows for better documentation of less accessible (non-public data), by treating it symmetrically from the point of view of the journal, therefore increasing the transparency of what up until now has been very opaque