Colonising the Field ) Who,s Playing with Web-based Information Systems Development?

domain of systems and software development, in both practice and research. Surprisingly, while there would appear to be many common activities, the academic fields have traditionally had limited overlap or shared experience. The information systems school has largely focused on in-house systems, concentrating on the socio-technical approach toward systems development while software engineering attempts to apply engineering principles and formal methods to the production of software systems. However the fields collide where new, Web-based systems share both in-house usage and external commercial software characteristics. While it might be expected that practitioners would be informed by innovative development methods, research indicates that practitioners are not making use of new multimedia and web development method and techniques. The crossover between the fields of IS and SE resurrects up some old problems and new questions. This paper traces the roots of IS and SE; briefly contrasts education and research of each; and examines the differences and common areas of the fields. From a study of how each field is characterised an IS body of knowledge (ISBOK) is identified. How Web-based Information Systems relate to each field is discussed and from the analysis a simple classification framework is constructed, weighing a systems life cycle against quality. The paper concludes with a call for greater cross-fertilization between the fields. Finally the authors suggest important subjects that IS researchers should be studying and others that should be of interest to both SE and IS researchers

Finding a Home for Web Based Information Systems - Perusing the Landscape

Information systems (IS) and software engineering (SE) have shared the domain of systems and software development for several decades with too little overlap in practice and research. The IS school has largely focused on in-house systems, concentrating on the human-computer aspects of systems development while SE attempts to apply engineering principles and methods to the production of software systems. However the fields collide where new, Web-based systems share both in-house usage and external commercial software characteristics. In this paper, the origins and the development of education of both fields are explored – then various aspects are compared and contrasted. If, as it would appear, recommended development methods are ineffective or simply not being used, is a new understanding of development practice that finds expression in creativity and improvisation the way forward, or is this just a new engineering problem to be solved? The authors conclude that we need fast and flexible methods that go beyond new SE techniques for the Web, reflecting the business imperative to quickly produce high-quality robust systems in competitive environments. Web-based systems development should be contextualized within IS theory - learning from the rigour of SE - but viewed definitively as part of a larger socio-technical system

A Web-based modeling tool for the SEMAT Essence theory of Software Engineering

As opposed to more mature subjects, software engineering lacks general theories to establish its foundations as a discipline. The Essence Theory of software engineering (Essence) has been proposed by the Software Engineering Methods and Theory (SEMAT) initiative. Essence goal is to develop a theoretically sound basis for software engineering practice and its wide adoption. Essence is yet far from reaching academic and industry adoption. Reasons include a struggle to foresee its utilization potential and the lack of tools implementing it. SEMAT Accelerator (SematAcc) is a Web-positioning tool for a software engineering endeavor, which implements the SEMAT's Essence kernel. SematAcc allows using Essence, thus helping to understand it. The tool enables teaching, adopting, and researching Essence in controlled experiments and case studies.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures. Revised version (after-peer review) for the Journal of Open Research Software , July 201

Refactoring software development process terminology through the use of ontology

peer-reviewedIn work that is ongoing, the authors are examining the extent of software development process terminology drift. Initial findings suggest there is a degree of term confusion, with the mapping of concepts to terms lacking precision in some instances. Ontologies are concerned with identifying the concepts of relevance to a field of endeavour and mapping those concepts to terms such that term confusion is reduced. In this paper, we discuss how ontologies are developed. We also identify various sources of software process terminology. Our work to date indicates that the systematic development of a software development process ontology would be of benefit to the entire software development community. The development of such an ontology would in effect represent a systematic refactoring of the terminology and concepts produced over four decades of software process innovation

Refactoring software development process terminology through the use of ontology

In work that is ongoing, the authors are examining the extent of software development process terminology drift. Initial findings suggest there is a degree of term confusion, with the mapping of concepts to terms lacking precision in some instances. Ontologies are concerned with identifying the concepts of relevance to a field of endeavour and mapping those concepts to terms such that term confusion is reduced. In this paper, we discuss how ontologies are developed. We also identify various sources of software process terminology. Our work to date indicates that the systematic development of a software development process ontology would be of benefit to the entire software development community. The development of such an ontology would in effect represent a systematic refactoring of the terminology and concepts produced over four decades of software process innovation

Integrating Security into the Undergraduate Software Engineering Curriculum

This research included a thorough examination of the existing software assurance or what is commonly called software security knowledge, methodologies and what information security technologies is currently being recommended by the information technology community. Finally it is demonstrated how this security knowledge could be incorporated into the curriculum for undergraduate software engineering

Analysis of software engineering principles from an engineering perspective

Software engineering has recently emerged as a new engineering field in a continuing evolution. Software engineering is a discipline whose aim is the production of high quality software, but lacks maturity compared to other traditional engineering fields. Traditional engineering fields have their own principles originating from physics, chemistry and mathematics. However, since the software engineering discipline is not based on natural laws, establishing a set of principles is more challenging. This research on the set of candidate fundamental principles will contribute to a better understanding and possibly, to the teaching of the principles of software engineering and it will help improve the content of the software engineering body of knowledge (SWEBOK) Guide from an engineering perspective. This research work investigated the issue of software engineering as an engineering discipline using Vincenti categories of engineering knowledge; identified engineering fundamental principles from a set of candidates; and finally investigated the lack of explicit and systematic descriptions of these principles and their application, as in the SWEBOK Guide. The two main research objectives are the identification of the fundamental principles of software engineering from the 34 candidates principles; and the description of operational guidelines for these principles, based on the content of the SWEBOK Guide. To achieve these objectives, the following research methodology was used. The main phases of this research methodology are: the analysis, from an engineering perspective, of software engineering and the set of 34 ftandamental principles candidates; the identification of the software engineering principles in the content of the SWEBOK Guide - ISO TR 19759; the description of the operational guidelines on the basis of the content of the SWEBOK Guide and aligned with the IEEE standard 1362-1998 Concept of Operations (ConOps) Document. The main outcome of this research study is the identification of a set of nine software engineering fundamental principles and the description of operational guidelines