Ethical Issues in Empirical Studies of Software Engineering

The popularity of empirical methods in software engineering research is on the rise. Surveys, experiments, metrics, case studies, and field studies are examples of empirical methods used to investigate both software engineering processes and products. The increased application of empirical methods has also brought about an increase in discussions about adapting these methods to the peculiarities of software engineering. In contrast, the ethical issues raised by empirical methods have received little, if any, attention in the software engineering literature. This article is intended to introduce the ethical issues raised by empirical research to the software engineering research community, and to stimulate discussion of how best to deal with these ethical issues. Through a review of the ethical codes of several fields that commonly employ humans and artifacts as research subjects, we have identified major ethical issues relevant to empirical studies of software engineering. These issues are illustrated with real empirical studies of software engineering

Earth stewardship in prepress:a model for Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University graphic design lectures

A lack of prepress understanding is responsible for a great deal of wasted resources in the graphic design and printing industries in Nelson Mandela Bay. As the term “prepress” extends to such a vast range of design activities, it is quite difficult to ascertain where prepress begins or ends. Asking the question “What is prepress?” is like asking “How long is a piece of string?” Defining the scope of prepress can present a formidable challenge for any graphic design lecturer hoping to equip students with the necessary prepress understanding and skills required by the graphic design industry. Also, even if the academic has a sound knowledge of prepress theory and practice, how does one guarantee that all of the required knowledge is covered during the course of the student’s graphic design education, and that it is done so in a manner that meets the needs of the graphic design industry? Added to this, educators have a responsibility to consider the environmental consequences of sending graduating designers, without industry required prepress knowledge, into the design industry, an industry that has grown accustomed to training junior designers in prepress practice through trial and error. Such trial and error equates to mistakes and wasted resources, as a result this learning curve comes at the expense of the environment. The intention of this research is to provide an accessible resource for graphic design lecturers, by way of a list of prepress best practice topics, required for inclusion in the graphic design syllabus at NMMU, such that earth stewardship and sustainable design-for-print are an implicit component. This list of topics is a product of research which drew on local industry experts in Nelson Mandela Bay

The provision on non-audit services by auditors: Let the market evolve and decide

The provision of non-audit services by auditors to their audit clients reduces total costs, increases technical competence and motivates more intense competition. Furthermore, these services do not necessarily damage auditor independence nor the quality of non-audit services. This assessment leads to recommending that legislative policy should aim at facilitating the development and use of the safeguards provided by the free action of market forces. Regulation should thus aim to enable the parties-audit firms, self- regulatory bodies and audit clients-to discover through competitive market interaction both the most efficient mix of services and the corresponding quality safeguards, adjusting for the costs and benefits of each possibility. Particular emphasis is placed on the role played by fee income diversification and the enhancement, through disclosure rules, of market incentives to diversify.Auditing, professional services, non-audit services, multidisciplinary firms

Redefining the responsibility of pre-press file management within graphic design: How printing technology impacts our design development

Technical problems can arise when a graphic designer submits digital files to a commercial offset lithographic printer. The graphic design profession has an opportunity to strengthen the education of design students by teaching them how to recognize potential printing prroblems and address them before the students enter professional practice. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the most common design problems and printing constraints that designers encounter when they develop an item to be printed using offset lithographic printing. The graphic design content of this thesis will include design development processes that specifically focus on issues of imposition, pagination, color management, and image reproduction

Management Jobs in the Insurance Industry: Organizational Deskilling and Rising Pay Inequality

The attention of both the research community and the popular press has begun to shift from a traditional focus on production jobs and toward management positions in part because of a perception that a fundamental change is underway in the management ranks. Unlike the temporary layoffs of production workers that were historically driven by business cycles, the changes in management job security seem to be permanent and, in large measure, driven by development inside the firm. The most important of these forces appear to be changes in the structure of management and in the organization of work processes. The authors use a unique set of data to examine the structure of management jobs among a sample of companies and observe how those jobs have changed over time. They examine changes in the skill requirements of jobs by functional area and by level in the organization, changes in the "shape" of the organization chart - the distribution of employees across management job titles - and changes in compensation for these jobs. The data were obtained from Hay Associates, and it included the internal organization of management jobs for 11 life insurance companies. The authors see a sharp expansion in the proportion of line workers, absolute declines in the number of top management positions, and only modest growth in the number of middle managers and supervisors. As a result the organization chart has changed dramatically in these companies, becoming considerably flatter. The "span of control" has increased for every level of the organization and especially for first level management. If the widening of the supervisory span of control resulted from taking decision making and responsibility from supervisors and pushing it down to line workers, it does not seem to have increased the average skill requirements of the exempt line workers. Skill requirements for the other levels rose over the period, especially for top management positions. Overall, the average level of skill in the sample fell substantially between 1986 and 1992 (even though skills rose in two of the four levels) because of a sharp shift in the distribution of employment away from management and toward line positions. The authors suggest that the best description of these patterns is that they represent upskilling of individual jobs and deskilling of organizations. Regarding compensation, none of the levels experienced increases in skill that were statically significant, but top managers received a large (28 percent) increase in pay, middle managers received a modest (10 percent) increase, and the lower two levels received virtually no increases. One conclusion is that earnings inequality is increasing substantially inside these firms in a manner that is not attributable to any increase in skill, and the dividing line for that growth in inequality is no longer exempt/nonexempt but supervisor/manager. A possible explanation for the rising inequality in compensation is that it helps offset change in the probability of promotion. The fact that the span of control is increasing and organizational chart flattening means that the probability of the average worker being promoted is declining. The decline in the probability of promotion might reduce the incentives to work hard. Increases in the compensation of top jobs increase the return to securing a promotion and may offset some of the effect produced by the decline in the probability of promotion. Another explanation is that top mangers are in "better positions to legislate their own pay increases." If true, this sample may actually underrepresent the true extent of income inequality because it consists of companies using an external consultant to help set compensation where internal consistency is an important characteristic of the pay system. These results suggest that "management" as a career will remain attractive, albeit less certain in terms of promotion prospects. Shifts to team-based approaches and the elimination of functional designations would suggest a greater need for generalists than specialists. As technology such as expert systems reduces the need for large units of "experts," the manger's skill will be in recognizing when an expert needs to be called. Leadership skills and the ability to adapt to a changing environment are two qualities that will be sought in the future. Fortunately, these skills will also be useful to team members who are not selected for promotion to mangers. Increasing income inequality may lead to distrust within the organization, though this may be offset by the technical tracks that allow highly skilled non-managers to earn equivalent levels of pay. The fact that insurance companies are relatively unique in facing no major industry-specific shocks from the outside environment suggests that these results should translate well to organizations in other industries.

Part-time Courses 1996-97

Courses for the College of Technology, Bolton Street, Dublin 1

The impact of printed electronics on product design

Printed electronics (PE) is a disruptive but growing technology that is beginning to integrate its way into viable applications for product design. However, the potential for future impact of the technology on product design and the designer s role and contribution to this has yet to be established. Interest is increasing in the potential for product designers to explore and exploit this technology. Technologies can be seen as being disruptive from both a business, and an adoption point of view. For a business, changing from one technology to another or incorporating a new technology and its production processes can be difficult if they already have their suppliers established and existing relationships in place. Understanding and adopting a new technology can be challenging for a business and individuals working within an established industry as it can cause many questions to be raised around its performance, and direct comparison with the technology they already have in place. However, there have been many technologies that could be seen as disruptive in the past, as they offered an alternative way of working or method of manufacture, such as Bluetooth, 3D printing, and automation (manufacturing/assembly/finishing), etc., and their success has been dictated by individual s perception and adoption of the technology, with their ability to see the worth and potential in the technology. Cost comparison is also an important aspect for a business to consider when choosing whether to change to a new technology or to remain with their existing technology, as changing can disrupt the manufacturing line assembly of a product, and direct cost comparisons of components themselves, such as the cost of buying silicon components in bulk verses printing the components. The new technology needs to offer something different to a product to be worth implementing it in a product, such as its flexible form or lightweight properties of printed electronics being of benefit to the product over what a silicon electronic component/circuit could offer (restricted to rigid circuit boards), the functionality/performance of the components themselves also need to be considered. Performance, availability and maturity of the technology are some of the essential aspects to consider when incorporating a new technology into a product and these can be evaluated using a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale. Interest in the stage of development for a technology lies not only with designers; industry and academia also contribute to knowledge by playing a central role in the process of determining a TRL scale that is universally recognised. However, a TRL separation issue occurs between academia (often the technology only reaching an experimental proof of concept stage, a lower number on the TRL scale indicating that the technology is at an early stage of development) and industry (not considering technology for commercialisation until it reaches a stage where there is a demonstration of pre-production capability validated on economic runs, a much higher number on the TRL scale - indicating that the technology is at a much more advanced stage of development). The aim of this doctoral research was to explore the contribution of PE to product design. The researcher experienced the scientific development of the technology first-hand, and undertook a literature review that covered three main topics: 1) printed electronics (the technology itself), 2) impact (approaches to assessing impact and methods of judging new technology) because together they will identify the state of the art of printed electronics technology, and 3) education - educational theories/methods for designers - studying how designers learn, explore different methods in educating them about new technologies, and start to find appropriate methods for educating them about printed electronics technology. A knowledge framework for PE technology was generated and utilised to produce a taxonomy and TRL scale for PE and confirmed by PE expert interview. Existing case studies in which PE technology had been presented to student designers were investigated through interviews with participants from academia and industry to solicit perception and opinions on approaches for the effective communication of PE knowledge to student designers within an educational environment. The findings were interpreted using thematic analysis and, after comparing the data, three main themes identified: technical constraints, designer s perspective, and what a designer is required to do. The findings from the research were combined to create an educational approach for knowledge transfer aimed specifically at meeting the needs of product designers. This resulted in the need for PE technology to be translated into both a visual and written format to create structure and direct links between the technological elements and their form and function in order to facilitate understanding by designers. Conclusions from the research indicate that the translation of this technology into an appropriate design language will equip designers with accessible fundamental knowledge on PE technology (i.e. electrical components: form, function, and area of the technology), which will allow informed decisions to be made about how PE can be used and to utilise its benefits in the design of products. The capabilities and properties of this technology, when paired with product design practice, has the capacity to transform the designs of future products in terms of form/functionality and prevailing/views towards design approaches with electronics. If exposed to a variety of PE elements ranging across different TRLs, designers have the capacity to bridge the TRL separation issue (the gap between academia and industry) through their ability to create design solutions for an end user and provide a commercial application for the technology