75,180 research outputs found
Naming the Pain in Requirements Engineering: A Design for a Global Family of Surveys and First Results from Germany
For many years, we have observed industry struggling in defining a high
quality requirements engineering (RE) and researchers trying to understand
industrial expectations and problems. Although we are investigating the
discipline with a plethora of empirical studies, they still do not allow for
empirical generalisations. To lay an empirical and externally valid foundation
about the state of the practice in RE, we aim at a series of open and
reproducible surveys that allow us to steer future research in a problem-driven
manner. We designed a globally distributed family of surveys in joint
collaborations with different researchers and completed the first run in
Germany. The instrument is based on a theory in the form of a set of hypotheses
inferred from our experiences and available studies. We test each hypothesis in
our theory and identify further candidates to extend the theory by correlation
and Grounded Theory analysis. In this article, we report on the design of the
family of surveys, its underlying theory, and the full results obtained from
Germany with participants from 58 companies. The results reveal, for example, a
tendency to improve RE via internally defined qualitative methods rather than
relying on normative approaches like CMMI. We also discovered various RE
problems that are statistically significant in practice. For instance, we could
corroborate communication flaws or moving targets as problems in practice. Our
results are not yet fully representative but already give first insights into
current practices and problems in RE, and they allow us to draw lessons learnt
for future replications. Our results obtained from this first run in Germany
make us confident that the survey design and instrument are well-suited to be
replicated and, thereby, to create a generalisable empirical basis of RE in
practice
Four facets of a process modeling facilitator
Business process modeling as a practice and research field has received great attention in recent years. However, while related artifacts such as models, tools or grammars have substantially matured, comparatively little is known about the activities that are conducted as part of the actual act of process modeling. Especially the key role of the modeling facilitator has not been researched to date. In this paper, we propose a new theory-grounded, conceptual framework describing four facets (the driving engineer, the driving artist, the catalyzing engineer, and the catalyzing artist) that can be used by a facilitator. These facets with behavioral styles have been empirically explored via in-depth interviews and additional questionnaires with experienced process analysts. We develop a proposal for an emerging theory for describing, investigating, and explaining different behaviors associated with Business Process Modeling Facilitation. This theory is an important sensitizing vehicle for examining processes and outcomes from process modeling endeavors
On Evaluating Commercial Cloud Services: A Systematic Review
Background: Cloud Computing is increasingly booming in industry with many
competing providers and services. Accordingly, evaluation of commercial Cloud
services is necessary. However, the existing evaluation studies are relatively
chaotic. There exists tremendous confusion and gap between practices and theory
about Cloud services evaluation. Aim: To facilitate relieving the
aforementioned chaos, this work aims to synthesize the existing evaluation
implementations to outline the state-of-the-practice and also identify research
opportunities in Cloud services evaluation. Method: Based on a conceptual
evaluation model comprising six steps, the Systematic Literature Review (SLR)
method was employed to collect relevant evidence to investigate the Cloud
services evaluation step by step. Results: This SLR identified 82 relevant
evaluation studies. The overall data collected from these studies essentially
represent the current practical landscape of implementing Cloud services
evaluation, and in turn can be reused to facilitate future evaluation work.
Conclusions: Evaluation of commercial Cloud services has become a world-wide
research topic. Some of the findings of this SLR identify several research gaps
in the area of Cloud services evaluation (e.g., the Elasticity and Security
evaluation of commercial Cloud services could be a long-term challenge), while
some other findings suggest the trend of applying commercial Cloud services
(e.g., compared with PaaS, IaaS seems more suitable for customers and is
particularly important in industry). This SLR study itself also confirms some
previous experiences and reveals new Evidence-Based Software Engineering (EBSE)
lessons
Safety-Critical Systems and Agile Development: A Mapping Study
In the last decades, agile methods had a huge impact on how software is
developed. In many cases, this has led to significant benefits, such as quality
and speed of software deliveries to customers. However, safety-critical systems
have widely been dismissed from benefiting from agile methods. Products that
include safety critical aspects are therefore faced with a situation in which
the development of safety-critical parts can significantly limit the potential
speed-up through agile methods, for the full product, but also in the
non-safety critical parts. For such products, the ability to develop
safety-critical software in an agile way will generate a competitive advantage.
In order to enable future research in this important area, we present in this
paper a mapping of the current state of practice based on {a mixed method
approach}. Starting from a workshop with experts from six large Swedish product
development companies we develop a lens for our analysis. We then present a
systematic mapping study on safety-critical systems and agile development
through this lens in order to map potential benefits, challenges, and solution
candidates for guiding future research.Comment: Accepted at Euromicro Conf. on Software Engineering and Advanced
Applications 2018, Prague, Czech Republi
Escaping the Shadow of Malpractice Law
Abinovich-Einy addresses several constituencies operating at the meeting point of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), communication theory, healthcare policy, and medical-malpractice doctrine. From an ADR perspective, the need for, and barriers to, addressing non-litigable disputes, for which the alternative route is the only one, is explored. It is shown that ADR mechanisms may not take root when introduced into an environment that is resistant to collaborative and open discourse without additional incentives and measures being adopted
A Review on Software Architectures for Heterogeneous Platforms
The increasing demands for computing performance have been a reality
regardless of the requirements for smaller and more energy efficient devices.
Throughout the years, the strategy adopted by industry was to increase the
robustness of a single processor by increasing its clock frequency and mounting
more transistors so more calculations could be executed. However, it is known
that the physical limits of such processors are being reached, and one way to
fulfill such increasing computing demands has been to adopt a strategy based on
heterogeneous computing, i.e., using a heterogeneous platform containing more
than one type of processor. This way, different types of tasks can be executed
by processors that are specialized in them. Heterogeneous computing, however,
poses a number of challenges to software engineering, especially in the
architecture and deployment phases. In this paper, we conduct an empirical
study that aims at discovering the state-of-the-art in software architecture
for heterogeneous computing, with focus on deployment. We conduct a systematic
mapping study that retrieved 28 studies, which were critically assessed to
obtain an overview of the research field. We identified gaps and trends that
can be used by both researchers and practitioners as guides to further
investigate the topic
Escaping the Shadow of Malpractice Law
Abinovich-Einy addresses several constituencies operating at the meeting point of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), communication theory, healthcare policy, and medical-malpractice doctrine. From an ADR perspective, the need for, and barriers to, addressing non-litigable disputes, for which the alternative route is the only one, is explored. It is shown that ADR mechanisms may not take root when introduced into an environment that is resistant to collaborative and open discourse without additional incentives and measures being adopted
DIDET: Digital libraries for distributed, innovative design education and teamwork. Final project report
The central goal of the DIDET Project was to enhance student learning opportunities by enabling them to partake in global, team based design engineering projects, in which they directly experience different cultural contexts and access a variety of digital information sources via a range of appropriate technology. To achieve this overall project goal, the project delivered on the following objectives: 1. Teach engineering information retrieval, manipulation, and archiving skills to students studying on engineering degree programs. 2. Measure the use of those skills in design projects in all years of an undergraduate degree program. 3. Measure the learning performance in engineering design courses affected by the provision of access to information that would have been otherwise difficult to access. 4. Measure student learning performance in different cultural contexts that influence the use of alternative sources of information and varying forms of Information and Communications Technology. 5. Develop and provide workshops for staff development. 6. Use the measurement results to annually redesign course content and the digital libraries technology. The overall DIDET Project approach was to develop, implement, use and evaluate a testbed to improve the teaching and learning of students partaking in global team based design projects. The use of digital libraries and virtual design studios was used to fundamentally change the way design engineering is taught at the collaborating institutions. This was done by implementing a digital library at the partner institutions to improve learning in the field of Design Engineering and by developing a Global Team Design Project run as part of assessed classes at Strathclyde, Stanford and Olin. Evaluation was carried out on an ongoing basis and fed back into project development, both on the class teaching model and the LauLima system developed at Strathclyde to support teaching and learning. Major findings include the requirement to overcome technological, pedagogical and cultural issues for successful elearning implementations. A need for strong leadership has been identified, particularly to exploit the benefits of cross-discipline team working. One major project output still being developed is a DIDET Project Framework for Distributed Innovative Design, Education and Teamwork to encapsulate all project findings and outputs. The project achieved its goal of embedding major change to the teaching of Design Engineering and Strathclyde's new Global Design class has been both successful and popular with students
EnviroNET: Space environment for Strategic Defense Initiative experiments
EnviroNET is an operational system available to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) experimenters who have access to a terminal or dial-up port. It is a tail node on Space Physics Analysis Network (SPAN) accessible directly or through the national networks via NPSS. Some of the benefits to using EnviroNET include: validated NASA environmental information and interactive space models; facilitating the payload integration process; easy access to expert assistance; and potential for time and cost savings
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