2,239,735 research outputs found
On Broadening Software Development Productivity Research to Serve Better Software Engineering Management
The unresolved problems of improving software engineering management require a broader systemic approach of investigating related issues like software development productivity. The paper links software engineering management to research on software cost estimation and on factors affecting software development productivity. It examines ways for the systemic incorporation of all issues influencing a software project through application of combination of methods from diverse paradigms
The Dynamics of Creativity in Software Development
Software is primarily developed for people by people and human factors must
be studied in all software engineering phases. Creativity is the source to
improvise solutions to problems for dominating complex systems such as software
development. However, there is a lack of knowledge in what creativity is in
software development and what its dynamics are. This study describes the
current state of the research plan towards a theory on creativity in software
development. More specifically, it (1) states the motivation for studying
creativity in software development under a multidisciplinary view; it (2)
provides a first review of the literature identifying the shortcomings in the
field; it (3) proposes a research design, which includes rarely employed
methods in software engineering. To understand creativity in software
development will provide a better knowledge of the software construction
process and how individuals intellectually contribute to the creation of
better, innovative products.Comment: 6 Pages. To be presented in the 14th International Conference on
Product-Focused Software Process Improvement (PROFES 2013) - Doctoral
Symposium, 12 June 2013, Paphos, Cyprus. This is the final, accepted version
(after peer review
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Requirements for software engineering languages
This paper analyzes the concepts of software construction embodied in the Draco system. The analysis relates specific mechanisms in Draco to particular software engineering (SE) principles and suggests future research needed to extend the approach. The purpose of the analysis is to help researchers understand Draco better and thus be able to direct in productive directions future research on this type of software engineering tool
Distributing Data and Analysis Software Containers For Better Data Sharing in Clinical Research
Introduction: Data sharing in clinical research is critical for increasing knowledge discovery. Data and software tools should be FAIR: Findable, Accessible, Inter-operable and Re-usable. Many bottlenecks exist in the process of a clinical investigator using shared data including data acquisition and statistical analysis. The objective of this project is to develop a structure for sharing data and providing rapid automated statistical analysis through creation of a pre-packaged, open-source software container.
Methods: We use the open source software container technologies VirtualBox and Vagrant to create a template for sharing clinical data and analysis scripts as a single container. We use a timer to record the time necessary to setup and initialize the software container and view the results.
Results: We have created a template for sharing data and analysis scripts together using open source software container technologies VirtualBox and Vagrant. We found the time needed to initialize the container to be 5 minutes and 36 seconds for a macOS-based machine and 7 minutes and 2 seconds for a Windows-based machine. Containers can be downloaded and executed from any Mac or Windows computer allowing both the reuse of and interaction with the data. This greatly reduces the time and effort needed to obtain and analyze clinical data.
Conclusion: Reducing the time and effort needed to obtain and analyze clinical data increases the time available for data exploration and the discovery of new knowledge. This can be effectively achieved using software containers and virtualization
Practice and Assessment of Reading Classes Using Moodle
This research paper details the extensive use of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL)
for a content-based reading syllabus at Gunma University, through the software program Moodle
(Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment ), a free and open-source software learning
management system used at Gunma University.
The research basis of this paper is within the sphere of Action Research , as a valuable professional
development tool (Nunan, 2001) based on this researcher’s perceived valuation of the system and how it
could better aid students to perform better in and be more motivated towards their English language and
reading studies, introduce new technological skills and abilities, and aid teachers in better preparation,
teaching and assessment of reading classes. Moodle enthuses that the Lesson Module ‘enables a teacher
to deliver content and/or practice activities in interesting and flexible ways...teachers can choose to
increase engagement and ensure understanding by including a variety of questions, such as multiple choice,
matching and short answer.’ (Moodle, 2016). Therefore, this paper will ascertain whether the syllabus
achieved a greater engagement and enjoyment by the students, and ensured better comprehension and
understanding of key tasks and instructions. In addition, it will detail how teachers can benefit course
management by employing such technology within the classroom
Lean principles applied to software development – avoiding waste
Under the current economic conditions many organizations strive to continue the trend towards adopting better software development processes, in order to take advantage of the numerous benefits that these can offer. Those benefits include quicker return on investment, better software quality, and higher customer satisfaction. To date, however, there is little body of research that can guide organizations in adopting modern software development practices, especially when it comes to Lean thinking and principles. To address this situation, the current paper identifies and structures the main wastes (or muda in Lean terms) in software development as described by Lean principles, in an attempt to bring into researchers’ and practitioners’ attention Lean Software Development, a modern development methodology based on well-established practices such as Lean Manufacturing or Toyota Production System.Lean, software development, agile methodologies
Happy software developers solve problems better: psychological measurements in empirical software engineering
For more than 30 years, it has been claimed that a way to improve software
developers' productivity and software quality is to focus on people and to
provide incentives to make developers satisfied and happy. This claim has
rarely been verified in software engineering research, which faces an
additional challenge in comparison to more traditional engineering fields:
software development is an intellectual activity and is dominated by
often-neglected human aspects. Among the skills required for software
development, developers must possess high analytical problem-solving skills and
creativity for the software construction process. According to psychology
research, affects-emotions and moods-deeply influence the cognitive processing
abilities and performance of workers, including creativity and analytical
problem solving. Nonetheless, little research has investigated the correlation
between the affective states, creativity, and analytical problem-solving
performance of programmers. This article echoes the call to employ
psychological measurements in software engineering research. We report a study
with 42 participants to investigate the relationship between the affective
states, creativity, and analytical problem-solving skills of software
developers. The results offer support for the claim that happy developers are
indeed better problem solvers in terms of their analytical abilities. The
following contributions are made by this study: (1) providing a better
understanding of the impact of affective states on the creativity and
analytical problem-solving capacities of developers, (2) introducing and
validating psychological measurements, theories, and concepts of affective
states, creativity, and analytical-problem-solving skills in empirical software
engineering, and (3) raising the need for studying the human factors of
software engineering by employing a multidisciplinary viewpoint.Comment: 33 pages, 11 figures, published at Peer
Canopy height estimation from lidar data using open source software compared with commercial software
The goal of this study is to analyze the performance of Open Source Software (OSS) towards the generation of Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and Digital Surface Model (DSM), further on estimates the canopy height by using Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) data. Generation of DTM and DSM are very important in this research to ensure that better canopy height can be modeled. DTM and DSM commonly known as a digital representation of earth surface topography where DTM only represent the ground surface while DSM represent all the features including buildings and trees. Many software that have a function to generate DTM and DSM were developed recently. However, most software has been commercialized; therefore it requires a high expenditure to own the software. Advanced technology has lead to the emergence of the growing OSS. OSS is software that can be downloaded for free via the internet. By taking the forestry area of Pekan, Pahang for this research, LIDAR data for that particular area is processed by using the OSS Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS). To determine the effectiveness and capability of GRASS in the DTM and DSM generation, the same data were processed using commercial software which is TerraScan so that the result can be compared, further on better canopy height can be modele
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