Continuous Assessment in Agile Learning using Visualizations and Clustering of Activity Data to Analyze Student Behavior

abstract: Software engineering education today is a technologically advanced and rapidly evolving discipline. Being a discipline where students not only design but also build new technology, it is important that they receive a hands on learning experience in the form of project based courses. To maximize the learning benefit, students must conduct project-based learning activities in a consistent rhythm, or cadence. Project-based courses that are augmented with a system of frequent, formative feedback helps students constantly evaluate their progress and leads them away from a deadline driven approach to learning. One aspect of this research is focused on evaluating the use of a tool that tracks student activity as a means of providing frequent, formative feedback. This thesis measures the impact of the tool on student compliance to the learning process. A personalized dashboard with quasi real time visual reports and notifications are provided to undergraduate and graduate software engineering students. The impact of these visual reports on compliance is measured using the log traces of dashboard activity and a survey instrument given multiple times during the course. A second aspect of this research is the application of learning analytics to understand patterns of student compliance. This research employs unsupervised machine learning algorithms to identify unique patterns of student behavior observed in the context of a project-based course. Analyzing and labeling these unique patterns of behavior can help instructors understand typical student characteristics. Further, understanding these behavioral patterns can assist an instructor in making timely, targeted interventions. In this research, datasets comprising of student’s daily activity and graded scores from an under graduate software engineering course is utilized for the purpose of identifying unique patterns of student behavior.Dissertation/ThesisMasters Thesis Engineering 201

An agile-devops reference architecture for teaching enterprise agile

©2019 The authors and IJLTER.ORG. All rights reserved. DevOps emerged as an important extension to support the Agile development for frequent and continuous software delivery. The adoption of Agile-DevOps for large scale enterprise agility depends on the most important human capability such as people competency and experience. Hence, academic education and professional training is key to the successful adoption of Agile-DevOps approach. Thus, education and training providers need to teach Agile-DevOps. However, the challenge is: how to establish and simulate an effective Agile-DevOps technology environment for teaching Enterprise Agile? This paper introduces the integrated Adaptive Enterprise Project Management (AEPM) and DevOps Reference Architecture (DRA) approach for adopting and teaching the Agile-DevOps with the help of a teaching case study from the University of Technology - Sydney (UTS), Australia. These learnings can be utilised by educators to develop and teach practice-oriented Agile-DevOps for software engineering courses. Furthermore, the experience and observations can be employed by researchers and practitioners aiming to integrate Agile-DevOps at the large enterprise scale

A platform for the development of patient applications in the domain of personalized health

Personalized health (p-health) systems can contribute significantly to the sustainability of healthcare systems, though their feasibility is yet to be proven. One of the problems related to their development is the lack of well-established development tools for this domain. As the p-health paradigm is focused on patient self-management, big challenges arise around the design and implementation of patient systems. This paper presents a reference platform created for the development of these applications, and shows the advantages of its adoption in a complex project dealing with cardio-vascular diseases

A Systemic Approach to Evaluating the Organizational Agility in Large-Scale Companies

This paper presents action research to analyze an approach for assessment of the alleged agile transformation. This approach was implemented at AK Bars Digital Technologies, an IT spin-off of one of the largest banks in Russia using the Scaled Agile Framework. The approach is based on the Goal-Question-Metric approach, non-invasive measurement collection, and systemic analysis. It uses data from several different sources, including interviews, code repositories, user ratings in the play stores, and templates for agile assessment. The effectiveness of the approach is subjectively validated by the adoption of the proposed recommendations by the banks’ senior management. Details are provided on the approach, the required effort from the side of both those assessing and of the people being assessed and the results. The final part of the paper is devoted to the discussion of its generalizability and the plan for future experimentation and refinement

Implementing Agile Methodology Techniques in Automobile Industry

Automotive industries have continued to expand, as they cut on costs by regulating efficiency, grow and make profits. The factors that have continued to change the industry include marketplace growth, outsourcing for product development, customers demanding for improved reliability, development of human-vehicle software and have continued to change the automotive industry. As a result, companies have continued to face numerous challenges to manage the factors. The challenges include managing volatility, experiencing massive uncertainty, as well as reduced predictability of future businesses. Other challenges include handling a complex and interconnected industry and the need to form joint ventures and maintain successful supplier relationships. The Automotive businesses must change their operating models to advance agility. An example includes ensuring OEMs is flexible to operate across the value chain and provide value-add, as well as personalized experiences. The Automotive companies must learn from Google and Uber that have embraced digital activities to market new business models that can promote innovation. The study conducted by Crute et al. (2013) showed that over 30% of automotive businesses are willing to invest in advanced business models likely to drive value from new capabilities. According to Elkins et al. (2014), having an advanced operating model permit digital abilities that could reduce costs and support growth. While rethinking of an operating model, the automotive companies must choose the ones that are digital to help them improve efficiency as well as agility. According to Hallgren and Olhanger, (2009), when companies operate on lean strategies, then they free up costs that could likely to be reinvented to other significant fuel growth strategies and maintain a competitive advantage in the industry. When companies invest in new business models and advanced digital abilities, then they engage in aggressive growth. An example includes automotive firms moving beyond manufacturing of vehicles to join the wider ecosystem that opens new business opportunities to build new capabilities, collaborate with other partners to invest heavily in innovation (Poppendieck & Cusumano, 2012). The focus is on improving customer experiences through expansion strategies that include joint ventures or acquisitions. It is impossible for companies to enhance efficiency and performance without having a talented staff that is committed to the delivery of quality products and services. Digital activities and innovation-driven automotive industry have increased stakes for company processes across the value chain. Devadasan (2012), therefore believes dealerships, OEMs, and manufacturers of vehicle parts require individuals that are digital savvy to initiate the transition to digital corporations (Tuck et al. 2006). The techno-savvy employees use digital strategies to improve customer experience, leading to many companies to invest in human resource practices such as training of employees

Design and Planning of Manufacturing Networks for Mass Customisation and Personalisation: Challenges and Outlook

AbstractManufacturers and service providers are called to design, plan and operate globalized manufacturing networks, addressing to challenges such as ever-decreasing lifecycles and increased product complexity. These factors, caused primarily by mass customisation and demand volatility, generate a number of issues related to the design and planning of manufacturing systems and networks, which are not holistically tackled in industrial and academic practices. The mapping of production performance requirements to process and production planning requires automated closed-loop control systems, which current systems fail to deliver. Technology-based business approaches are an enabler for increased enterprise performance. Towards that end, the issues discussed in this paper focus on challenges in the design and planning of manufacturing networks in a mass customization and personalization landscape. The development of methods and tools for supporting the dynamic configuration and optimal routing of manufacturing networks and facilities under cost, time, complexity and environmental constraints to support product-service personalization are promoted

Rakennusprosessin Digitalisointi ja Teollistaminen - Tapaustutkimu

This thesis presents an overall description of industrialization and digitalization in construction industry and pipe repair sector and a framework to assess organization's industrial maturity. Industrialization in construction industry strives to make production effective by repeating work processes in factories, design offices and at building sites by the coordination of different activities. In the core of industrialization is the relocation of activities from on-site to specialized off-site factories (e.g. pre-assembly) and to remote digital units (e.g. designing). The two theoretical contributions of this study are i) the new framework for industrial maturity measurement in construction industry and pipe repair sector and ii) the detailed description of case company's current industrial maturity. The industrial maturity framework defines organization's current industrial maturity in six different process categories related to production. These contributions also have managerial relevance as they can be utilized to evaluate and plan a transformative process towards higher industrialization with digitalization as an enabler. The empirical evidence of this study proposes that the existing literature on industrialization might focus too strongly on industrialization as a concept and has not considered the potential of a framework to assess the level of industrialization. By having a framework to assess the current status, organizations can approach industrialization in a more strategic manner, focusing to enhance the weakest areas in the organization.Tämä tutkimus esittelee yleisen kuvauksen teollistumisesta ja digitalisoinnista rakennusalalla ja putkiremonttisektorilla, sekä viitekehyksen organisaation teollisen maturiteetin mittaamiseen. Teollistuminen rakennusalalla pyrkii tekemään tuotannosta tehokkaampaa luomalla toistettavia työsuoritteita tuotantolaitoksissa, suunnittelutoimistoissa ja rakennustyömaalla aktiviteetteja koordinoimalla. Teollistumisen ytimessä on työmaan aktiviteettien uudelleensijoittaminen erikoistuneisiin tuotantolaitoksiin (esivalmistus) ja digitaalisiin yksikköihin (suunnittelu). Tämän tutkmuksen kaksi pääasiallista teoreettista kontribuutiota ovat i) uusi viitekehys teollisen maturiteetin mittaamiseen rakennusalalla ja putkiremonttisektorilla, sekä ii) yksityiskohtainen kuvaus tapaustutkimuksen yrityksen nykyisestä teollisen maturiteetin tasosta. Teollisen maturiteetin viitekehys määrittelee organisaation teollisen maturiteetin nykytilan kuudella eri tuotannon osaalueella. Näillä kontribuutioilla on myös johtoryhmän relevanssia, sillä niiden hyödyntäminen mahdollistaa digitalisaation avulla korkeampaan teollistumiseen tähtäävän muutosprosessin arvioimisen ja suunnittelemisen. Tutkimuksen empiirinen näyttö osoittaa, että nykyinen teollistumista koskeva kirjallisuus on saattanut painottaa liiaksi teollistumista yleisen tason konseptina ja ei ole huomioinut teollisen maturiteetin mittaamiseen käytettävän viitekehyksen arvoa organisaation teollistumisen mittaamiseen. Tutkimuksessa rakennetun viitekehyksen avulla organisaatiot rakennusalalla pystyvät lähestymään teollistumista strategisemmin ja osoittamaan kehityskohteita saavuttaakseen korkeamman teollistumisen taso