The GENESIS platform, its distribution, and web services

The GENESIS project is developing an Open Source platform that supports co-operation and communication among software engineers belonging to distributed development teams involved in modeling, controlling, and measuring software development and maintenance processes. The GENESIS platform is made up of three main elements: a distributed workflow management system, a resource management system, and an artefact management system (OSCAR, developed at Durham). The platform is designed to be non-invasive and have a low barrier to entry (in terms of the effort required to begin using the system). This is accomplished, as far as possible, by adapting the platform to the workflow processes and tools already in place in an organisation. OSCAR (Open-Source Component Artefact Repository) is the artefact management system, used to store and retrieve any item produced by any member of a software engineering team. Traditional artefacts (documents and code, for example) as well as non-traditional items (such as informal annotations, mailing list postings, and personnel profiles) are managed by the system, which has the capability to maintain a rich set of relationships between the artefacts (for traceability and comprehension purposes). Each instance of OSCAR contains a software configuration management system (currently, a plugin is provided to use CVS). Currently, OSCAR is slightly distributed: the workflow management system can use more than one instance of a repository, but a single instance of OSCAR can use only one repository. There are a few known systems which provide some form of real distributed software configuration management, which, it is hoped, can be used to inspire further development of the distribution of OSCAR and its associated services. Initially, OSCAR and the rest of the GENESIS platform communicated using RMI, but a web service interface is currently under development. As an initial attempt at realising this, the RMI interface is simply wrapped to provide servlets. The web services approach allows for a single instance of an OSCAR repository to serve many projects, and for potential global distribution of a single instance of the GENESIS platform. Possible avenues for future work include: applications to e-learning and e-science (applying OSCAR to the Grid, in order to support educational and scientific collaboration); using OSCAR as a basis for supporting collaborative design work; instrumenting the tools in the GENESIS platform to provide data for studies of software engineering practices; and studying process models (for example, determining the difference between the ideal models defined in the literature and the real processes of software engineering)

Environments to support collaborative software engineering

With increasing globalisation of software production, widespread use of software components, and the need to maintain software systems over long periods of time, there has been a recognition that better support for collaborative working is needed by software engineers. In this paper, two approaches to developing improved system support for collaborative software engineering are described: GENESIS and OPHELIA. As both projects are moving towards industrial trials and eventual publicreleases of their systems, this exercise of comparing and contrasting our approaches has provided the basis for future collaboration between our projects particularly in carrying out comparative studies of our approaches in practical use

The learning network on sustainability: An e-mechanism for the development and diffusion of teaching materials and tools on design for sustainability in an open-source and copy left ethos

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be obtained from the link below - Copyright @ 2011 InderscienceThis paper presents the intermediate results of the Learning Network on Sustainability (LeNS) project, Asian-European multi-polar network for curricula development on Design for Sustainability. LeNS is a mechanism to develop and diffuse system design for sustainability in design schools with a transcultural perspective. The main output of the project is the Open Learning E-Package (OLEP), an open web-platform that allows a decentralised and collaborative production and fruition of knowledge. Apart from the contents, the same LeNS web-platform is realised in an open-source and copy left ethos, allowing its download and reconfiguration in relation to specific needs, interests and geographical representation

Drivers and Impacts of R&D Adoption on Transport and Logistics Services

Actually, technologies and applications in industries are changing via business restructuring, new business models, new knowledge and supply chains. So R&D is not focused primarily on manufacturing industry as it used to be, but on different kinds of industries as logistics and transport (TLS). Nevertheless, the characteristics of the TLS industry determine the introduction of specific R&D solutions accordingly to sectors operations. The objective of this paper is to describe the R&D opportunities in the TLS industry and how managers use them to make their businesses more innovative and efficient. Using the Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) model the paper identifies the links between R&D adoption and innovation dynamics. Relating the findings, on the driver’s side there are three points that are worth mentioning: increasing market competition, the relationships of firms interacting with each other and the availability and quality of complementary assets such as employee skills and IT know-how. On the impacts’ side, firms advanced in terms of implementing R&D solutions are more likely to implement organizational changes. Finally, a set of recommendations on how to further improve the continuous innovation in the TLS industry is presented

The hunt for submarines in classical art: mappings between scientific invention and artistic interpretation

This is a report to the AHRC's ICT in Arts and Humanities Research Programme. This report stems from a project which aimed to produce a series of mappings between advanced imaging information and communications technologies (ICT) and needs within visual arts research. A secondary aim was to demonstrate the feasibility of a structured approach to establishing such mappings. The project was carried out over 2006, from January to December, by the visual arts centre of the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS Visual Arts).1 It was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) as one of the Strategy Projects run under the aegis of its ICT in Arts and Humanities Research programme. The programme, which runs from October 2003 until September 2008, aims ‘to develop, promote and monitor the AHRC’s ICT strategy, and to build capacity nation-wide in the use of ICT for arts and humanities research’.2 As part of this, the Strategy Projects were intended to contribute to the programme in two ways: knowledge-gathering projects would inform the programme’s Fundamental Strategic Review of ICT, conducted for the AHRC in the second half of 2006, focusing ‘on critical strategic issues such as e-science and peer-review of digital resources’. Resource-development projects would ‘build tools and resources of broad relevance across the range of the AHRC’s academic subject disciplines’.3 This project fell into the knowledge-gathering strand. The project ran under the leadership of Dr Mike Pringle, Director, AHDS Visual Arts, and the day-to-day management of Polly Christie, Projects Manager, AHDS Visual Arts. The research was carried out by Dr Rupert Shepherd

Modeling the object-oriented software process: OPEN and the unified process

A short introduction to software process modeling is presented, particularly object-oriented modeling. Two major industrial process models are discussed: the OPEN model and the Unified Process model. In more detail, the quality assurance in the Unified Process tool (formally called Objectory) is reviewed