Qualitative software engineering research -- reflections and guidelines

Researchers are increasingly recognizing the importance of human aspects in software development and since qualitative methods are used to, in-depth, explore human behavior, we believe that studies using such techniques will become more common. Existing qualitative software engineering guidelines do not cover the full breadth of qualitative methods and knowledge on using them found in the social sciences. The aim of this study was thus to extend the software engineering research community's current body of knowledge regarding available qualitative methods and provide recommendations and guidelines for their use. With the support of an epistemological argument and a literature review, we suggest that future research would benefit from (1) utilizing a broader set of research methods, (2) more strongly emphasizing reflexivity, and (3) employing qualitative guidelines and quality criteria. We present an overview of three qualitative methods commonly used in social sciences but rarely seen in software engineering research, namely interpretative phenomenological analysis, narrative analysis, and discourse analysis. Furthermore, we discuss the meaning of reflexivity in relation to the software engineering context and suggest means of fostering it. Our paper will help software engineering researchers better select and then guide the application of a broader set of qualitative research methods.Comment: 30 page

We All Know How, Don’t We? On the Role of Scrum in IT-Offshoring

Part 2: Creating Value through Software DevelopmentInternational audienceOffshoring in the IT-industry involves dual interactions between a mother company and an external supplier, often viewed with an implicit perspective from the mother company. This article review general off shoring and IT offshoring literature, focusing on the proliferation of a globally available set of routines; Scrum and Agile. Two cases are studied; a small company and short process and a large mother company with a long process. The interactions of the set ups shows that global concepts like Scrum and Agile are far from a common platform. The “well known” concepts are locally shaped and the enterprises have mixed experiences

The Ultralight project: the network as an integrated and managed resource for data-intensive science

Looks at the UltraLight project which treats the network interconnecting globally distributed data sets as a dynamic, configurable, and closely monitored resource to construct a next-generation system that can meet the high-energy physics community's data-processing, distribution, access, and analysis needs

Enhancing Software Team Planning and Delivery Performance using Agile Driven Quality Measures: Approach, Results, and Recommendations

Implementing a performance-management program in an agile software-development organization is important to retain sight of software team performance as a whole as well as linking performance-management metrics to business value. The evaluation criteria for software engineers’ performance have been traditionally driven by metrics that don’t fit into agile-development principles. This research implements a measurement metric that aligns with agile-development core values and principles to evaluate engineers in a software engineering firm using the Scrum development method. The research focused on measuring and evaluating the productivity, development efficiency, social skills, team collaboration and breadth of knowledge. Observing the Productivity Index (PI), Actual Productivity for software Engineers (APSE), and Productivity Variance (PV) for individual software engineers and the development team at the end of each sprint helped the development team have a better understanding of its productivity levels in a matter that facilitated planning future sprints. In addition, this productivity measure helped early identification of productivity challenges encountered by several software engineers and productivity identification of productivity challenges encountered by several software engineers. Keywords: Agile development, software teams, process measurement, scrum, productivity, efficiency, software metrics, software project measuremen

Scaling Agile Methods to Process Improvement Projects: A Global Virtual Team Case Study

Agile methods have been embraced by the software development industry. Their effectiveness in streamlining the software process has led organizations to look at the application of agile methods to non-software projects and organizational functions. While a significant body of research exists on agile methods and software development, previous studies on agile methods have not elaborated on their use in global virtual teams (GVTs) engaged in non-software projects. This paper describes one such project, where an organization that had previously adopted agile methods for software development, scaled agile methods to a GVT undertaking a process improvement project. Participant observation was employed to capture a rich description of the tailoring of agile methods for the project. Findings suggest that while agile methods in a GVT context are realizable, adjustments have to be made to allow for the distributed team structure and project type

Improving Data Efficiency Using Content Management System

This project has been carried out to identify major problems in a website like look and feel of the web pages, branding qualities, website search engine compatibility and identifying/tracking the status of the pages. To achieve this, Responsive Web Design (RWD) concepts, Web Analytics, HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) tags are implemented for sophisticated performance and adaptability. It’s very essential to have a well-organized and dynamic website. Website should be more professional to gain the fruitful outcomes. Website related content was updated dynamically through admin console using Content Management System (CMS). Admin / content manager / targeted preferred credential users could more effectively update the content via this Content Management System (CMS) web tool and was very easy to maintain huge content in a very effective way. There are many ways to achieve this, have many content driven tools and web-pages which do this job without any extra effort. The major benefit of this tool was even a nontechnical person could easily update or manage the webpage without any technical training. In today’s market, most of the data is written and deployed using small / medium form factors like mobiles or tablet devices. Users easily update the data while on the go. The content of the website could be effortlessly managed even by a non-technical person quickly and easily without any complicated programming. The website automatically spreads to fit mobiles, tablets and any browser windows using CMS. Using Agile Methodology, the project quality was improved in most effective way. Data was collected and analyzed using different tools and techniques

Sistem Informasi E-Portofolio Penilaian Siswa Di Raudhatul Athfal Al-Falah Batusangkar

Teknologi informasi yang berkembang sangat pesat menjadi sebuah solusi untuk segala pentuk permasalahan yang terjadi disekeliling kita termasuk didalamnya dalam ranah Pendidikan. Raudhatul Athfal Al-Falah Batusangkar masih menggunakan sistem manual untuk mendata seluruh nilai siswa yang terus bertambah setiap harinya. Hal ini dikarenakan kurikulum Pendidikan Anak Usia Dini yang mengharuskan guru untuk memiliki track record perkembangan anak dan itu hanya akan dimiliki jika guru terus mencatat perkembangan anak setiap harinya berdasarkan kegiatan-kegiatan yang berlandaskan kompetensi dasar setiap harinya. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk dapat mengembangkan sebuah sistem informasi yang dapat mengakomodir proses penilaian siswa Raudhatul Athfal, dimulai dari penilaian harian, kemudian penilaian perkembangan siswa dan juga penilaian semester. Penulis melakukan observasi, wawancara dan FGD untuk mendapatkan informasi secara menyeluruh tentang proses pendataan penilaian yang sedang berlangsung sehingga dapat memformulasikan sistem yang lebih baik sebagai solusi dari permasalahan yang diangkat. Untuk menggambarkan proses perancangan dan Analisa data penulis menggunakan Unified Modelling Language(UML) sehingga pembaca dapat dengan mudah membaca proses perancangan sistem informasi ini

The DevOps Goes to the Embedded System

Lately, DevOps has been widely discussed in various papers, in addition the industry has implemented it to be a solution for developing and distributing software for general purposes. However, the application of DevOps to embedded systems is still quite difficult, and there is still lack of paper to discuss it. The purpose of this study is to explore the DevOps approach in developing embedded systems. The method used in this research is to use the Object-Oriented Software Engineering approach. Various tools used to support the development of embedded systems include Visual Paradigm, Quantum Modeling. The results explain that DevOps can be applied in the development of embeded systems through Forward and Reverse Engineering. Forward engineering includes analysis, design of the class, design of the state machine, design of coding, generate code, uploading some codes into board. While reverse engineering is reverse from forward engineering. However, the applying of DevOps is not still one stop services. It is signed by the displacement of tools when doing state-machine design, there is a shift in the use of tools, from the visual paradigm to quantum modeling

EU–originated MOOCs, with focus on multi- and single-institution platforms

No abstract available