Effectiveness of Elicitation Techniques in Distributed Requirements Engineering

Software development teams are often geographically distributed from their customers and end users. This creates significant communication and coordination challenges that impact the effectiveness of requirements engineering. Travel costs, and the local availability of quality technical staff increase the demand for effective distributed software development teams. This research reports an empirical study of how groupware can be used to aid distributed requirements engineering for a software development project. Six groups of seven to nine members were formed and divided into separate remote groups of customers and engineers. The engineers conducted a requirements analysis and produced a software requirements specification (SRS) document through distributed interaction with the remote customers. We present results and conclusions from the research including: an analysis of factors that effected the quality of the Software Requirements Specification document written at the conclusion of the requirements process and the effectiveness of requirements elicitation techniques which were used in a distributed setting for requirements gathering

Earth resources mission performance studies. Volume 1: Requirements definition

The need for a realistic set of earth resources collection requirements to test and maximize the data gathering capabilities of the EOS remote sensor systems is considered. The collection requirements will be derived from established user requirements. In order to confine and bound the requirements study, some baseline assumptions were established. These are: (1) image acquisition is confined to the contiguous United States, (2) the fundamental data users are select participating federal agencies, (3) the acquired data will be applied to generating information necessary or in support of existing federal agency charters, and (4) the most pressing or desired federal agency earth resources data requirements have been defined, suggested, or implied in current available literature

E-Science in the classroom - Towards viability

E-Science has the potential to transform school science by enabling learners, teachers and research scientists to engage together in authentic scientific enquiry, collaboration and learning. However, if we are to reap the benefits of this potential as part of everyday teaching and learning, we need to explicitly think about and support the work required to set up and run e-Science experiences within any particular educational context. In this paper, we present a framework for identifying and describing the resources, tools and services necessary to move e-Science into the classroom together with examples of these. This framework is derived from previous experiences conducting educational e-Science projects and systematic analysis of the categories of ‘hidden work’ needed to run these projects (Smith, Underwood, Fitzpatrick, & Luckin, forthcoming). The articulation of resources, tools and services based on these categories provides a starting point for more methodical design and deployment of future educational e- Science projects, reflection on which can also help further develop the framework. It also points to the technological infrastructure from which such tools and services could be built. As such it provides an agenda of work to develop both processes and technologies that would make it practical for teachers to deliver active, and collaborative e-Science learning experiences on a larger scale within and across schools. Routine school e- Science will only be possible if such support is specified, implemented and made available to teachers within their work contexts in an appropriate and usable form

A WebRTC Video Chat Implementation Within the Yioop Search Engine

Web real-time communication (abbreviated as WebRTC) is one of the latest Web application technologies that allows voice, video, and data to work collectively in a browser without a need for third-party plugins or proprietary software installation. When two browsers from different locations communicate with each other, they must know how to locate each other, bypass security and firewall protections, and transmit all multimedia communications in real time. This project not only illustrates how WebRTC technology works but also walks through a real example of video chat-style application. The application communicates between two remote users using WebSocket and the data encryption algorithm specified in WebRTC technology. This project concludes with a description of the WebRTC video chat application’s implementation in Yioop.com, a PHP-based internet search engine

Painting the ideal home: using art to express visions of technologically supported independent living for older people in North East England

This paper describes the investigation of the development of future technological products to support older people in everyday living through the agency of a community art group. Recent research has identified a number of challenges facing designers seeking to use traditional participatory design approaches to gather technology requirements data from older people. Here, a project is described that sought to get a group of older people to think creatively about their needs and desires for technological support through the medium of paint. The artistic expression technique described in this article allowed the identification of issues that had also been found by previous research that used a range of different techniques. This indicates that the approach shows promise, as it allows information to be gathered in an environment that is comfortable and familiar using methods already known by the participants and which they find enjoyable. It provides a complement (or possible alternative) to standard protocols and has the potential benefit of extracting even richer information as the primary task for participants is enjoyable in its own right and is not associated with an interrogative process. Furthermore, it is argued that some of the key risks of traditional approaches are lessened or removed by the naturalistic setting of this approach

Remote Control and Monitoring of Smart Home Facilities via Smartphone with Wi-Fly

Due to the widespread ownership of smartphone devices, the application of mobile technologies to enhance the monitoring and control of smart home facilities has attracted much academic attention. This study indicates that tools already in the possession of the end user can be a significant part of the specific context-aware system in the smart home. The behaviour of the system in the context of existing systems will reflect the intention of the client. This model system offers a diverse architectural concept for Wireless Sensor Actuator Mobile Computing in a Smart Home (WiSAMCinSH) and consists of sensors and actuators in various communication channels, with different capacities, paradigms, costs and degree of communication reliability. This paper focuses on the utilization of end users’ smartphone applications to control home devices, and to enable monitoring of the context-aware environment in the smart home to fulfil the needs of the ageing population. It investigates the application of an iPhone to supervise smart home monitoring and control electrical devices, and through this approach, after initial setup of the mobile application, a user can control devices in the smart home from different locations and over various distances

Telescience testbedding: An implementation approach

Telescience is the term used to describe a concept being developed by NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications (OSSA) under the Science and Applications Information System (SAIS) Program. This concept focuses on the development of an ability for all OSSA users to be remotely interactive with all provided information system services for the Space Station era. This concept includes access to services provided by both flight and ground components of the system and emphasizes the accommodation of users from their home institutions. Key to the development of the telescience capability is an implementation approach called rapid-prototype testbedding. This testbedding is used to validate the concept and test the applicability of emerging technologies and operational methodologies. Testbedding will be used to first determine the feasibility of an idea and then the applicability to real science usage. Once a concept is deemed viable, it will be integrated into the operational system for real time support. It is believed that this approach will greatly decrease the expense of implementing the eventual system and will enhance the resultant capabilities of the delivered system

Disease surveillance and patient care in remote regions: an exploratory study of collaboration among healthcare professionals in Amazonia

The development and deployment of information technology, particularly mobile tools, to support collaboration between different groups of healthcare professionals has been viewed as a promising way to improve disease surveillance and patient care in remote regions. The effects of global climate change combined with rapid changes to land cover and use in Amazonia are believed to be contributing to the spread of vector-borne emerging and neglected diseases. This makes empowering and providing support for local healthcare providers all the more important. We investigate the use of information technology in this context to support professionals whose activities range from diagnosing diseases and monitoring their spread to developing policies to deal with outbreaks. An analysis of stakeholders, their roles and requirements, is presented which encompasses results of fieldwork and of a process of design and prototyping complemented by questionnaires and targeted interviews. Findings are analysed with respect to the tasks of diagnosis, training of local healthcare professionals, and gathering, sharing and visualisation of data for purposes of epidemiological research and disease surveillance. Methodological issues regarding the elicitation of cooperation and collaboration requirements are discussed and implications are drawn with respect to the use of technology in tackling emerging and neglected diseases