A Conceptual MAP of Software Process Improvement

Software organisations have for many years struggled to mature engineering practices using a variety of approaches. Over the last decade a new approach, known as software process improvement (SPI), has emerged and become widely used in the software industry. In this paper we position SPI in the landscape of initiatives that can be used in software organisations to mature their operations. A map is offered describing the characteristic features of SPI initiatives, the benefits and risks related to such initiatives, and the relations to complementary approaches to professionalise the industry. The map highlights management, approach, and perspective as three main concerns of SPI and lists three key ideas for each of these concerns. The map is based on an extensive survey of the SPI literature combined with experiences from SPI practice. Practitioners can use the map strategically to make decisions on whether to initiate SPI initiatives, to integrate SPI efforts with other improvement initiatives, and, more generally, to create and manage improvement programs based on SPI ideas. Researchers can use the map to identify key questions and areas of knowledge that can fruitfully inform SPI theory and practice

Developing Engineering Learning Objects Online Portal with LabVIEW and an Open Source Web Content Management System

Learning objects (LOs) are independent chunks of knowledge normally used for instructional or learning purposes. LOs are normally reusable in the sense that they can be adopted and adapted for various learning and instructional scenarios. They are also tagged with metadata which includes descriptive information allowing them to be used and searched easily. LOs are sometimes metaphored as being a LEGO. Examples of LOs could contain multimedia content, instructional content, learning objectives, instructional software and software tools, and computer simulations. Many LOs are designed to be mediated online. In engineering education, computer simulations based learning objects could be the most beneficial for conveying hard engineering concepts for the engineering science learner. Computer simulations have been reported to facilitate conceptual understanding and leaving positive impact on students learning in numerous number of engineering education research articles. In the last two decades, many software packages have been developed for enhancing the engineering design and analysis process, examples are Matlab/Simulink, PSpice, LabVIEW, etc. These has been used consequently by academics for enhancing their students learning. LabVIEW is one of the most versatile computer software packages. It is used comprehensively in the industry as well as in academia. LabVIEW started as computer software interface of PC based data question equipments, however, it has grown much beyond that offering comprehensive toolkits and already implemented functions. Also it has great connectivity facilities with Matlab/Simulink, C++, and Visual Basic allowing communicating already developed codes in the latter with its core engine. The other important specification of LabVIEW is its embedded internet tools enabling publishing its programmed GUIs on the world wide web in easy and handy way. Web content management systems is the third generation of web publishing applications after HTML and web authoring software packages such as FrontPage and Dreamweaver. It is used to manage and control a large, dynamic collection of Web material (HTML documents and their associated images). A WCMS facilitates content creation, content control, editing, and many essential Web maintenance functions. In contrast with the web development tools such as HTML, FrontPage, Dreamweaver, etc., a CMS enables faster development, cost effectiveness, and online flexibility. The basic idea of any web content management system is that a non-technical person often needs to be able to keep their own website up-to-date without having to call on a web developer to make changes every time. Of course there are some things that can only be done by a web developer, but for simpler tasks such as changing the wording of a paragraph, it is an unnecessary burden and expense for both parties if you have to get a developer to make the changes. This paper provides an A to Z prescription of implementing a standardized Learning Objects online portal. This describing in detail a LabVIEW based Learning Object architecture, using a proper IEEE LOM metadata generation tool, and finally how on the top of that a Joomla web content management system can be used for developing the online portal

A survey of agent-oriented methodologies

This article introduces the current agent-oriented methodologies. It discusses what approaches have been followed (mainly extending existing object oriented and knowledge engineering methodologies), the suitability of these approaches for agent modelling, and some conclusions drawn from the survey

Advanced Techniques for Assets Maintenance Management

16th IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing INCOM 2018 Bergamo, Italy, 11–13 June 2018. Edited by Marco Macchi, László Monostori, Roberto PintoThe aim of this paper is to remark the importance of new and advanced techniques supporting decision making in different business processes for maintenance and assets management, as well as the basic need of adopting a certain management framework with a clear processes map and the corresponding IT supporting systems. Framework processes and systems will be the key fundamental enablers for success and for continuous improvement. The suggested framework will help to define and improve business policies and work procedures for the assets operation and maintenance along their life cycle. The following sections present some achievements on this focus, proposing finally possible future lines for a research agenda within this field of assets management

Supporting collaboration within the eScience community

Collaboration is a core activity at the heart of large-scale co- operative scientific experimentation. In order to support the emergence of Grid-based scientific collaboration, new models of e-Science working methods are needed. Scientific collaboration involves production and manipulation of various artefacts. Based on work done in the software engineering field, this paper proposes models and tools which will support the representation and production of such artefacts. It is necessary to provide facilities to classify, organise, acquire, process, share, and reuse artefacts generated during collaborative working. The concept of a "design space" will be used to organise scientific design and the composition of experiments, and methods such as self-organising maps will be used to support the reuse of existing artefacts. It is proposed that this work can be carried out and evaluated in the UK e-Science community, using an "industry as laboratory" approach to the research, building on the knowledge, expertise, and experience of those directly involved in e-Science

A framework for developing engineering design ontologies within the aerospace industry

This paper presents a framework for developing engineering design ontologies within the aerospace industry. The aim of this approach is to strengthen the modularity and reuse of engineering design ontologies to support knowledge management initiatives within the aerospace industry. Successful development and effective utilisation of engineering ontologies strongly depends on the method/framework used to develop them. Ensuring modularity in ontology design is essential for engineering design activities due to the complexity of knowledge that is required to be brought together to support the product design decision-making process. The proposed approach adopts best practices from previous ontology development methods, but focuses on encouraging modular architectural ontology design. The framework is comprised of three phases namely: (1) Ontology design and development; (2) Ontology validation and (3) Implementation of ontology structure. A qualitative research methodology is employed which is composed of four phases. The first phase defines the capture of knowledge required for the framework development, followed by the ontology framework development, iterative refinement of engineering ontologies and ontology validation through case studies and experts’ opinion. The ontology-based framework is applied in the combustor and casing aerospace engineering domain. The modular ontologies developed as a result of applying the framework and are used in a case study to restructure and improve the accessibility of information on a product design information-sharing platform. Additionally, domain experts within the aerospace industry validated the strengths, benefits and limitations of the framework. Due to the modular nature of the developed ontologies, they were also employed to support other project initiatives within the case study company such as role-based computing (RBC), IT modernisation activity and knowledge management implementation across the sponsoring organisation. The major benefit of this approach is in the reduction of man-hours required for maintaining engineering design ontologies. Furthermore, this approach strengthens reuse of ontology knowledge and encourages modularity in the design and development of engineering ontologies

Construction of a taxonomy for requirements engineering commercial-off-the-shelf components

This article presents a procedure for constructing a taxonomy of COTS products in the field of Requirements Engineering (RE). The taxonomy and the obtained information reach transcendental benefits to the selection of systems and tools that aid to RE-related actors to simplify and facilitate their work. This taxonomy is performed by means of a goal-oriented methodology inspired in GBRAM (Goal-Based Requirements Analysis Method), called GBTCM (Goal-Based Taxonomy Construction Method), that provides a guide to analyze sources of information and modeling requirements and domains, as well as gathering and organizing the knowledge in any segment of the COTS market. GBTCM claims to promote the use of standards and the reuse of requirements in order to support different processes of selection and integration of components.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Using Ontologies for the Design of Data Warehouses

Obtaining an implementation of a data warehouse is a complex task that forces designers to acquire wide knowledge of the domain, thus requiring a high level of expertise and becoming it a prone-to-fail task. Based on our experience, we have detected a set of situations we have faced up with in real-world projects in which we believe that the use of ontologies will improve several aspects of the design of data warehouses. The aim of this article is to describe several shortcomings of current data warehouse design approaches and discuss the benefit of using ontologies to overcome them. This work is a starting point for discussing the convenience of using ontologies in data warehouse design.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure