Sustainable Software Ecosystems for Open Science

Sustainable software ecosystems are difficult to build, and require concerted effort, community norms and collaborations. In science it is especially important to establish communities in which faculty, staff, students and open-source professionals work together and treat software as a first-class product of scientific investigation-just as mathematics is treated in the physical sciences. Kitware has a rich history of establishing collaborative projects in the science, engineering and medical research fields, and continues to work on improving that model as new technologies and approaches become available. This approach closely follows and is enhanced by the movement towards practicing open, reproducible research in the sciences where data, source code, methodology and approach are all available so that complex experiments can be independently reproduced and verified.Comment: Workshop on Sustainable Software: Practices and Experiences, 4 pages, 3 figure

Enablers and Impediments for Collaborative Research in Software Testing: An Empirical Exploration

When it comes to industrial organizations, current collaboration efforts in software engineering research are very often kept in-house, depriving these organizations off the skills necessary to build independent collaborative research. The current trend, towards empirical software engineering research, requires certain standards to be established which would guide these collaborative efforts in creating a strong partnership that promotes independent, evidence-based, software engineering research. This paper examines key enabling factors for an efficient and effective industry-academia collaboration in the software testing domain. A major finding of the research was that while technology is a strong enabler to better collaboration, it must be complemented with industrial openness to disclose research results and the use of a dedicated tooling platform. We use as an example an automated test generation approach that has been developed in the last two years collaboratively with Bombardier Transportation AB in Sweden

Challenges of open innovation: the paradox of firm investment in open-source software

Open innovation is a powerful framework encompassing the generation, capture, and employment of intellectual property at the firm level. We identify three fundamental challenges for firms in applying the concept of open innovation: finding creative ways to exploit internal innovation, incorporating external innovation into internal development, and motivating outsiders to supply an ongoing stream of external innovations. This latter challenge involves a paradox, why would firms spend money on R&D efforts if the results of these efforts are available to rival firms? To explore these challenges, we examine the activity of firms in opensource software to support their innovation strategies. Firms involved in open-source software often make investments that will be shared with real and potential rivals. We identify four strategies firms employ – pooled R&D/product development, spinouts, selling complements and attracting donated complements – and discuss how they address the three key challenges of open innovation. We conclude with suggestions for how similar strategies may apply in other industries and offer some possible avenues for future research on open innovation

Developing the Curriculum for Collaborative Intellectual Property Education

Intellectual property education, i.e. how intellectual property should be taught or more importantly how intellectual property is learnt, is a recent addition to the academic 'intellectual property' agenda. The regulation, acquisition and management of intellectual property rights presents economic, ethical, social and policy challenges across the international academic and business communities. Intellectual property is also the starting point of interesting academic cross-disciplinary collaborations in learning and teaching and in research. It will probably always be primarily a law subject taught by lawyers to law students hoping to practice. At the same time there is a growing array of disciplines demanding an awareness of and a competence in handling intellectual property concepts and regulations. At Bournemouth, we have been teaching IP across the disciplines for more than a decade. Recently, the Higher Education Academy subject centres in Law and in Engineering jointly funded a project to research 'IP for Engineers'. WIPO has begun addressing IP Education in earnest. At an international symposium in July 2005, papers addressed different aspects of IP Education, including Collaboration between Law Faculties and other disciplines. In November 2005, they jointly sponsored a National Conference in China to consider IP Education from primary school thru postgraduate research. IP education beyond the law school raises interesting questions for anyone contemplating teaching this complex law subject to non-lawyers. What constitutes the IP syllabus? Who should be teaching IP? When should it be taught? How should it be taught? What resources should be available? This paper begins to explore some of the answers

FOREIGN PROFESSIONALS AND DOMESTIC REGULATION

Changes in demographics and patterns of investment in human capital are creating increased scope for international trade in professional services. The scope for mutually beneficial trade is, however, inhibited not only by quotas and discriminatory taxation, but also by domestic regulation -- including a range of qualification and licensing requirements and procedures. To illustrate the nature and implications of these regulatory impediments, this paper presents a detailed description of the regulatory requirements faced in the United States market by four types of Indian professionals: doctors, engineers, architects, and accountants. India is one of the largest exporters of skilled services, and the United States is one of the largest importers of skilled services, so these two countries reflect broader global trends. The paper argues that regulatory discrimination, for example through preferential recognition agreements, has implications both for the pattern of trade and for welfare. It presents some illustrative estimates that suggest the economic cost of regulations may be substantial. The paper concludes by examining how the trade-inhibiting impact of regulatory requirements could be addressed through bilateral and multilateral negotiations.Accreditation; architect; architects; Architecture; barriers to entry; board meeting; candidate; candidates; career; career advancement; Certificate;

IP Basics: Advice on IP Careers for Those with Technical Backgrounds

[Excerpt] Full-time law school takes three years and culminates in the Juris Doctor. A J.D. from a school accredited by the American Bar Association qualifies a person to take the bar exam in any state. As mentioned above, college graduates need not pursue any particular line of study to be accepted into law school. At the University of New Hampshire School of Law, for example, over a third of our students have degrees in engineering or science, and many have had extensive experience or advanced degrees, including M.D.s and Ph.Ds. -- the last being particularly helpful for biotechnology patent careers