A general framework for positioning, evaluating and selecting the new generation of development tools.

This paper focuses on the evaluation and positioning of a new generation of development tools containing subtools (report generators, browsers, debuggers, GUI-builders, ...) and programming languages that are designed to work together and have a common graphical user interface and are therefore called environments. Several trends in IT have led to a pluriform range of developments tools that can be classified in numerous categories. Examples are: object-oriented tools, GUI-tools, upper- and lower CASE-tools, client/server tools and 4GL environments. This classification does not sufficiently cover the tools subject in this paper for the simple reason that only one criterion is used to distinguish them. Modern visual development environments often fit in several categories because to a certain extent, several criteria can be applied to evaluate them. In this study, we will offer a broad classification scheme with which tools can be positioned and which can be refined through further research.

Open Source Software: From Open Science to New Marketing Models

-Open source Software; Intellectual Property; Licensing; Business Model.

The adoption of open sources within higher education in Europe : a dissemination case study

For some time now, the open-source (OS) phenomenon has been making its presence felt; disrupting the economics of the software industry and, by proxy, the business of education. A combination of the financial pressure Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) find themselves under and the increasing focus on the use of technology to enhance students' learning have encouraged many HEIs to look towards alternative approaches to teaching and learning. Meanwhile, the "OS" has challenged assumptions about how intellectual products are created and protected and has greatly increased the quantity and arguably the quality of educational technologies available to HEIs

Evaluating the Applicability of Requirements Engineering Tools for Distributed Software Development

Requirements engineering (RE) is the first part of the software engineering process. It consists of distinct phases in which certain stakeholders deal with the problem of creating and maintaining a systems requirements document. This artifact should clarify what the customer expects from the system and how the developer should design it. RE is often mentioned as the most critical phase in the software development process. Mistakes made during the requirements phase can cost up to a hundred times more than coding errors. Moreover, The Standish Group International (2003) found out, that on average only 54%, of the originally defined features of a project are delivered and 45% of those features that are delivered are never used. Misidentified requirements are the most significant source of customer dissatisfaction with delivered systems. The problem of creating the requirements document is reinforced through geographical distance between the different people involved in the RE process. Not only the distance between customers or users and the engineers constitutes a problem, often the engineers themselves are distributed all over the world, e.g. due to outsourcing decisions and offshoring projects. The number of firms participating in global software development was low, but today 203 of the US Fortune 500 engage in offshore outsourcing endeavors. Today, more than 50 nations participate in collaborative software development projects internationally. The reasons are cost advantages and a large and well-educated pool of labor—India is a famous example. Although RE is always distributed in some way due to the distance between the different stakeholders, the term distributed RE is used to emphasize the distance between them, e.g. in global RE processes. Instead of using simple text files or diagrams for communicating both requirements and possible changes to them, nowadays a lot of tools from different vendors exist to help mastering the RE process. These tools belong to the class of so-called computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tools. Many tools support a multi-user environment that is needed for distributed RE. These tools are intended to help overcoming some of the problems mentioned before. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to give an overview over existing RE tools on the market and to evaluate how they support the different phases of RE - especially a distributed RE process. The paper is structured as follows: In chapter 2 the generic phases of the RE process are shortly described, followed by a short market overview of tools in chapter 3. The four market leading tools are evaluated in detail in chapter 4, supplemented by a short description of some interesting other tools, especially from smaller German providers. Finally, chapter 5 summarizes the results of the evaluation

Codified-Tacit and General-Specific Knowledge in the division of labour among firms. A study of the Software Industry

This paper addresses the organisation and codification of knowledge in the software industry. It analyses various economic incentives to codification, including the need to improve the productivity and quality of software production processes and to access inter-firm collaborations. The paper examines the experience of four Italian software firms specialised in software packages and services. It compares their capabilities, the main sources of tacit knowledge, their specific incentives to invest in knowledge codification, their usage of formal software development methodologies and quality control systems. Finally, the paper analyses two distinct technological collaborations that two of these firms have recently established.

How can SMEs benefit from big data? Challenges and a path forward

Big data is big news, and large companies in all sectors are making significant advances in their customer relations, product selection and development and consequent profitability through using this valuable commodity. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have proved themselves to be slow adopters of the new technology of big data analytics and are in danger of being left behind. In Europe, SMEs are a vital part of the economy, and the challenges they encounter need to be addressed as a matter of urgency. This paper identifies barriers to SME uptake of big data analytics and recognises their complex challenge to all stakeholders, including national and international policy makers, IT, business management and data science communities. The paper proposes a big data maturity model for SMEs as a first step towards an SME roadmap to data analytics. It considers the ‘state-of-the-art’ of IT with respect to usability and usefulness for SMEs and discusses how SMEs can overcome the barriers preventing them from adopting existing solutions. The paper then considers management perspectives and the role of maturity models in enhancing and structuring the adoption of data analytics in an organisation. The history of total quality management is reviewed to inform the core aspects of implanting a new paradigm. The paper concludes with recommendations to help SMEs develop their big data capability and enable them to continue as the engines of European industrial and business success. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

From SpaceStat to CyberGIS: Twenty Years of Spatial Data Analysis Software

This essay assesses the evolution of the way in which spatial data analytical methods have been incorporated into software tools over the past two decades. It is part retrospective and prospective, going beyond a historical review to outline some ideas about important factors that drove the software development, such as methodological advances, the open source movement and the advent of the internet and cyberinfrastructure. The review highlights activities carried out by the author and his collaborators and uses SpaceStat, GeoDa, PySAL and recent spatial analytical web services developed at the ASU GeoDa Center as illustrative examples. It outlines a vision for a spatial econometrics workbench as an example of the incorporation of spatial analytical functionality in a cyberGIS.

Agent-based modeling: a systematic assessment of use cases and requirements for enhancing pharmaceutical research and development productivity.

A crisis continues to brew within the pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) enterprise: productivity continues declining as costs rise, despite ongoing, often dramatic scientific and technical advances. To reverse this trend, we offer various suggestions for both the expansion and broader adoption of modeling and simulation (M&S) methods. We suggest strategies and scenarios intended to enable new M&S use cases that directly engage R&D knowledge generation and build actionable mechanistic insight, thereby opening the door to enhanced productivity. What M&S requirements must be satisfied to access and open the door, and begin reversing the productivity decline? Can current methods and tools fulfill the requirements, or are new methods necessary? We draw on the relevant, recent literature to provide and explore answers. In so doing, we identify essential, key roles for agent-based and other methods. We assemble a list of requirements necessary for M&S to meet the diverse needs distilled from a collection of research, review, and opinion articles. We argue that to realize its full potential, M&S should be actualized within a larger information technology framework--a dynamic knowledge repository--wherein models of various types execute, evolve, and increase in accuracy over time. We offer some details of the issues that must be addressed for such a repository to accrue the capabilities needed to reverse the productivity decline