An artefact repository to support distributed software engineering

The Open Source Component Artefact Repository (OSCAR) system is a component of the GENESIS platform designed to non-invasively inter-operate with work-flow management systems, development tools and existing repository systems to support a distributed software engineering team working collaboratively. Every artefact possesses a collection of associated meta-data, both standard and domain-specific presented as an XML document. Within OSCAR, artefacts are made aware of changes to related artefacts using notifications, allowing them to modify their own meta-data actively in contrast to other software repositories where users must perform all and any modifications, however trivial. This recording of events, including user interactions provides a complete picture of an artefact's life from creation to (eventual) retirement with the intention of supporting collaboration both amongst the members of the software engineering team and agents acting on their behalf

Open-source artefact management

This paper presents the GENESIS project, which aims to develop an open-source, light-weight, process-aware (and process-neutral) workflow management system. In particukar OSCAR, the artefact repository, is discussed. The requirements of a system for artefact management and storage are described, and the concept of active artefacts is explained. The software engineering methods which will be used in the project are described and some examples of the open-source tooles which may be used are described

Structural Complexity and Decay in FLOSS Systems: An Inter-Repository Study

Past software engineering literature has firmly established that software architectures and the associated code decay over time. Architectural decay is, potentially, a major issue in Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects, since developers sporadically joining FLOSS projects do not always have a clear understanding of the underlying architecture, and may break the overall conceptual structure by several small changes to the code base. This paper investigates whether the structure of a FLOSS system and its decay can also be influenced by the repository in which it is retained: specifically, two FLOSS repositories are studied to understand whether the complexity of the software structure in the sampled projects is comparable, or one repository hosts more complex systems than the other. It is also studied whether the effort to counteract this complexity is dependent on the repository, and the governance it gives to the hosted projects. The results of the paper are two-fold: on one side, it is shown that the repository hosting larger and more active projects presents more complex structures. On the other side, these larger and more complex systems benefit from more anti-regressive work to reduce this complexity

Repository-Based Software Engineering Program: Working Program Management Plan

Repository-Based Software Engineering Program (RBSE) is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sponsored program dedicated to introducing and supporting common, effective approaches to software engineering practices. The process of conceiving, designing, building, and maintaining software systems by using existing software assets that are stored in a specialized operational reuse library or repository, accessible to system designers, is the foundation of the program. In addition to operating a software repository, RBSE promotes (1) software engineering technology transfer, (2) academic and instructional support of reuse programs, (3) the use of common software engineering standards and practices, (4) software reuse technology research, and (5) interoperability between reuse libraries. This Program Management Plan (PMP) is intended to communicate program goals and objectives, describe major work areas, and define a management report and control process. This process will assist the Program Manager, University of Houston at Clear Lake (UHCL) in tracking work progress and describing major program activities to NASA management. The goal of this PMP is to make managing the RBSE program a relatively easy process that improves the work of all team members. The PMP describes work areas addressed and work efforts being accomplished by the program; however, it is not intended as a complete description of the program. Its focus is on providing management tools and management processes for monitoring, evaluating, and administering the program; and it includes schedules for charting milestones and deliveries of program products. The PMP was developed by soliciting and obtaining guidance from appropriate program participants, analyzing program management guidance, and reviewing related program management documents

The world OA iniciative for scientific communication in civil engineering and institutional repository as its answer – the case study of Slovenia. Poster presentation at 79th IFLA Congress.

Scientific communication in technics consists primarily of articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. In our research of 2026 articles, published in JCR journals in the field of civil engineering in 2007, we found out that 21% of them are published as open accessed articles, most of them as articles archived in institutional repositories. They reached 29% of all citations in the analysed period. In accordance with these findings, in 2011 the repository at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering was built in open source tool ePrints. 1400 theses as well as 200 research articles have been archived in it till January 2013. The library was one of the most important stakeholders in its building as it is still today. Each of the repository unit is linked into Slovenian bibliographical information system COBISS and its cataloguing part COBIB as well as the part of high valuated research works of Slovenian researchers SICRIS. The statistics (150.000 visits from all over the world in one year) is a motivation for us to develop it further. In the near future the connection to the Slovenian Digital Library (dLib.si) shall be established, which will ensure the preservation of metadata

Design and Implementation of a Method Base Management System for a Situational CASE Environment

Situational method engineering focuses on configuration of system development methods (SDMs) tuned to the situation of a project at hand. Situational methods are assembled from parts of existing SDMs, so called method fragments, that are selected to match the project situation. The complex task of selecting appropriate method fragments and assembling them into a method requires effective automated support. The paper describes the architecture of a tool prototype offering such support. We present the structure of its central repository, a method base containing method fragments. The functions to store, select and assemble these method fragments are offered by a stratified method base management system tool component, which is described as wel

Use Cases for Abnormal Behaviour Detection in Smart Homes

While people have many ideas about how a smart home should react to particular behaviours from their inhabitant, there seems to have been relatively little attempt to organise this systematically. In this paper, we attempt to rectify this in consideration of context awareness and novelty detection for a smart home that monitors its inhabitant for illness and unexpected behaviour. We do this through the concept of the Use Case, which is used in software engineering to specify the behaviour of a system. We describe a set of scenarios and the possible outputs that the smart home could give and introduce the SHMUC Repository of Smart Home Use Cases. Based on this, we can consider how probabilistic and logic-based reasoning systems would produce different capabilities

A Model-Driven Methodology Approach for Developing a Repository of Models

International audienceTo cope with the growing complexity of embedded system design, several development approaches have been proposed. The most popular are those using models as main artifacts to be constructed and maintained. The wanted role of models is to ease, systematize and standardize the approach of the construction of software-based systems. In order to enforce reuse and to interconnect the process of models’ specification and the system development with models, we promote a model-based approach coupled with a repository of models. In this paper, we propose a Model-Driven Engineering methodological approach for the development of a repository of models and an operational architecture for development tools. In particular, we show the feasibility of our own approach by reporting some preliminary prototype providing a model-based repository of security and dependability (S&D) pattern models

Architectural requirements for an open source component and artefact repository system within GENESIS

When software is being created by distributed teams of software engineers, it is necessary to manage the work-flow, processes, and artefacts which are involved in the engineering process. The GENESIS project aims to address some of the technical issues involved by providing a software system to support distributed development. One of the parts of the system will be known as OSCAR, a repository for managing distributed artefacts. Artefacts can be process models, software components, design documents, or any other kind of entity associated with the software engineering process. OSCAR will be designed as a light-weight distributed system, managing the storage and access to a distributed repository of artefacts. This paper presents and discusses the requirements for OSCAR, and suggests a possible architecture for a software system which will meet those requirements. OSCAR will be a reliable and light-weight distributed system, managing both artefacts and meta-data corresponding to the artefacts. Users of OSCAR will be able to access the distributed repository through a local interface, using the searching and indexing capabilities of the system to locate and retrieve components. OSCAR must be able to store and retrieve both artefacts and meta-data efficiently. It must be possible for OSCAR to inter-operate with existing artefact management systems (such as CVS) and to collect metrics about the contents of and accesses to the repository. The next stage in the GENESIS project is to complete the requirements for the whole of the system (in addition to the OSCAR sub-system) and then to design the software. The software will initially be developed in a traditional closed-source fashion until the first release is finished. After the first release, the GENESIS software will become open source, and will be developed accordingly