Wikis of Locality: Insights from the Open Guides

In this paper we describe an emerging form of wikis - wikis of locality – that support physical rather than virtual communities. We draw on our experience as administrators of the Open Guide to Milton Keynes, one of the Open Guides family of community developed local information guides built using wiki software, and present observations of the potential value and unique characteristics of wikis of locality from a practitioner’s perspective. Preliminary findings from a current survey of other Open Guide administrators are presented to highlight types of usage, issues and potential areas for future research

Weaki - A weakly-typed wiki for incremental software knowledge acquisition

O desenvolvimento de software pode ser visto como a última etapa de um processo de aquisição de conhecimento, durante o qual o conhecimento adquirido se acumula e evolui para um código fonte que cumpre um conjunto de condições previamente definidas pelos stakeholders. O conhecimento adquirido desta forma é armazenado sob a forma de artefactos de software, artefactos estes que têm dois aspectos diferentes: a estrutura e o conteúdo, que são muito difíceis de alterar em separado um do outro.Para gerir o conhecimento adquirido e a complexidade do processo de aquisição existem métodos, práticas e ferramentas que são de maneira geral usados ​​para facilitar a aquisição de conhecimentos e o seu processamento. Entre essas ferramentas, um dos mais populares são as wikis.Wikis proporcionam uma boa plataforma para gerir o conhecimento para além de suportarem trabalho colaborativo. No entanto para além do que as wikis já fornecem, seria útil se estas tivessem suporte para outros aspectos, tais como o reconhecimento de estruturas de conhecimento e suporte para a sua evolução à medida que conhecimento é adquirido e as mudanças que sofre ao longo do tempo.O principal objetivo deste trabalho é desenvolver uma extensão para um wiki já existente, adicionando funcionalidades para apoiar o reconhecimento da estruturas da informação, assim como na inferência dessas estruturas pelo conteúdo, com o objetivo de auxiliar no desenvolvimento de artefactos de documentação de software, ao permitir um aumento gradual na formalização da sua estrutura e do seu conteúdo. A utilidade da extensão da wiki foi validada através de uma experiência empírica envolvendo estudantes.Software development can be seen as the final stage in a process of knowledge acquisition, during which the acquired knowledge accumulates and evolves towards a source code that fulfills a set of conditions previously defined by the stakeholders. The knowledge acquired this way is stored in the form of software artifacts which have two different aspects: structure and content, that are very difficult to change separately from each other. To manage the acquired knowledge and the complexity of the acquisition process there are methods, practices and tools that are commonly used to facilitate the acquisition and processing of knowledge. Among these tools, one of the most popular are the wikis. Wikis provide a good platform to manage knowledge while also supporting collaborative work. However beyond what wikis already provide, it would be useful if they had other aspects such as the recognition of knowledge structures and the support for its evolutionary behaviour. The main goal of this work is to develop an extension to an existing wiki, by adding the functionalities to support structure recognition and type inference, with the goal of aiding in the development of software documentation artifacts, allowing for a gradual increase in the formalization of its structure and content. The usefulness of the wiki extension was validated through and empirical experience with students

Chapter 4 Traceability in the Co-evolution of Architectural Requirements and Design

Abstract Requirements and architectural design specifications can be conflicting and inconsistent, especially during the design period when requirements and architectural design are co-evolving. One reason is that stakeholders do not have up-to-date knowledge of each other’s work to fully understand potential conflicts and inconsistencies. Specifications are often documented in a natural language, which also makes it difficult for tracing related information automatically. In this chapter, we introduce a general-purpose ontology that we have developed to address this problem. We demonstrate an implementation of semantic wiki that supports traceability of co-evolving requirements specifications and architecture design. Let us begin by considering a typical software architecting scenario: A team of business analysts and users work on a new software system in an organization. The business analysts and users document the business goals, use-case scenarios, system and data requirements in a requirements document. The team of software and system architects studie

Towards a Model-Centric Software Testing Life Cycle for Early and Consistent Testing Activities

The constant improvement of the available computing power nowadays enables the accomplishment of more and more complex tasks. The resulting implicit increase in the complexity of hardware and software solutions for realizing the desired functionality requires a constant improvement of the development methods used. On the one hand over the last decades the percentage of agile development practices, as well as testdriven development increases. On the other hand, this trend results in the need to reduce the complexity with suitable methods. At this point, the concept of abstraction comes into play, which manifests itself in model-based approaches such as MDSD or MBT. The thesis is motivated by the fact that the earliest possible detection and elimination of faults has a significant influence on product costs. Therefore, a holistic approach is developed in the context of model-driven development, which allows applying testing already in early phases and especially on the model artifacts, i.e. it provides a shift left of the testing activities. To comprehensively address the complexity problem, a modelcentric software testing life cycle is developed that maps the process steps and artifacts of classical testing to the model-level. Therefore, the conceptual basis is first created by putting the available model artifacts of all domains into context. In particular, structural mappings are specified across the included domain-specific model artifacts to establish a sufficient basis for all the process steps of the life cycle. Besides, a flexible metamodel including operational semantics is developed, which enables experts to carry out an abstract test execution on the modellevel. Based on this, approaches for test case management, automated test case generation, evaluation of test cases, and quality verification of test cases are developed. In the context of test case management, a mechanism is realized that enables the selection, prioritization, and reduction of Test Model artifacts usable for test case generation. I.e. a targeted set of test cases is generated satisfying quality criteria like coverage at the model-level. These quality requirements are accomplished by using a mutation-based analysis of the identified test cases, which builds on the model basis. As the last step of the model-centered software testing life cycle two approaches are presented, allowing an abstract execution of the test cases in the model context through structural analysis and a form of model interpretation concerning data flow information. All the approaches for accomplishing the problem are placed in the context of related work, as well as examined for their feasibility by of a prototypical implementation within the Architecture And Analysis Framework. Subsequently, the described approaches and their concepts are evaluated by qualitative as well as quantitative evaluation. Moreover, case studies show the practical applicability of the approach

Adaptive object-modeling : patterns, tools and applications

Tese de Programa Doutoral. Informática. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 201

Developing Collaborative XML Editing Systems

In many areas the eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML) is becoming the standard exchange and data format. More and more applications not only support XML as an exchange format but also use it as their data model or default file format for graphic, text and database (such as spreadsheet) applications. Computer Supported Cooperative Work is an interdisciplinary field of research dealing with group work, cooperation and their supporting information and communication technologies. One part of it is Real-Time Collaborative Editing, which investigates the design of systems which allow several persons to work simultaneously in real-time on the same document, without the risk of inconsistencies. Existing collaborative editing research applications specialize in one or at best, only a small number of document types; for example graphic, text or spreadsheet documents. This research investigates the development of a software framework which allows collaborative editing of any XML document type in real-time. This presents a more versatile solution to the problems of real-time collaborative editing. This research contributes a new software framework model which will assist software engineers in the development of new collaborative XML editing applications. The devised framework is flexible in the sense that it is easily adaptable to different workflow requirements covering concurrency control, awareness mechanisms and optional locking of document parts. Additionally this thesis contributes a new framework integration strategy that enables enhancements of existing single-user editing applications with real-time collaborative editing features without changing their source code

Librería de activos para la gestión del conocimiento sobre procesos software: PAL-Wiki

La mejora de procesos de software describe las acciones a tomar para cambiar el proceso en la organización y así cumplir las necesidades de negocio y lograr sus objetivos de negocio más efectivamente. Para lograr la implementación de estrategias de mejora del proceso se debe crear una infraestructura con soporte a la definición, despliegue y realimentación del proceso y otras actividades relacionadas con el proceso Una de tales infraestructuras de soporte son las librerías de activos de proceso (Process Asset Library - PAL). Las PAL son repositorios de documentos con información útil para el personal que está definiendo, implementando, gestionando y ejecutando procesos en las organizaciones. Las PAL también contribuyen al aprendizaje de procesos por medio de la consulta de activos que incluyan ejemplos y material de formación para entender y aplicar los procesos definidos. Sin embargo, actualmente las PAL presentan algunos problemas: almacenan conocimiento formal pero sólo en algunas está estructurado y estandarizado según algún modelo de referencia; el conocimiento informal y tácito no está incluido; la medición y preservación de los activos es un proceso difícil de implementar; se requiere la definición de los activos de forma colaborativa, estrategias adecuadas de búsqueda de activos; y el almacenamiento de activos aplicados durante el desarrollo de proyectos específicos. Para solucionar estos problemas, esta tesis doctoral plantea la incorporación de técnicas de gestión del conocimiento basadas en tecnologías Web 2.0. Específicamente, se ha utilizado una wiki como mecanismo para desarrollar la solución propuesta denominada PAL-Wiki. La PAL-Wiki se caracteriza por implementar un conjunto de procesos de gestión del conocimiento que apoya el aprendizaje y uso de procesos de software. Las funciones de gestión del conocimiento incluyen: adquisición, organización, distribución, utilización, preservación y medición del conocimiento sobre el proceso de software. La PAL-Wiki ha sido validada por medio de su aplicación en procesos de desarrollo ágiles.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Software Process Improvement describes the actions to be taken to change the process in the organization and thus meeting the business needs and achieve their business objectives more effectively. To achieve the implementation of process improvement strategies should create an infrastructure to support the definition, deployment and feedback of the process and other activities related to the process. One such support infrastructure is the Process Asset Library - PAL. PALs are repositories of documents with useful information for staff that are defining, implementing, managing and executing processes in the organizations. The PAL also contributes to the learning process through the query of assets, including examples and training materials to understand and implement the defined processes. However, currently the PALs present some problems: formal knowledge stored but only some are structured and standardized according to a reference model, the informal and tacit knowledge is not included, and measuring and preservation of assets is a difficult process to implement; requires the definition of assets in a collaborative manner, appropriate strategies for searching assets and storage assets used during the development of specific projects. To solve these problems, this thesis proposes the incorporation of Knowledge Management techniques based on Web 2.0 technologies. Specifically, a wiki is used as a mechanism to develop the proposed solution called PAL-Wiki. The PAL-Wiki is characterized by implementing a set of knowledge management processes that support the learning and use of software processes. The knowledge management functions include: acquisition, organization, distribution, use, preservation and measurement of knowledge about the software process. The PAL-Wiki has been validated through its application in agile development processes