Enterprise applications: taking the open source option seriously

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is becoming more popular. Nevertheless most CIOs wouldn’t even consider this option for their enterprise information technology needs. We found that the three main concerns about FOSS have to do with legal issues, costs and support. We propose an initial framework to look at FOSS in a balanced, unbiased and systematic manner that can be used for evaluation of specific scenarios from very small companies to large ones.The past and the future of information systems: 1976-2006 and beyondRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Teaching it to managers or teaching management to engineers? : None of the above

Information Technology (IT) has been the greatest wealth generator of the last two decades and there is an increasing number of managers who see IT as a strategic weapon and want to harvest their profits. MBA programs are starting to incorporate IT but many times this component gets relegated to one or two irrelevant courses that nobody likes. The opposite direction of adding one or two courses of management to a typical IT program will not produce the future CEO that is needed. We present here our experience with a new program that takes the best of the two worlds. A balanced curriculum (50-50) can be made strong enough in management and in technology. The mixed background of students produces a rich environment where students with business backgrounds benefit from students with IT backgrounds and viceversa. The preliminary evaluation of this experience is very positive.Education for the 21 st century - impact of ICT and Digital Resources ConferenceRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Enterprise applications: taking the open source option seriously

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is becoming more popular. Nevertheless most CIOs wouldn’t even consider this option for their enterprise information technology needs. We found that the three main concerns about FOSS have to do with legal issues, costs and support. We propose an initial framework to look at FOSS in a balanced, unbiased and systematic manner that can be used for evaluation of specific scenarios from very small companies to large ones.The past and the future of information systems: 1976-2006 and beyondRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Learning Experience Assessment of flipped courses

International audienceThe flipped classroom has shown a positive effect on academic performance and student satisfaction. However, there are relatively few studies that help us understand when or why this method has a positive effect on students, so as to aid the design of a flipped class. In this study, an instrument for assessing the student learning experience in flipped courses is proposed and validated, comparing the results of their application over two semesters in a university-level programming class with three flipped sections (n = 151) and four conventional ones (n = 226). We found that with a similar score in terms of learning experience, the achievement in a flipped course is slightly higher than in a lecture-based course, F(1,108) = 4.20, p = 0.04, d = 0.19. A multiple regression analysis was conducted for the effect on achievement of GPA, level of challenge, feedback and enjoyment. By controlling for these factors, students in flipped classes achieved higher scores than students in lecture-based courses, β = 0.1, t(370) = 2.4, p = 0.02. The expected improvement in achievement increases when features of the flipped classroom improve the student experience. Our results suggest that the design of a flipped class should consider the effect of different implementation features on student experience in order to select the most appropriate ones for a particular context

MobiCOP: A Scalable and Reliable Mobile Code Offloading Solution

Code offloading is a popular technique for extending the natural capabilities of mobile devices by migrating processor-intensive tasks to resource-rich surrogates. Despite multiple platforms for offloading being available in academia, these frameworks have yet to permeate the industry. One of the primary reasons for this is limited experimentation in practical settings and lack of reliability, scalability, and options for distribution. This paper introduces MobiCOP, a new code offloading framework designed from the ground up with these requirements in mind. It features a novel design fully self-contained in a library and offers compatibility with most stock Android devices available today. Compared to local task executions, MobiCOP offers performance improvements of up to 17x and increased battery efficiency of up to 25x, shows minimum performance degradation in environments with unstable networks, and features an autoscaling module that allows its server counterpart to scale to an arbitrary number of offloading requests. It is compatible with the most relevant Android technologies optimized for heavy computation (NDK and Renderscript) and has so far been well received by fellow mobile developers. We hope MobiCOP will help bring mobile code offloading closer to the industry realm