Blogging as a research and educational tool: a three years experience

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Learning Research Methods and Processes via Sharing Experience in a BLOG

Abstract — The goal is to increase knowledge about different research methods that have been employed in the information technology field by supporting the information exchange, collaboration, and cooperation between researchers. We stress the importance of sharing knowledge through storytelling. Welldesigned, well-told stories can help others learn from past situations to respond more effectively in future situation. A blog is presented where PhD students and researchers are invited to collaborate by providing their stories, reading and commenting existing stories. This infrastructure allows researchers and PhD students to write the contents posing questions and finding answers on the relationship between research process and research results

Learning research methods via experience sharing

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Toward Inclusion of Children as Software Engineering Stakeholders

Background: A growing amount of software is available to children today. Children use both software that has been explicitly developed for them and software for general users. While they obtain clear benefits from software, such as access to creativity tools and learning resources, children are also exposed to several risks and disadvantages, such as privacy violation, inactivity, or safety risks that can even lead to death. The research and development community is addressing and investigating positive and negative impacts of software for children one by one, but no comprehensive model exists that relates software engineering and children as stakeholders in their own right. Aims: The final objective of this line of research is to propose effective ways in which children can be involved in Software Engineering activities as stakeholders. Specifically, in this paper, we investigate the quality aspects that are of interest for children, as quality is a crucial aspect in the development of any kind of software, especially for stakeholders like children. Method: Our contribution is based mainly on an analysis of studies at the intersection between Software Engineering (especially software quality) and Child Computer Interaction. Results: We identify a set of qualities and a preliminary set of guidelines that can be used by researchers and practitioners in understanding the complex interrelations between Software Engineering and children. Based on the qualities and the guidelines, researchers can design empirical investigations to obtain deeper insights into the phenomenon and propose new Software Engineering knowledge specific for this type of stakeholders. Conclusions: This conceptualization is a first step towards a framework to support children as stakeholders in software engineering

Learning Research Methods via Experience Sharing

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