A process based approach software certification model for agile and secure environment

In today’s business environment, Agile and secure software processes are essential since they bring high quality and secured software to market faster and more cost effectively. Unfortunately, some software practitioners are not following the proper practices of both processes when developing software. There exist various studies which assess the quality of software process; nevertheless, their focus is on the conventional software process. Furthermore, they do not consider weight values in the assessment although each evaluation criterion might have different importance. Consequently, software certification is needed to give conformance on the quality of Agile and secure software processes. Therefore, the objective of this thesis is to propose Extended Software Process Assessment and Certification Model (ESPAC) which addresses both software processes and considers the weight values during the assessment. The study is conducted in four phases: 1) theoretical study to examine the factors and practices that influence the quality of Agile and secure software processes and weight value allocation techniques, 2) an exploratory study which was participated by 114 software practitioners to investigate their current practices, 3) development of an enhanced software process certification model which considers process, people, technology, project constraint and environment, provides certification guideline and utilizes the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for weight values allocation and 4) verification of Agile and secure software processes and AHP through expert reviews followed by validation on satisfaction and practicality of the proposed model through focus group discussion. The validation result shows that ESPAC Model gained software practitioners’ satisfaction and practical to be executed in the real environment. The contributions of this study straddle research perspectives of Software Process Assessment and Certification and Multiple Criteria Decision Making, and practical perspectives by providing software practitioners and assessors a mechanism to reveal the quality of software process and helps investors and customers in making investment decisions

Enhancing student's interest and achievement in programming 1 subject through pair programming

Purpose - Fear of programming subject is very common among Bachelor of Science in Information Technology novice students, since it is one of the most difficult subjects taken by them. Similarly, the lecturers face high challenges in delivering this subject.The students’ interest need to be gained so that they will practice programming without giving up.Additionally, the lecturers face high failure rates for this subject. By tradition, lecturers prefer to teach this subject through lecture and lab exercises (Maguire, Maguire, Hyland, & Marshall, 2014).However, in today’s learning environment and required skills for the 21st century, this approach is no longer suitable. Collaborative learning has been widely cited in literature as an approach that can provide benefits to the first year programming students (Maguire et al., 2014; Teague & Roe, 2009). Therefore, this study adapted pair programming technique to enable collaborative learning and promote deep learning in programming class. Pair programming is implemented by having two students working in pairs to solve a problem using one workstation.One of the students become the driver, who controls the input device and type the code.Meanwhile, another student becomes the navigator who is responsible to review the typed code and think for alternative solutions. Both will change their roles frequently (McDowell, Werner, Bullock & Fernald, 2006). Researches has shown that this technique has been applied successfully for programming courses (e.g. Salleh, Mendes, & Grundy, 2011; McDowell, Hanks & Werner, 2003).Similarly, result from the survey and focus group discussion conducted in this study indicates that the pair programming technique is able to increase students’ interest in Programming 1 subject.Also, the examination results of the repeaters increased as compared to the previous semester Methodology - During the semester, the pair programming technique was implemented in the Programming 1 class. To gather students’ feedback, an online survey and focus group discussion were implemented. The instrument for online survey was developed by referring to the existing studies, which contains three sections. Generally, 7-point semantic differential scale ranging from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree was used in most of the questions (Zikmund, Babin, Carr & Griffin, 2010). Furthermore, the focus group (Martakis & Daneva, 2013) discussion was conducted by selecting seven students. Their opinion were gathered in more detail through the discussion. Finally, the examination results of the repeaters of the subjects are compared to observe their improvements.Findings - Thirty five (35) students were involved with the online survey, whereby majority of them were the repeaters of the subject (74%).Most of them stated that their previous lecturer used traditional approach in programming class (68%). Based on the outcomes of online survey and focus group discussion, pair programming is found to have a lot of benefits to the students.They highlighted that this technique is able to enhance their communication skill and helped them to produce better quality of code. On top of that, they agree that this technique helped them in getting solutions correctly and faster by following the proper steps. It increased their interest in programming and enable them to complete java programs more precisely. Besides that, other stated benefits are enhancement in critical thinking and communication skills, teamwork, problem solving, programming skills and improve their confidence. Enhancing their interest is very critical because when they have interest, then only they will do their best to understand the subject and try to learn more deeply. Otherwise, they will not put full effort for the subject. Additionally, by working in teams, they are able to exchange knowledge as well as improve the quality of code and design. Nevertheless, the students emphasized that to implement pair programming successfully, few important factors need to be considered. Among them are the programming ability and similar motivation among the pairs and their compatibility.This is supported by an existing study (Keefe et al.,2006).Furthermore, outcome from the pair programming technique implementation can be seen from the students’ achievements. The examination results of the repeaters are examined to understand their improvement. Majority of them improved their grades as compared to the previous semester.Four students achieved A or A-. Only few remained with the same grade or lower. This shows that when their interest can be gained, they are able to achieve better results

Knowledge sharing on implementing software process quality model evaluation: Focus group approach

The Extended Software Process Assessment and Certification(SPAC) Model is a model that assesses and certifies the effectiveness and efficiency of software process, which focuses on the agile and secured based software development practices. The proposed model was evaluated using focus group approach.This approach is not often used in the software engineering field even though it has various benefits.Therefore, this paper shares the experiences on the implementation of the focus group for model evaluation to reveal its usefulness.The detailed discussion on the steps taken to implement the approach is discussed. Based on the experience, it is found that this approach is very time effective, can be conducted easily and can get more evaluation done at onc

ESPAC model: Extended software process assessment and certification model for agile and secure software processes

In today’s business environment, agile and secure software processes are essential since they bring high quality and secured software to market faster and more cost-effectively.Unfortunately, some software practitioners are not following the proper practices of both processes when developing software.There exist various studies which assess the quality of software process; nevertheless, their focus is on the conventional software process. Furthermore, they do not consider weight values in the assessment although each evaluation criterion might have different importance on the project.Consequently, software certification is needed to give conformance on the quality of agile and secure software processes.Therefore, the objective of this paper is to propose ESPAC (Extended Software Process Assessment and Certification) Model which addresses both software processes and considers the weight values during the assessment.The model has been constructed by using deductive approach, whereby the theoretical and exploratory studies were conducted in order to determine the components of the proposed model. The ESPAC Model consists of six components, which are the target, evaluation criteria, reference standard, data gathering technique, assessment phases and synthesis technique.The proposed model has been validated by seven software practitioners from the practical perspectives through focus group discussion. The validation result shows that the ESPAC Model gained their satisfaction and able to be practically executed in the real environment

A case study of software process assessment and certification (SPAC) model implementation

This paper reports the implementation of Software Process Assessment and Certification (SPAC) model.In year 2006, the model has been validated in three software organizations for its practicality in the real world. Recently in year 2011, the SPAC model has been implemented again in one of the organizations participated in year 2006.This paper discusses the outcome from the current study and compares it with the previous study. It reveals that after five years, the level of certification decreases from LEVEL IV to LEVEL II.This is because the best practices of software development are being neglected. Thus, we conclude that continuous software certification is certainly needed in order to know the current status of soft ware development process and help the organization to plan and monitor their continuous improvement of software quality

An exploratory study on current software development practices in Malaysia focusing on agile based software development

Agile based software development has gained much interest among practitioners and researchers due its ability to produce high quality software in a shorter time of period. Even though its importance has been revealed, nevertheless, only few studies were conducted regarding its current practices in Malaysian software industry.Thus, a survey was conducted to study the practices and perception on the agile based software development in real-world projects.This paper discusses on the findings from the study.Structured questionnaire was used for data collection purpose.For data analysis, simple statistical methods were used which are frequency and cross tabulation. Outcome from this study reveals that agile based software development practices are important to produce high quality software. Thus, it prolonged to the needs of incorporating agile based software development practices as the reference standard in the process based software certification model which will be proposed

Agile software development practices that influence software quality: A review

Agile software development (Agile) is being practiced in software industry nowadays as it fits the current business environment which focuses on delivering software to market as quickly as possible. In addition, Agile practitioners claim that it produces software with good quality.Thus, our research aims to identify Agile practices that should be followed in order to produce good quality software. Since many researchers report that the quality of people and process influence the quality of software product, this paper discusses on practices related to these two factors. The identified practices will be used for developing questionnaire in order to investigate current practice among Agile practitioners

Perception and Use of E-mail: A Case Study in Universiti Utara Malaysia

E-mail has grown out to become as one of the most successful and frequently used computer applications since it was invented. It can be used to communicate faster, easier, and at a lower cost with everyone all over the world. Besides providing flexibility and improving the quality of communication, researchers acknowledged that there are many problems faced by e-mail users, namely repeating emails, spam e-mails, huge size attachment files, and insufficient storage size. A case study was conducted to investigate on Universiti Utara Malaysia staff’s perception and use of e-mail in order to improve the e-mail service provided to them. This paper discusses the findings from the study, which involves 958 staff. There were five phases involved in this study, which are instrument design, sampling, pilot study, data collection for real survey, and analysis. Self-administered questionnaires were used to gather the data, while descriptive statistical analysis was used for data analysis. The findings of the study reveal that UUM staff appreciate the e-mail service. However, they faced problems such as limited storage size and overwhelming number of e-mails. They believed that the UUM e-mail system is being abused as observed from the repeating advertisements and news sent to them. The output of this study can be used as a guideline by the UUM management in revising its e-mail policy so as to improve the quality of its e-mail service

The validation of extended software process assessment and certification model using focus group

The Extended Software Process Assessment and Certification (ESPAC) Model is a model that assesses and certifies the effectiveness and efficiency of software process, which focuses on the agile and secure software processes.The model was validated by assessing and certifying a real project from the software industry through focus group discussion. This paper discusses the execution of the validation as well as the results for the assessment and certification exercise performed on the project.Outcomes from the assessment and certification results show that the project has been implemented systematically; however, there exist some practices with low performance. Accordingly, improvements can be made by the software practitioners on the software practices which achieve low scores. Consequently, it indicates that the ESPAC Model is not only suitable for assessing and certifying software process, but can also be used for continuous improvement

Perception and use of e-mail: A case study in Universiti Utara Malaysia

E-mail has grown out to become as one of the most successful and frequently used computer applications since it was invented. It can be used to communicate faster, easier, and at a lower cost with everyone all over the world. Besides providing flexibility and improving the quality of communication, researchers acknowledged that there are many problems faced by e-mail users, namely repeating emails, spam e-mails, huge size attachment files, and insufficient storage size. A case study was conducted to investigate on Universiti Utara Malaysia staff’s perception and use of e-mail in order to improve the e-mail service provided to them. This paper discusses the findings from the study, which involves 958 staff. There were five phases involved in this study, which are instrument design, sampling, pilot study, data collection for real survey, and analysis. Self-administered questionnaires were used to gather the data, while descriptive statistical analysis was used for data analysis. The findings of the study reveal that UUM staff appreciate the e-mail service. However, they faced problems such as limited storage size and overwhelming number of e-mails. They believed that the UUM e-mail system is being abused as observed from the repeating advertisements and news sent to them. The output of this study can be used as a guideline by the UUM management in revising its e-mail policy so as to improve the quality of its e-mail service