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D u r r e e s a m i n J o u r n a l ( I S S N : 2 2 0 4 - 9 8 2 7 )
J u n e V o l 1 I s s u e 2 , Y e a r 2 0 1 5
Implementing Software Engineering in Campus: Student
Experience
Azlina binti Zainuddin
(Faculty of Computer System and Software Engineering (FSKKP)
University Malaysia Pahang, [email protected])
Tan Hooi Fong
(Faculty of Computer System and Software Engineering (FSKKP)
University Malaysia Pahang, [email protected])
Tay Chze Huat
(Faculty of Computer System and Software Engineering (FSKKP)
ABSTRACT: Focused on the final year project for IT student, most of the projects are developing an application. When
developing the application, within the given timeframe, not every process of software engineering is able to apply. This
paper is presenting one of final year project student experienced in applying steps in software development life cycle, starts
from planning the project at first semester of final year project, analysis, design, coding and testing. Follow the guidance
from IEEE Standard, and RAD methodology framework, the project is able to complete and implement with certain
achievement. From this experienced, this paper is discussing the do and don’t to the student for preparing themselves before
taking final year project with application development area.
Key words: RAD methodology, Software development, UML
1. Introduction
In software engineering understanding, besides the
application development, documentation has become the
third largest activities after communications. As in
software development lifecycle undergo nowadays, the
software system project undergo the software
development life cycle (SDLC) phases which consists of
planning, analyzing, designing, implementing, and
testing. Software documentations play an important role
in software engineering approach. However, the process
did not consist of proper software engineering approach
which is the software engineering documentation. This
make the software system project cannot complete
perfectly. This is because providing the documentation
can help in structuring the information such as user
requirement, system requirement that being used and
generate as to provide an extensive and easy to use as a
manual for the system.
Software documentation pervades the software life cycle.
It is the visible part of the software process. Without it,
software cannot be maintained. Without it, users cannot
train and they virtually cannot use the software. Without
it new developers would have to re-invent the wheel in
software development. Software documentation is the
most important manifestation of software. It is the guide
through the software maze.
Each of documentation in software engineering approach
is related to each other. For example, after Software
Development Plan (SDP) have being created, the
requirements in SDP will transfer to Software
Requirement Specification (SRS) for further detail
describe which consists of step by step guidance in the
system and using Sequence Diagram in Unified
Modeling Language (UML) diagram in terms of design
view. After system being testing and success deploy, the
important key of maintenance are the process that being
documented in the software engineering documentations.
Each of the modules, functions and operations are clearly
defined and described in the documentations that help
during maintenance. If didn’t having proper software
engineering approach, this make the maintenance
consume a lot of time and undocumented after this.
In conclusion, this can shows that software engineering
approach must be applied during campus life for those
that planning software system project. Software
engineering approach can make all the process
documented, and this can virtualized the software system
view without executing the software system.
2. Categorizes of Software Engineering
Documentation
2.1 Good Documentation
Architecture and other abstract documentation
information are often valid or at least provide historical
guidance that can be useful for maintainers. Inline
comments are often good enough to greatly assist
detailed maintenance work.
2.2 Bad documentation
Documentation of all types is frequently out of date.
- Systems often have too much documentation.
D u r r e e s a m i n J o u r n a l ( I S S N : 2 2 0 4 - 9 8 2 7 )
J u n e V o l 1 I s s u e 2 , Y e a r 2 0 1 5
- Documentation is often poorly written.
- Finding useful content in documentation can be so
challenging that people might not try to do so.
- Much mandated documentation is so time consuming to
create that its cost can outweigh its benefit.
2.3 Ugly documentation A consideration fraction of documentation is
untrustworthy [1].
3.0 Software Engineering Phases
There are four fundamental phases in most, if not all,
software engineering methodologies. These phases are
analysis, design, implementation, and testing. Theses
phases address what is to be built, how it will be built,
building it, and making it high quality.
3.1 Analysis Phase
The analysis phase defines the requirements of the
system, independent of how these requirements will be
accomplished. This phase defines the problem that the
customer is trying to solve. The deliverable result at the
end of this phase is a requirement document. Ideally, this
document states in a clear and precise fashion what is to
be built. This analysis represents the ``what'' phase. The
requirement document tries to capture the requirements
from the customer's perspective by defining goals and
interactions at a level removed from the implementation
details. The requirement document may be expressed in a
formal language based on mathematical logic.
Traditionally, the requirement document is written in
English or another written language. The requirement
document does not specify the architectural or
implementation details, but specifies information at the
higher level of description. The problem statement, the
customer's expectations, and the criteria for success are
examples of high-level descriptions.
There is a fuzzy line between high-level descriptions and
low-level details. Sometimes, if an exact engineering
detail needs to be specified, this detail will also appear in
the requirement document. This is the exception and
should not be the rule. These exceptions occur for many
reasons including maintaining the consistency with other
established systems, availability of particular options,
customer's demands, and to establish, at the requirement
level, a particular architecture vision. An example of a
low-level detail that might appear in the requirement
document is the usage of a particular vendor's product
line, or the usage of some accepted computer industry
standard, or a constraint on the image size of the
application.
There is a fundamental conflict between high levels and
low levels of detail. The requirement document states
what the system should accomplish, independent of
many of the details[4]. The discovery process used in
establishing the requirements during the analysis phase is
best described as a refinement process than as a levels-
of-detail process. Traditionally, the requirement
document describes the things in the system and the
actions that can be done on these things. Things might be
expressed as objects in an object-based technology where
data and algorithms are hidden behind hierarchical-
polymorphic methods. Alternatively, things might be
expressed as services accessing databases in a functional
approach where data is a fundamentally different concept
than functions. In general, the description of things in the
system can be much more general and not confined to a
particular technology. In a more general sense, this
document describes the ontology that is the noun phrases
and the verb phrases that will become the guidelines for
defining the application specific protocol.
The requirement descriptions of the things in
the system and their actions does not imply an
architecture design rather a description of the artifacts of
the system and how they behave, from the customer's
perspective. Later, in the design phase, these requirement
descriptions are mapped into computer science based
primitives, such as lists, stacks, trees, graphs, algorithms,
and data structures.
The description of the abstraction of the noun
phrases and the verb phrases are not bound to the use of a
written human language. Most written human languages
are too vague to capture the precision necessary to build
a system. Alternative descriptive mechanisms based on
mathematical logic are sometimes more suitable but
much more difficult to accomplish. Mathematical logic
provides a scientific foundation for precisely expressing
information. However, frequently in the real world, a
precise description is not attainable. Again the
requirement document should state in a clear and precise
fashion what is to be built[5][6]. The definitive
mechanism to author such a document, either formally or
informally, has yet to be developed, although reasonable
success has been achieved with existing methods
including CASE tools and tools based on mathematical
logic Later, in the design phase, the very important
decomposition of the problem leads to the development
of data structures and algorithms. A functional
decomposition for a distributed environment leads to a
natural split of the data structures and algorithms.
Examples include distributed client-server systems,
where a database holds the data in a server while the
algorithms manipulating the data reside on the client. An
object-based decomposition leads to a natural joining of
data structures and algorithms forming objects with
methods[7]. The requirement documents should be
independent of the decomposition technique. The
analysis team develops the requirement document, which
talks about things and actions on things. This document
should also include states, events, typical scenarios of
usage, and typical scenarios of usage
3.2 Design Phase
In the design phase the architecture is established. This
phase starts with the requirement document delivered by
the requirement phase and maps the requirements into
architecture. The architecture defines the components,
their interfaces and behaviors. The deliverable design
document is the architecture[8]. The design document
describes a plan to implement the requirements. This
phase represents the ``how'' phase. Details on computer
programming languages and environments, machines,
packages, application architecture, distributed
architecture layering, memory size, platform, algorithms,
data structures, global type definitions, interfaces, and
D u r r e e s a m i n J o u r n a l ( I S S N : 2 2 0 4 - 9 8 2 7 )
J u n e V o l 1 I s s u e 2 , Y e a r 2 0 1 5
many other engineering details are established. The
design may include the usage of existing components.
The architectural team can now expand upon
the information established in the requirement document.
Using the typical and a typical scenarios provided from
the requirement document, performance trade-offs can be
accomplished as well as complexity of implementation
trade-offs. Obviously, if an action is done many times, it
needs to be done correctly and efficiently. A seldom used
action needs to be implemented correctly, but it is not
obvious what level of performance is required [9] [10].
The requirement document must guide this decision
process. An example of a seldom used action which must
be done with high performance is the emergency
shutdown of a nuclear reactor. Analyzing the trade-offs
of necessary complexity allows for many things to
remain simple which, in turn, will eventually lead to a
higher quality product. The architecture team also
converts the typical scenarios into a test plan.
In our approach, the team, given a complete requirement
document, must also indicate critical priorities for the
implementation team. A critical implementation priority
leads to a task that has to be done right. If it fails, the
product fails. If it succeeds, the product might succeed.
At the very least, the confidence level of the team
producing a successful product will increase. This will
keep the implementation team focused. Exactly how this
information is conveyed is a skill based on experience
more than a science based on fundamental foundations
3.2 Implementation Phase
In the implementation phase, the team builds the
components either from scratch or by composition.
Given the architecture document from the design phase
and the requirement document from the analysis phase,
the team should build exactly what has been requested,
though there is still room for innovation and flexibility.
For example, a component may be narrowly designed for
this particular system, or the component may be made
more general to satisfy a reusability guideline. The
architecture document should give guidance. Sometimes,
this guidance is found in the requirement document. The
implementation phase deals with issues of quality,
performance, baselines, libraries, and debugging. The
end deliverable is the product itself.
3.3 Testing Phase
Simply stated, quality is very important. Many
companies have not learned that quality is important and
deliver more claimed functionality but at a lower quality
level. It is much easier to explain to a customer why
there is a missing feature than to explain to a customer
why the product lacks quality. A customer satisfied with
the quality of a product will remain loyal and wait for
new functionality in the next version. Quality is a
distinguishing attribute of a system indicating the degree
of excellence .In many software engineering
methodologies, the testing phase is a separate phase
which is performed by a different team after the
implementation is completed. There is merit in this
approach; it is hard to see one's own mistakes, and a
fresh eye can discover obvious errors much faster than
the person who has read and re-read the material many
times. Unfortunately, delegating testing to another team
leads to a slack attitude regarding quality by the
implementation team. Alternatively, another approach is
to delegate testing to the whole organization. If the teams
are to be known as craftsmen, then the teams should be
responsible for establishing high quality across all
phases. Sometimes, an attitude change must take place to
guarantee quality [11]. The testing technique is from the
perspective of the system provider. Because it is nearly
impossible to duplicate every possible customer's
environment and because systems are released with yet-
to-be-discovered errors, the customer plays an important,
though reluctant, role in testing [2].
4.0 Evaluation of Change Implementation
This part is discussed about advantages and
disadvantages of software engineering documentation.
Advantages Documents written about the system often contain
conceptual information and present a glimpse or at least
one person understands of the software system. They can
also serve as an introduction to the software and the
team. Comments in the program code tend to provide
low-level information on algorithms and data. Using the
source code as source of data allows for an up-to-date
portrayal of the software system.
Disadvantages Studying the documentation can be time consuming and
it requires some knowledge of the source. Written
material and source comments may be inaccurate [3].
Conclusion In conclusion, we have discussed issues that software
engineering such as negative impact that may occur if
improper software engineering approach. Besides that,
this paper consists of the good practices for software
engineering, as well advantages and disadvantages of
using software engineering. By applied Software
Engineering approach, providing many benefits such as
reduce time consuming, visualize design view instead of
executing the system. This can help other project team
member have clear understanding about the software
architecture.
References
[1] Timonthy C. Lethbridge, University of Otawa, Janice
Singer, National Research Council, Andrew Forward,
Deloitte Consulting, 2003 How Software Engineers Use
Documentation : The State of the Practice
[2] Software Engineering Phases
http://www.techiwarehouse.com/engine/18a41ffa/Softwa
re-Engineering-Phases
[3] Timothy C. Lethbridge, Susan Elliott Sim, Janice
Singer, Empirical Software Engineering 10, 311-341,
2005. Studying Software Engineers : Data Collection
Techniques for Software Field Studies
[4] Henderson-Sellers, B., & Serour, M. K. (2005).
Creating a dual-agility method: The value of method
D u r r e e s a m i n J o u r n a l ( I S S N : 2 2 0 4 - 9 8 2 7 )
J u n e V o l 1 I s s u e 2 , Y e a r 2 0 1 5
engineering. Journal of Database Management, 16(4), 1-
23.
[5] Butt, S. M., & Butt, S. M. USABILITY
EVALUATION METHOD FOR AGILE SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT
[6] Jaakkola, H., Heimbürger, A., & Linna, P. (2010).
Knowledge-oriented software engineering process in a
multi-cultural context.Software Quality Journal, 18(2),
299-319.
[7] Butt, Saad Masood, et al. "CASI METHOD FOR
IMPROVING THE USABILITY OF IDS."
[8] Larman, Craig; Basili, Victor R. (June 2003).
Iterative and Incremental Development: A Brief History.
Computer 36 (6): 47–56
[9] McAvoy, J., & Sammon, D. (2005). Agile
methodology adoption decisions: An innovative
approach to teaching and learning.Journal of Information
Systems Education, 16(4), 409-420.
[10] Maruping, L. M., Venkatesh, V., & Agarwal, R.
(2009). A control theory perspective on agile
methodology use and changing user
requirements. Information Systems Research, 20(3), 377-
399,478-480.
[11] Spector, B. (2013) Implementing Organizational
Change: Theory into Practice. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey: Pearson, p.2-49.
D u r r e e s a m i n J o u r n a l ( I S S N : 2 2 0 4 - 9 8 2 7 )
J u n e V o l 1 I s s u e 2 , Y e a r 2 0 1 5
Methods Social and Healthcare policies affecting blood donation programs
Richelle A. Chiongson, RN (School of Nursing, Ateneo de davao University, Philippines
ABSTRACT: Nurses are governed by hospital rules and policies. It is one’s responsibility to know the existing policies on
blood transfusion specifically the procedure and to reiterate that nursing as a practice based profession focuses on
improving the standard of patient care with holistic perspective, improving communication skills and acknowledging the
importance of research in the practice of the profession of nursing. In this area of discussion, blood donation will be the
main focus in relation to the health care policies and social issues had is still revolving on the topic of discussion. This
paper will present the policies in regards to the practice of nursing, the professional knowledge of a nurse regarding blood
transfusion and other related studies deemed important for the discussion of blood donation program.
Key words: Healthcare, Blood Donation, Nursing
1. Introduction
What is Health? According to the World Health
Organization (WHO), it is defined as all activities
inclusive of promoting, restoring or maintaining health as
a primary purpose wherein it is under the government
with partial or complete control as the main funders in
health related issues in developing countries as Kruk and
Freedman (2008) state.
Considerably, a main topic of concern is
formal healthcare that deals with the work of patients,
doctors, nurses and druggist as seen in the journal of
Marmor and Wendt (2012) and the role of the hospitals
faced with real or feared illness. Many policies
regarding healthcare had been written by several authors
as evident in the articles Cochran (1999); Esain and
Williams (2011) and Marmor and Wendt (2012). But
policies had been affected by issues of social
development of Siddiqi, Masud, Nishtar, Peters, Sabri,
Bile and Jama (2009) indicating that to attain the
Millennium Development Goals in low and middle
income countries, governance is the main concern for the
indicators of economic growth, social development and
overall development and in addition, leadership and
governance has been reiterated by Smith, Anell, Busse,
Crivelli, Healy, Lindahl, Westert and Kene (2012).
Policies had been the basis of many hospitals
in rendering care to the patients by their evidence based
practices, knowledge of nurses and other healthcare team
in Malaysia emphasize by Lai, Teng and Lee (2010) but
still conflicts of different healthcare perspective had also
been issues according to Meth, Lawles and Hawryluck
(2009). Dramatic change is continuously occurring in
many counties brought about my major industries
bringing about assessment of different system
performance (Kruk and Freedman, 2008).
Because of what we call globalization, blood
donation is no exception for such policies. Issues of
blood donation had been in the articles of Pauwels, Buck,
Compernolle and Vandekerckhove (2013); Rock,
Bormanis and Neurath (2005); Thomas (2011); Zito,
Alfieri, Cremonesi, Marconi and Saturni (2012); and
Cruz (2012). One of the most important concerns of
blood safety is the risk of blood transfusion associated
infection that had been reduced due to the changes in the
collection process, processing, storage and transfusion
but can never be slowed down to a zero percentage
(Rock et al, 2005). In this area of discussion, blood
donation will be the main focus in relation to the health
care policies and social issues had is still revolving on
the topic of discussion. This paper will present the
policies in regards to the practice of nursing, the
professional knowledge of a nurse regarding blood
transfusion and other related studies deemed important
for the discussion of blood donation programmes.
2. A Breif Reflection
I had remembered an incident with my patient where I
am working as a Post-Anesthesia Care Unit Nurse in a
private institution. The incident cites the importance of
blood transfusion and the implication it has on the
nursing profession.
The patient was a status post Caesarean Section
Gravida 2 Para 2. She had delivered to a live baby girl
with Apgar Score of 8 and 9. The main reason for the
Caesarean Section was because of Abruptio Placenta
where the placenta detaches from the uterus prematurely.
There is postpartum haemorrhage but loss of blood has
been more than 500 ml and must be replaced.
The doctor ordered hooked for blood
transfusion stat. The patient had started to become pale
as evidenced by pale lips and decreased capillary refill.
She was cold and clammy. As our hospital rules on
blood transfusion I had to fill up two pieces of blood
request form where one is the original and another is the
carbon copied paper. One copy is for the chart and
another for the watcher to secure blood from the blood
bank. I browsed over the patient’s blood type and
D u r r e e s a m i n J o u r n a l ( I S S N : 2 2 0 4 - 9 8 2 7 )
J u n e V o l 1 I s s u e 2 , Y e a r 2 0 1 5 requested for whole blood,500ml in the form for it was
the easiest and fastest to secure in the blood bank. After
the doctor had signed the form, I instructed the watcher
on where to go and to secure a container for the blood to
keep it cold. Then I requested the laboratory department
for stat CBC to check the haemoglobin count of the
patient after I had secured the request from the doctor.
After an hour, the Laboratory department
called for the nurse to get the blood from the Laboratory.
I then went down to the laboratory to check the
compatibility of the blood by the patient’s blood type,
check the appearance of the blood and the serial number.
The laboratory personnel informed me that the
compatibility test is in three phases and the first phase is
finished and compatible. The other two phases will still
be continuously processed. I had then placed the blood
in the container and need to thaw it before hooking it to
the patient. Included in the container was the blood
transfusion reaction form where I had to observe the
patient for 30 minutes after hooking the blood, then an
hour and 2 hours after. Reactions such as rashes,
redness, chills, fever and difficulty in breathing must be
reported to the physician with my first nursing
intervention to first stop the blood transfusion. I then
hooked the whole blood to the patient and made the
necessary observation. The vital signs were recorded in
the blood transfusion reaction sheet with the specified
time. Recalling this situation, as a nurse, I followed
hospital policies and protocol in securing blood and
transfusion of the blood to deliver safe and effective
patient care. I then realized that hospital rules are very
important to serve as guidelines to a healthcare provider.
Policies had been adopted to the changing society to deal
with providing the best available healthcare to a patient.
3. Review of Literature
At present various software projects are being developed
and still developing using different software models.
Health Expenditure Growth and the long term
sustainability had been two major concerns leading the
development of health expenditure models in many
countries with the considerations on the issues of fiscal
sustainability, increasing health prices, production of the
health sector and the financial strains on the part of the
patient and family wherein the government is making a
step to understand the scope of the problem and setting
up a policy reform for such issues of Astolfi, Lorenzoni
and Oderkirk (2012). Taking into consideration is the
overlap that occurs between social issues and the wider
literature as Biron, Rumbold and Faden (2012) states and
the additional issues with regard to philosophy and
bioethcis. So, how are social issues important in the
framework is due to the presentation that it plays as a
central role in heath priority setting and these are societal
values that must be given focus not only in the scientific
and medical data (Biron, et al, 2012). Disparities has
been occurring in the discussions of Blacksher (2008), on
the two implications for reform effort: the first is on
policy that is structural as well as clinical in relation to
health and healthcare delivery and the second is about the
Socioeconomic status (SES) as part of the
Comprehensive reform agenda.
Policies are made to focus on the common good and is
one of the most distinctive ideas of Catholic theory on
social issues posting a great challenge wherein healthcare
is a means to render service to vulnerable groups such as
the very young, severely disabled, aged and the dying
(Cochran, 1999). Theory and practice has been growing
fast in the issue of leadership since being a leader deals
with principles, motivating employees and
communicating future goals and visions and Crevani,
Lindgen and Packendorff (2009) states that a leader has a
special, significant and positive contribution in an
organization with regards to action process and the
academic field. Because of this Esain, Williams, Gakhal,
Caley and Cooke (2011), explores quality improvement
in a healthcare setting, the identifiable issues around the
skills in defining a problem and the gap closure on
quality improvement on capacity and delivery. Again,
Kruk and Freedman (2008), emphasize on the definition
of a health system by the World Health Organization as
the sum of the activities with the primary purpose of
health promotion, restoration and maintenance.
Furthermore, the conceptual frameworks of Marmor and
Wendt (2012) considers evidences on heath policy
change, the people involved in a healthcare setting and
the characteristics of a healthcare setting. In addition
Siddiqi et al (2009) presents governance equivalent to
stewardship which deals with health policy formulation,
influential exertion and the collection and usage of
intelligence and Smith et al (2012) states the same issue.
Issues on governance of Siddqi et al, 2008 is
presenting a presenting the health system governance on
actions in conformity to the society to promote and
protect the health of the population. So, Fleming and
Soborg (2002) show the Malaysian government focuses
on moving Malaysia to a “knowledge economy” and
“information society” by the development of the
healthcare system by the aim of the making of a global
centre of tele-health but changes in work organisation
and labour had been questions in the development of the
human resource policy to bring about changes that are
critical and self-reflective.
Reviews on current nursing practice of Sawyer,
Alexander, Gordon, Juszczak and Gilliss (2000) provides
that accessibility and provision of healthcare to
underserved population represents what nursing mission
is which is service to the needy, reflection of the ethics
and theories of nursing. Blood donations are also
governed by policies as Thomas (2011) states that
considerations of donor size about the height, weight and
the total blood volume is and deferrals is due to low
count of haemoglobin (Hb) of the donor. Blood
donations as Cruz (2012) presents additional
considerations such as proportions of blood donors,
deferred donors, transfusion transmissible infections
(TTI) and the proportion of a red blood cell, whole blood
or packed erythrocytes has been outdated.
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection has been
circulating in Malaysian blood but the knowledge
regarding such infection is little even if Malaysia is
considered an endemic country for HBV (Meldal, Bon,
Prati, Ayob & Allain, 2010). In addition, the article of
D u r r e e s a m i n J o u r n a l ( I S S N : 2 2 0 4 - 9 8 2 7 )
J u n e V o l 1 I s s u e 2 , Y e a r 2 0 1 5 Meldal, et al (2010) had stated that medium
seroprevalence for HBV surface antigen (HBSag) existed
in the Malaysian population and is lower in the repeat
blood donors. The main carriers are the Malaysian
women of child bearing age who had been infected
prenatally where the government had resorted to
vaccination programs for the infants and reducting the
prevalence in the blood donor population. Another
worldwide issues of blood donation of Pauwels et al
(2013) with regards to Haemochromatosis (HC) and
defined as a disorder of iron metabolism in relation to a
deficiency to a hormone that regulates iron which is
inherited in most cases but can be acquired also.
4. Critical Analysis
Blood donations have been based on health care policies
and issues on society as the ever changing need to adapt
to the needs of the patients and current trends in health
care. The issue on blood donation has been reflecting the
important facts on policies, the governing body and the
people who are donors and those patients who benefit
from the blood transfusion. Knowledge on the different
qualifications as Meldal, Bon, Prati, Ayob and Allain
(2010) pose a challenge to the Malaysian candidate for
blood donation. As nurses, globalization has been
brought about by worldwide policies on blood services
with regards to haemochromatois and blood donation
(Pauwels et al 2013) and the development of autologous
blood (ABD) programs that emphasize on one time
single donation red cell collection (Rock et al 2005).
The publication of Kruk and Freedman (2008) presents
that governments need tools to be guides for
measurement with regards to health system performance
in monitoring and evaluating the functions of the
healthcare system allowing decision on healthcare funds,
organisations and policies. In addition, Siddiqi et al
(2009), focus on governance as the means that a society
organize itself to protect and promote health in the
population with the development of a framework to
summarize contemporary issues of the health system of
the government, the frameworks used for assessment and
the principles of the government used. Although, issues
had been allotted on policies and society, Reeleder, Goel,
Singer and Martin (2005) the role of a leader is important
in a setting serving as a chief decision maker to look into
the priority setting practices on healthcare with regards to
economics and ethics approach.
Public and private Malaysian managers of private
institutions are aware for education shift and how an
institution is governed wherein Malaysia’s economy for
the last three decades had experienced a transitional shift
focusing to the main output of manufacturing and
services (Fleming and Soborg, 2002) and wherein the
Malaysian Vision 2020 focuses on the upgrading of skills
and development of competence through transforming
Malaysia into a country with higher value-added forms
of production as demonstrated in the aim to make the
country a global centre of tele-health.
5. Implication to the Nursing Practice
Birks, Chapman and Francis (2006) that nursing is
considered a practice based profession focusing on
improving the standard of patient care with holistic
perspective, improving communication skills and
acknowledging the importance of research in the practice
of the profession of nursing. Matsuda (2008) supports
that the continuous changes resulting to globalization in
many countries calls for changes in the economy cutting
the budget for health, education and social welfare;
furthermore, nursing care should be given importance by
establishing nursing as a means of social security in the
care process by the reduction of the individual family’s
burden and gaining access to public support universally.
Conclusion Meth et al (2009) explains that patients, families and the
public have experience knowledge deficit regarding life-
sustaining treatments due to lack of information and
patients are very ill and in time of crisis especially in the
Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Nurses are governed by hospital rules and policies. It is
one’s responsibility to know the existing policies on
blood transfusion specifically the procedure and to
reiterate that nursing as a practice based profession
focuses on improving the standard of patient care with
holistic perspective, improving communication skills and
acknowledging the importance of research in the practice
of the profession of nursing Birks et al (2006).
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D u r r e e s a m i n J o u r n a l ( I S S N : 2 2 0 4 - 9 8 2 7 )
J u n e V o l 1 I s s u e 2 , Y e a r 2 0 1 5
Review Paper on the importance of Usability in Agile Software
Development
Saad Masood Butt
(Faculty of Computer Engineering, Bahria University Islamabad, Pakistan
Mazlina Abdul Majid
(Faculty of Computer Systems & Software Engineering, University Malaysia Pahang,
Lubna Yaqoob
(Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutoo Institute of Science and Technology, Pakistan
ABSTRACT: There are many software model are being used in industry like waterfall, rad, and scrum etc. Among all agile
model is considered as fastest software development model. In agile, the software development is based on iterative cycle
and the main objective is to deliver the software faster with on-going user participation. Traditional software development
considered comprehensive feasibility documentation for the success of project where as requirement gathering and
comprehensive feasibility report of project are not emphasized in the case of agile software development. Agile model
provides rapid solution of software development which leads towards the absence of good design, and architecture and it is
observed to be very expensive if followed. As a remedy, a proposed lifecycle for agile software development has been
designed. The proposed lifecycle outlined in this paper integrates usability evaluation concepts and agile software
methodologies for the development of interactive software. An experimental report will be provided in future after successful
testing of proposed lifecycle in the software companies by developing an interactive desktop based application.
Key words: usable software model, usability engineering, agile methods, software development
1. Introduction
Now a days usability is considers as an important feature
in software products. Products which are lacking in poor
design and usability results in the failure of software
product. Therefore, one of the complications involved in
software development is to observe users and analyse its
participation in the design and development stages, their
behaviour and effective, then to collect information idea
for the ensuing development.
It is quite apparent that the development of better
systems needs the collaboration of different professionals
like HCI, SE, Stakeholder, Usability experts and User
experience experts etc. Software Engineers, HCI experts
and Users are the most important key players of the
software development. Involving users in the software
development is an important thought-provoking task.
Neglecting HCI approaches from software development
will affect the role of usability in the software and make
the software difficult to learn, difficult to use and result
in the dissatisfaction of the users. They need to cooperate
with each other to create a software product that is usable
and useful for the target audience. But, in reality, these
three key players (Software Engineers, HCI experts and
Users) do not cooperate as smoothly as they should. By
the time this lack of cooperation is seen, big software
projects may not provide what they promise; therefore,
such projects often fall short [1]. Their failure can be in
various forms. Sometimes, the delivered system isn't able
to offer considerable specifications to the conventional
system that is top quality which would make it possible
to actually set up the system. Sometimes, involvement of
the user is introduced too late which produces a high
impact on the software efficiency. Sometimes, the cost,
time and resources are exceeded by large factors.
Sometimes, the product is difficult to understand due to
the lack of usability role in the development. The agreed
upon factors for which software projects fail are many
and various [2]. In this paper, a new agile software
process is proposed where usability evaluation has been
integrated in to agile software development method. The
paper contains few sections. Section 2 focuses on the
literature review; section 3 discussing on the proposed
lifecycle; section 4 discussed about the experiment and
future work and section 5 concludes with the paper.
2. Literature Review
The word agile means fast, lighter and nimble. Agile
process is also considered as light weight process [11].
One the major catastrophe in many software projects was
the time it took for development exceed from the
deadline. To developed system faster with its limited
time, agile software methods were developed. These
methods develop system faster by less focusing on
analysis and designing [12].
D u r r e e s a m i n J o u r n a l ( I S S N : 2 2 0 4 - 9 8 2 7 )
J u n e V o l 1 I s s u e 2 , Y e a r 2 0 1 5 In [17] usability evaluation of university websites within
the domain of Saudi Arabia. Particularly two kind of
domains are discussed including government and private
university websites and these domains are discussed on
the basis of heuristic evaluation components. Within the
scope of the paper almost seven HE components are
considered in order to find the usability of university
websites. Results predicted that the majority of websites
have an acceptable level of usability practices and as
compare to private universities, government universities
have higher level of usability practices.
In order to provide the quality software, many usability
issues must address at the time of design because
software designing and usability both are really inter
related concepts. Along with other quality attributes,
usability must be done at the time of software design.
HCI community has not reached to acceptable level of
components that can be used for usability. But it must be
kept in mind that usability is not the only quantity
attribute to keep in mind for the successful software
implementation [18].
Usability is highly considered in health software and
information system these days [19]. Health information
system has become the most invested field in the recent
years and lot of money is being invested in this field in
order to provide better health facilities to the common
man. Different methodological approaches are studied in
order to find out the evaluation based on the health
information systems. Rapid development of biomedical
based software has created the need of testing more about
the usability of these applications. Usability inspection of
clinical methods are also being employed, and these are
the testing that are done by the analyst in terms of
medical health care systems. And both usability testing
and usability evaluation methods are applied on the
patient health care system.
In security it is hard to find the usability evaluation of
ITSM tool by using the conventional methods. Author
proposes a set of ITSM usability heuristics techniques
that are based on activity theory. These theories are
supported by prior research work as well and consider
the cooperative and complex nature of security
management. In order to get evaluation of a commercial
identity management system the Writers has made the
comparison of the employment of the ITSM and
Nielsen’s heuristics based methodologies. Participants
who used the Nielsen’s heuristics based methodologies
have less problems as compare to the ITSM. Evaluators
analysed lot of problems while two data sets of
heuristics, in different situations writers recommends
both of them [20][22]. U-SCRUM methodology [13] is
proposed by Singh to improve the usability. Unlike
SCRUM having one product owner, U-SRUM has two
product owners, one focused on the functionality and
other focused on the usability. Result shows U-SRUM
improve usability in the product then traditional
SCRUM.
As mentioned in [3] the author claimed that user
contribution at the design stage has a smaller footprint
size because it contains specific or functional matters.
Due to this purpose, software designers normally avoid
including users in the level. Olsson [4], in his research,
claimed that users should be engaged in the design and
development of systems. Users engaged in the
application development process have an important
responsibility towards the result of the application item
[5]. Furthermore Carrol [6] strengthened that user
participation is an important factor in the success of a
project and is the best choice for many projects. Robert
Pessagno [7] discussed the importance of usability in
developing interactive software’s. Results of the survey
and usability test mentioned in his paper have shown that
design is an important factor in determining a site’s
success because it creates it identity while
simultaneously facilitating its usability.
As mentioned in [8], the modified heuristics are more
efficient and capture more defects then the one proposed
by Nielsen 10 heuristics. Also the research [9] shows that
pitfalls of the HE and it seems useful to follow more than
one method for software usability evaluation.
The methodology mentioned in [10] is to improve the
problems with the agile process and focus on the
software design approach. Agile software development is
the most widely used software models in the software
Industry. Its efficiency to handle rapid change in the
requirement handling and involving user at every stage
of development is valued. However, agile based projects
fail due to insufficient quality attributes.
McInerney and Maurer mentioned in [14], the possibility
of integration software engineer and usability experts in
agile software development. As both are from different
backgrounds having different domain knowledge helps to
solve the problem that mostly occurred in software
development, in their own ways and most importantly
agile methods only focus in functional requirement and
neglecting usability issues.
the stakeholders of having the product near perfection.
3. Proposed Agile Model
Figure 1: Proposed Agile Model
Figure 1 shows the agile lifecycle staring from FlexREQ
[15] and ends at final product. Passing through various
processes helps agile experts, usability experts and user
to work together. FlexREQ [15] is a process develop
product feasibility documents in a small amount of time
unlike traditional soft model spend considerable amount
D u r r e e s a m i n J o u r n a l ( I S S N : 2 2 0 4 - 9 8 2 7 )
J u n e V o l 1 I s s u e 2 , Y e a r 2 0 1 5 of time in documentation to achieve product quality at
the end. Interactive User Prototyping consists of two
further process user interface prototyping and
architectural prototyping as shown in figure 2. The final
requirements gathered from the FlexREQ phase are now
in the phase of designing (IUP) where interface and
architecture prototypes are refined according to the
specified requirement.
Figure 2: IUP Cycle
The resulted prototypes from the IUP phase will further
tested for the Usability by using CASI [16]. CASI is a
Usability evaluation method helps to improve the
usability of software interfaces. Involvement of user and
usability expert is highly important in this phase to find
the usability defects. CASI keeps on the evaluating the
interface until user fully satisfied. After CASI phase the
coding starts and later unit and acceptance testing will be
conducted to check final product satisfies all
specifications and useful for the customer.
4. Experiment and Future work
The proposed lifecycle will be tested under software
companies by developing interactive desktop based
application. For the theoretical point of view the
proposed lifecycle integrates both agile attribute and
usability attributes in one lifecycle
5. Future work and conclusion
Evolving from non-agile software development methods
to agile software development methods, agile
development methods are the most flexible approach for
software development where development team keeps on
improving the software with ongoing involvement of
user. But agile methods have not integrated with usability
approaches which are crucial to achieve software
usability. Incorporating usability process in agile
software method is important to achieve which is an
essential quality. This paper explored the key features of
agile software development methods and Usability
Evaluation methods. The literature mentioned in this
paper highlights the importance of usability in agile
methods. Furthermore the proposed lifecycle proves the
possibility of integrating usability evaluation techniques
in agile software development methods. However from
the literature and proposed life cycle it appears that there
are many benefits that can be achieved by integrate
usability in agile software model. In future the particle
testing of this proposed lifecycle is required to identify at
what level usability can be integrated in agile software
methods.
References
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Perspective on System Development in
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of social networking web sites. In California
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D u r r e e s a m i n J o u r n a l ( I S S N : 2 2 0 4 - 9 8 2 7 )
J u n e V o l 1 I s s u e 2 , Y e a r 2 0 1 5
Impact of Offshoring on Competitive Advantage of U.S
Multinational Corporations
Muhammad Usman Tariq
(College of Signals, National University of Science & Technology, Pakistan
Suziyanti Marjudi (Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, Universiti Selangor (UNISEL), Malaysia
Azura Onn (Department of Management and Human Resource, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Malaysia
ABSTRACT: This paper presents the analysis of reasons of offshoring for the multinational corporations in the U.S and the
value addition to the economy. It explains the impact of offshoring on competitive advantage of U.S. Multinational
Corporations on the economy and different other factors focusing on the root cause of offshoring in different countries. The
study is limited to analysis of offshoring, economy effect, currency value addition and reasons behind shifting bases to other
countries. This paper will help to build up the understanding about the basic offshoring, outsourcing, branching concepts
with the competitive advantage that multinational firms are having by shifting their bases to other countries.
Key words: Economy, Offshoring, Outsourcing, Corporations, Competition
1. Introduction
Every country has to follow a set of policies, methods
and processes in order to perform imports and exports. A
number of conflicts arise due to weak foreign trading
policies by countries. It requires professional expertise to
manage the trade of a country. There are also a number
of conflicts generated between the different countries
related to financial decisions of countries. To eliminate
the risk involved in financial issues a system of
principles, procedures, policies, responsibilities,
accountabilities are used by stakeholders. Many of the
famous financial scandals are noted in the history
occurring at Parmalat, Nortel, and Enron. It has cost a lot
of drop in the market, huge loss of saving, loss of jobs
and decrease in taxes. The financial scandals have made
corporations to learn and practice new methods. There
are a number of departments involved combined together
to create a nation. A nation economy is the representation
of the nation in the world. Different nations have
different currencies and different resources. Some are
abundant in resources, some have less resources. There is
another effect of such conditions on different corporation
which includes offshoring and outsourcing. The
offshoring ad outsourcing concept started after the
internet became an easy way to promote business in U.S.
and worldwide. Since then it has been a common practice
by the large corporations around the globe and U.S. The
current U.S. market has outsourced millions of jobs in
other countries. An analysis show that 3.3 million jobs
will be outsourced till 2015 by U.S. market and the
estimated amount to be paid to Asian countries as
salaries will be around $137 billion (Hemphill, 2004). 2. Theoretical Definitions
The multinational corporation can be defined as any
company which own controls, manage and generate
income by having assets in more than one country
(Zekos, 2005). Competitive advantage can be defined as
the businesses seeking for more advantage in terms of
developing unique competences and lowest delivery cost
or having more customer value than the other
organizations with more pay off than the average
industry (Day & Wensley, 1998). Outsourcing can be
defined as when a firms transfers some of its operations
to external supplier (Gnuschke et al,. 2004). Offshoring
can be defined as transferring of operation by acquiring
facilities in the other country or utilizations of labor for
the importing services and goods in U.S. (Gnuscke, et al.,
2004).
A National culture can be defined as the collective
thinking of a human mind that differentiate one human
race from other human race. It is based on collectively
held values (Brown, 1995). Market freedom can be
defined as the economic freedom and economic growth.
The relaxations that corporations get from the
government regarding taxes, law and regulations are
combined together to generate opportunities and
incentives for producing better product (Schiller, 2003).
3. Offshoring and Outsourcing Analysis
The offshoring concept is based on completely shifting a
firm to another country or shifting of certain operations
and goods. Different multinational firms have value
addition by shifting the operations in different countries.
It is not based on that the other countries are cheaper in
economy or production. 67% of the U.S. firms are based
in competitive economy countries like France, Europe
etc. The other concept usually is called outsourcing, it
means that a firm hire a certain number of personnel for
specific project or task for a limited time period. The
outsourcing does not shift the whole operations of the
firms. It does not require any place or permanent offices
for the organization working. The relationship between
D u r r e e s a m i n J o u r n a l ( I S S N : 2 2 0 4 - 9 8 2 7 )
J u n e V o l 1 I s s u e 2 , Y e a r 2 0 1 5
the outsourcing, offshoring and competitive advantage is
important issue for the multinational organizations. The
growing need of business and market competition is
making multinational organizations to gain the
competitive advantage. National culture also plays an
important role according to the analysis based on the
cultural limitations for growing of relationships with
other local and foreign countries.
The analysis indicated that U.S. multinational
organizations use the outsourcing and offshoring as a
strategy to gain competitive advantage and increase their
performance. There are many organizations, general
public and government representatives who are working
out to maintain the local job quota, as loss of
employment is linked with the manufacturing. It raises
negative impact on the economic growth of the U.S.
economy at the local, state and national level (Prestowitz,
2004). The technological advantage is also lost due to
outsourcing labor and production overseas (Hemphill,
2004). It also makes negative impact on the brands of
U.S. firms. The competitiveness among to local market
in terms of productivity, strategy and creativity also
decreases. Although the concerns are much highlighted
in different debates, but the concern of economic
incentives for outsourcing the employment and
production to other countries encourage the strategy to be
continued. The information technology outsourcing has
also became part of the most of the American and
European firms.
Advantage and disadvantages The advantages and disadvantages require deep
examination. The most of the argument is related to the
offshoring outsourcing is that it promotes the status of
multinational firms and improves stability providing new
opportunities for research and development. There is also
a demand from the stakeholders to achieve different
financial goals that can be achieved by the offshoring and
outsourcing process (Chase, Jacobs, & Aquiliano, 2005).
The arguments against the offshoring and outsourcing
consists of issues related to the loss of economic stability
by reducing the employment and earned income to the
employees and the regulatory incomes such as trade and
tariffs. The actual outcome of the projects cannot be
identified directly as the ambiguity remains between the
specific organization loss to the work incentives for new
projects and theoretical outcome is different the actual
outcome that falls outside the assessment models to
analyze the economic performance. The different
concepts and relationship among the economic
performance, outsourcing, offshoring and national
culture effects can be combined together as follows:
Offshoring and outsourcing is an important
value addition that increases the competitive
advantage of U.S. multinational organizations.
National culture of the host country is also an
important factor that can impact both financial
and technological leadership of U.S. firms and
its competitive advantage.
Market freedom can also have impact on the
U.S. multinational firms to establish offshore
business that can impact their competitive
advantage.
Time, material and fixed prices can also impact
the ability of U.S. multinational organizations
to achieve their strategic goals.
The market share price can also be changed
with the change of company host business
location.
Today there are many countries as the attractive
countries for manufacturing facilities. The labor cost and
great number of people are ideal target for offshoring
outsourcing of both employment and production (Babu,
2006). The education factor is also important as different
countries have high standards then the other countries
which provide ideal employment opportunities. It is a
part of generating capital and educated offshoring nation
can attract more investors for technological productivity.
It is also narrowing the gaps between the economic
productions per capita when compared with the U.S.
4. Porter’s Competitive Advantage
Porter theory is widely accepted by a number of
stakeholders who want to gain the competitive advantage
in a business environment. It provides identification and
implementation of internal and external variables. Porter
focused on the concept that countries which take
advantage of different opportunities and maintain the
core strengths are more likely to succeed and other those
who do not focus on internal threats and weakness fail
mostly. It provides the summary of the competitive
advantage theory by identifying the needs of stakeholders
and market. There can be strategic operations that can be
generated by positioning the stakeholder correctly in the
supply chain. The stakeholder’s competitive advantage
can be increased by making the communication better
and involving them in decision making process and goal
management. The nation can achieve the international
success in a specific industry and combined impact of
regulations. Although the porter competitive theory
received a number of positive and negative criticism but
remains true about certain factors. There are now a
number of different theories also which provide effective
analysis of competitive advantage. Positive competitive
advantage provides information that a company is ahead
of the internal and external variables. The assessment of
competitive advantage consists of highly expanded
processes. Challenges are also made concerning the
approaches of assessments related to the competitive
advantage (Chase et al, 2005).
Types of Offshoring outsourcing and competitive
advantage contracts
Contract management is an important part when
offshoring, outsourcing as it provides legal binding of
documents that is signed between the legal parameters of
the host and target company. It also elaborates the legal
terms and conditions of business in the other country.
The contract assessment can be benchmark for the
multinational corporations. It offers identification of
inputs and outputs for the opportunities specific with the
offshoring and outsourcing activities. The contracts also
combine together the external and internal factors related
to the potential impact of exchanging goods and services.
The evolution of the offshoring and outsourcing depicts
the patterns of growth with the economic and production
models. The stages of maturity is also linked with the
offshoring and outsourcing concept which provide
shifting of resources to increase the competitive
advantage. The literature also suggests that there are
political effects on the offshoring and outsourcing.
D u r r e e s a m i n J o u r n a l ( I S S N : 2 2 0 4 - 9 8 2 7 )
J u n e V o l 1 I s s u e 2 , Y e a r 2 0 1 5
The issues related with the technological organizations
are also based on the effects of international mobility
concerning software innovation (Lyengar, 2004). The
companies are shifting to attract customers but they also
face political challenges when the highly quality products
are used widely. In case of software the data movement,
development and willingness of software use is also
affected. There are also a number of risk associated with
the distribution channel in other countries. The different
culture also contributes the salable amount of the
products. These factors are more important than the
company own factors for outsourcing and offshoring.
Future work and conclusion
The future work extension to this research is comparison
of options with more extended analysis of methodologies
related to offshoring, outsourcing and competitive
advantage. The U.S. organizations have a lot of
offshoring and outsourcing collaborations but the fact
should not be denied that most of them are in highly
competitive countries. Most of the time it is not about the
labor cost or cheap resources, it is also dependent on the
political factors and ease of business. The different
manufacturing and production organizations are working
now a days in Asia region widely for the technology
development projects. The competitive advantage factor
cannot be denied but it cannot be made the prime
purpose for shifting the organization to different
countries. The host country will always remain the hub
for management of operations.
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