Blueprint for Software Engineering in Technology Enhanced Learning Projects

Lehrstuhl Informatik 5 (Information Systems)

Prof. Dr. M. Jarke 1 These slides are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Blueprint for Software Engineering in Technology Enhanced Learning

Projects

Ralf Klamma Michael Derntl, István Koren, Petru Nicolaescu, Dominik Renzel

RWTH Aachen University Advanced Community Information Systems (ACIS)

Aachen, Germany [email protected]

9th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL 2014) September 18-21, 2014 Graz, Austria


Prof. Dr. M. Jarke 2

Motivations and Objective

■ Most research projects in TEL include software development activities –  Need to set up distributed work force –  Set up software engineering process –  Set up internal procedures and strategies (e.g. OSS) –  Lack of development resources

■ Many projects reinvent the wheel every time ■ Objective: software engineering infrastructure

blueprint based on previous good practice



Project Context: Layers and ROLE ■  Large scale projects on

–  Responsive open learning environments (ROLE), completed –  Scaling up technologies for informal learning (Layers), running –  Technical lead, architecture, integration

■  Challenges –  Fast deployable, scalable, secure solutions –  Short development cycles –  Distributed developer community –  Large, heterogeneous end-user groups –  Procedures for code management, licensing, issue tracking,

etc. are needed –  Open Source as key factor for public funding agencies –  Danger of lack of stakeholder commitment



Developer Support Open Developer Library (ODevL) – main information and link hub for developer task force



Blueprint – Overall Approach

RequirementsEng ineering

Co-‐Design

Research Themes & Activities

(Open Source)Software Development

Integ rated System & Prototypes

Continuous Integration

Open Developer Library (ODevL)

Issue Tracking(J IRA)

Source Code Repository(Github)

Source Code Integ ration(Jenkins)

RequirementsBazaar

House of Quality

■  Cross work package roles: –  Researchers –  Co-designers –  Developers

■  Core architectural processes reflected in the architecture

■  Core instruments: House of Quality, ODevL

■  Continuous integration of processes, artifacts, and instruments



Lessons Learned (1)

■  People –  Social process, many stakeholders, different goals –  Requirements change –  “Not invented here” syndrome

■ Open Source Development –  Strong commitment required; sensitive OSS communities –  Research projects often lack development resources –  OSS training and licensing issues



Lessons Learned (2)

■  Awareness –  Internal and external awareness, e.g. through events like

developer camps, competitions –  Tools for reflection among developers –  A process of becoming for members

■  Time –  Essential factor –  Early provision of development infrastructure important –  Entry barriers for partners (new tools, new infrastructures) –  Danger of passive resistance



Conclusions

■ Unfolded a blueprint for software engineering in TEL research projects –  Common challenges regarding the software architecture

and development process –  Offer an aligned set of instruments and activities to adopt –  Based on Open Source Software and decentralized

control ■  Preserve and share successful practice ■  Establish a culture of sharing and continued

refinement



Thanks



Layers Developer Task Force

■  Informal community of developers ■  Autonomy in realizing short-term development

agenda ■  Bi-weekly meetings ■ Consulting role for

technical issues in design teams

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Technologies Integrated in Year 1 Architecture

■  i5Cloud: hybrid cloud infrastructure, initially developed in German Excellence Cluster UMIC (Ultra High-Speed Mobile Info. & Comm.)

■  M-learning Platform: private/public cloud repository for m-learning content by TRIBAL

■  LAS / LAS2peer: Lightweight Application Server, an extensible peer-to-peer middleware for community oriented services

■  MobSOS: framework for community service success analytics for formative evaluation, see WP1

■  Social Semantic Server: framework for social-semantic data, see WP5

■  ROLE SDK: development and runtime infrastructure for personal learning environments (came out of ROLE IP)

■  SeViAnno: Semantic video annotation technology ■  Intradoc247: candidate GP practice intranet solution for 500+

practices in our cluster region



Requirments – Input Examples

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Context card

Storyboard



Requirments Bazaar – Discovery

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http://requirements-bazaar.org



Requirments Bazaar – Requirements Page

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House of Quality App

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http://is.gd/hoqchrome

Science

Blueprint for Software Engineering in Technology Enhanced Learning Projects