The present study has originated from the realisation that numerous software development projects either do not live up to expectations or fail outright. The scope, environment and implementation of traditional software projects have changed due to various reasons such as globalisation, advances in computing technologies and, last but not least, the development and deployment of software projects in distributed, collaborative and virtual environments. As a result, traditional project management methods cannot and do not address the added complexities found in this ever-changing environment. In this study the processes and procedures associated with software project management (SPM) were explored. SPM can be defined as the process of planning, organising, staffing, monitoring, controlling and leading a software project. The current study is principally aimed at making a contribution to enhancing and supporting SPM. A thorough investigation into software agent computing resulted in the realisation that software agent technology can be regarded as a new paradigm that may be used to support the SPM processes. A software agent is an autonomous system that forms part of an environment, can sense the environment and act on it over a period of time, in pursuit of its own agenda. The software agent can also perceive, reason and act by selecting and executing an appropriate action. The unique requirements of SPM and the ways in which agent technology may address these were subsequently identified. It was concluded that agent technology is specifically suited to geographically distributed systems, large network systems and mobile devices. Agents provide a natural metaphor for support in a team environment where cooperation and the coordination of actions toward a common goal, as well as the monitoring and controlling of actions are strongly supported. Although it became evident that agent technology is indeed being applied to areas and sections of the SPM environment, it is not being applied to the whole spectrum, i.e. to all core and facilitating functions of SPM. If software agents were to be used across the whole spectrum of SPM processes, this could provide a significant advantage to software project managers who are currently using other contemporary methods. The "SPMSA" model (Software Project Management supported by Software Agents) was therefore proposed. This model aims to enhance SPM by taking into account the unique nature and changing environment of software projects. The SPMSA model is unique as it supports the entire spectrum of SPM functionality, thus supporting and enhancing each key function with a team of software agents. Both the project manager and individual team members will be supported during software project management processes to simplify their tasks, eliminate the complexities, automate actions and enhance coordination and communication. Virtual teamwork, knowledge management, automated workflow management and process and task coordination will also be supported. A prototype of a section of the risk management key function of the SPMSA model was implemented as `proof of concept'. This prototype may be expanded to include the entire SPMSA model and cover all areas of SPM. Finally, the SPMSA model was verified by comparing the SPM phases of the model to the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle. These phases of the SPMSA model were furthermore compared to the basic phases of software development as prescribed by the ISO 10006:2003 standard for projects. In both cases the SPMSA model compared favourably. Hence it can be concluded that the SPMSA model makes a fresh contribution to the enhancement of SPM by utilising software agent technology. / School of Computing / Ph. D. (Computer Science)

An organizational strategy to develop software has appeared in the market. Organizations release software source code open and hope to attract volunteers to improve their software, forming what we call an open source project. Examples of organizations that have used this strategy include IBM (Eclipse), SAP (Netweaver) and Mozilla (Thunderbird). Moreover, thousands of these projects have been created as a consequence of the growing amount of software source code released by individuals. This expressive phenomenon deserves attention for its sudden appearance, newness and usefulness to public and private organizations. To explain the dynamics of open source projects, this research theoretically identified and empirically analyzed a construct – attractiveness – found crucial to them due to its influence on how they are populated and operate, subsequently impacting the qualities of the software produced and of the support provided. Both attractiveness' causes and consequences were put under scrutiny, as well as its indicators. On the side of the consequences, it was theoretically proposed and empirically tested whether the attractiveness of these projects affects their levels of activeness, efficiency, likelihood of task completion, and time for task completion, though not linearly, as task complexity could moderate the relationships between them. Also, it was argued at the theoretical level that activeness, efficiency, likelihood of task completion, and time for task completion mediate the relationship between attractiveness and software/support quality. On the side of attractiveness' causes, it was proposed and tested that five open software projects' characteristics (license type, intended audience, type of project and project’s life-cycle stage) impact attractiveness directly. Additionally, these projects' characteristics were argued to influence projects' levels of activeness, efficiency, likelihood of task completion, and time for task completion (and so an empirical evaluation of their associations was performed). The empirical tests of all these relationships between constructs were carried out using Structural Equation Modeling with Maximum Likelihood on three samples of over 4,600 projects each, collected from the largest repository of open source software, Sourceforge.net (a repeated cross-sectional approach). The results confirmed the importance of attractiveness, suggesting a direct influence on projects' dynamics, as opposed to the moderated-by-task complexity indirect paths first proposed. Furthermore, all four projects' characteristics studied were found to significantly influence projects' attractiveness, activeness, efficiency, likelihood of task completion, and time for task completion (with the exception of license type and time for task completion). Besides providing a statistical test of these propositions, this study discovered the direction of the influence of each project characteristic on projects' attractiveness, activeness, efficiency, likelihood of task completion and time for task completion. Lastly, conclusions, limitations, and future directions are discussed based on these findings.

Kravhantering vid agil mjukvaruutveckling är en utmaning som allt fler företag ställs inför.Prototyper, modeller som liknar tilltänkta slutprodukter, kan användas för att inhämtaviktig information om det som ska utvecklas. För att beskriva hur lik en prototyp är dentilltänkta slutprodukten används begreppet verklighetsfaktor. Studiens syfte är dels attöka kunskapen kring prototypanvändning i agil mjukvaruutveckling, dels att undersökavilken effekt en prototyps verklighetsfaktor har då prototyper används i diskussioner inomkravhantering. En fallstudie görs på företaget Exsitec där personal intervjuas angående prototypanvändning i mjukvaruprojekt. Två prototyper utvecklas sedan med låg respekti-ve hög verklighetsfaktor och används som diskussionsunderlag i intervjuer. Studien visar att användning av prototyper i mjukvaruprojekt kan bidra till ökat förtroende hos kun-der, förbättrad kommunikation med kunder och kan förenkla att uppnå konsensus mellan olika intressenter. Vidare kan de, beroende av hur de används, bidra till helhetsbilden avprodukten och fungera som dokumentation. Studien påvisar även några, om än subtila, skillnader i den information som samlas in med hjälp av prototyper med låg respekti-ve hög verklighetsfaktor. Hög verklighetsfaktor tycks medföra att fler krav samlas in, men göra respondenter mindre benägna att vilja komma med förslag på mer omfattandeförändringar. / Requirements Engineering (RE) in Agile Software Development (ASD) is a challenge thatmany face and several techniques exist when doing so. One such technique is prototyping, when a model of a product is used to gather important information in software develop-ment. To describe how much a prototype resembles the product the notion of fidelity is used. The aim of this study is to contribute to research regarding prototyping in ASD,and to examine the effect of a prototype’s fidelity when using prototypes in discussionsduring RE. A case study is performed at the company Exsitec where staff are interviewedregarding prototyping in software development. Thereafter, two prototypes of low andhigh fidelity are developed and used in interviews as a basis for discussion. Based on thisstudy, the use of prototypes in software projects can help customers trust the process,improve communication with customers, and facilitate when trying to reach consensusamong different stakeholders. Furthermore, depending on how they are used, prototypescan contribute to understanding the big picture of the requirements and can also serve asdocumentation. The study also shows some, albeit subtle, differences in the informationcollected using prototypes with low and high fidelity. The use of a high fidelity prototypeseems to generate more requirements, but makes interviewees less likely to come up withlarger, more comprehensive requirement changes.

The use of electronic mail (email) has evolved from sending simple messages to task delegation and management. Most mail clients, however, have not kept up with the evolution and as a result have limited task management features available. On the other hand, while issue tracking systems offer useful task management functionality, they are not as widespread as emails and also have a few drawbacks. This thesis reports on the exploration of the integration of the ubiquitous nature of email with the task management features of issue-tracking systems. We explore this using simple ad-hoc as well as semi-automated tasks. With these two working together, tasks can be delegated from email clients without needing to switch between the two environments. It brings some of the benefits of issue tracking systems closer to our email users.The system is developed using Microsoft VisuaI Studio.NET. with the code written in C#. The eXtreme Programming (XP) methodology was used during the development of the proof-of-concept prototype that demonstrates the integration of the two environments, as we were faced at first with vague requirements bound to change, as we better understood the problem domain through our development. XP allowed us to skip an extended and comprehensive initial design process and incrementally develop the system, making refinements and extensions as we encountered the need for them. This alleviated the need to make upfront decisions that were based on minimal knowledge of what to expect during development. This thesis describes the implementation of the prototype and the decisions made with each step taken towards developing an email-based issue tracking system. With the two environments working together, we can now easily track issues from our email clients without needing to switch to another system. / KMBT_363 / Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in

Este trabalho visa agilizar e sistematizar o desenvolvimento de softwares educacionais, maximizando suas chances de favorecer a aprendizagem, através da descrição de cada uma de suas etapas, desde a primeira coleta de requisitos até a avaliação da aprendizagem, compondo, desta forma, uma metodologia. Para atingir essa meta, é importante favorecer a estruturação da integração da equipe de desenvolvimento com os professores e estudantes, durante o planejamento educacional, a implementação e a avaliação. Como produto desta metodologia, construiu-se um software educativo (cujo contexto é equilíbrio químico focado em ensino no nível médio), e sua eficiência em termos de aprendizagem foi avaliada experimentalmente, através de uma atividade educacional, em ambiente de ensino presencial. Ao final deste processo investigativo, constatou-se o fato de que a etapa de design da interface tem tanta importância quanto a etapa do planejamento educacional. Além disso, discute-se a necessidade de haver um especialista em educação no time, pois há indícios de que sua presença seja mais determinante para o sucesso do produto do que a dos demais profissionais (por exemplo: programadores, designers, roteiristas, etc). Assim, conclui-se que a proposta metodológica feita neste trabalho otimiza a participação dos integrantes da equipe, direcionando suas habilidades para as atividades necessárias, e que essa estratégia se reflete em bons produtos de software. / The aim of this work is to systematize the development of an educational software, maximizing its capacity to support learning, through the description of each one of its phases, from the first requirement analysis to the evaluation of learning, putting a methodology together. To achieve this goal, it is important to supply a framework for the integration of the development team with teachers and students, during the educational project, the implementation and evaluation. As a product of this methodology, an educational software (whose context is chemical equilibrium, for high school) was built, and its efficiency (in terms of learning) was experimentally evaluated through an educational activity, on a presence teaching environment. In the end of this investigative process, it is verified that the interface’s design phase is as important as the educational planning phase. In the end of this work is discussed the need of an expert in education on the team, because there is an indication that his presence is more significant for the success of the product than the presence of other professionals (for instance: programmers, designers, writers, etc). Therefore, it follows that the methodological proposition made in this work optimizes the participation of the members of the team, routing their abilities to the required activities, and that this strategy reflects in good software products.

Sistemas de software bem modularizados podem trazer diversos benefícios como reu- sabilidade, compreensão, adaptabilidade, manutenibilidade, entre outros. O conceito de separação de interesses está diretamente ligado à ideia de modularização e consiste na capacidade de manter cada interesse em sua própria unidade modular. Um interesse pode estar relacionado tanto a requisitos funcionais como não-funcionais e em diferentes níveis de abstração. Algumas das técnicas que têm sido utilizadas para modularização de interes- ses são a Programação Orientada a Aspectos (POA) e Refatoração. Entretanto, a maioria das propostas de refatoração que envolvem a POA possui limitações para a modularização de interesses transversais: muitas delas são de granularidade fina; algumas são definidas imprecisamente e possuem sobreposição de intenções. A seleção e composição de tais refatorações para a modularização de interesses é uma tarefa difícil e não-trivial, além de variar em cada contexto específico, o que dificulta o reuso. Algumas das propostas de refatorações são voltadas especialmente para interesses transversais, no entanto possuem um nível de abstração pouco elevado e encontram-se acopladas a mecanismos específicos de linguagens de programação OO e OA. Adicionalmente, a aplicação de refatorações deve ser planejada e acompanhada sistematicamente durante o desenvolvimento e manu- tenção de um software, pois envolve alocação de recursos e avaliação de custo/benefício. O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar um método de refatoração para modularização de interesses transversais, através de refatorações de granularidade alta, baseado em padrões recorrentes de estruturas transversais (chamados de sintomas). Além disso, como parte do método, propõem-se algoritmos para análise de impacto a fim de apoiar desenvolve- dores no processo decisório de aplicação de refatorações candidatas. Inicialmente, dois estudos bibliográficos foram conduzidos: o primeiro sobre propostas de refatorações que envolvem aspectos e o segundo sobre trabalhos de medição de interesses. Dois estudos de caso foram realizados totalizando 22 interesses de dois sistemas alvos. Este trabalho de avaliação possibilitou uma análise quantitativa e qualitativa dos resultados onde foi possível verificar a aplicabilidade do proposta. / Well-modularized software systems can bring several benefits such as reuse, com- prehension, adaptability, maintainability, among others. The concept of separation of concerns refers to the idea of modularisation, which consists on the ability to keep every concern in its own modular unit. A concern can refer to functional and non-functional requirements and can also be in different abstraction levels. Some of the techniques which have been applied for crosscutting concerns modularization are Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) and Refactoring. However, most of the aspect-oriented refactor- ings have limitations regarding the modularisation of crosscutting concerns. A number of them presents fine-grained transformations. While some of them are well-documented catalogues, a number of them are defined imprecisely, addressing the same situation and having overlapping intentions. They do not allow the designer to holistically reason about the elements involved in a crosscutting concern. It becomes difficult and non-trivial to choose a set of fine-grained refactorings and organize them in a feasible order to achieve the concern modularisation in a specific context. Some of the refactoring techniques are particularly focused on crosscutting concerns, however they are not placed in a suf- ficient abstraction level. Moreover they are coupled to specific OO and AO language mechanisms. Additionally, the application of refactorings should be planned and realized systematically during software development and maintenance since it involves resource allocation and tradeoff analysis. The goal of this work is to present a refactoring method for crosscutting concerns modularisation, through coarse-grained refactorings based on recurring patterns of crosscutting shapes (called symptoms). Also, as part of the method, algorithms for change-impact analysis are proposed in order to support developers during the decision process of the application of refactoring candidates. Initially, two biblio- graphic studies were made: the first one about refactoring approaches which involve as- pects, and the second one about concern measurement techniques. Two case studies were carried out totalizing 22 concerns of two target systems. This evaluation work allowed a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the results. Thus it was possible to verify the applicability of our approach.

Nesta dissertação, o autor aborda a dificuldade de prever-se o desempenho dos recursos humanos em um processo de desenvolvimento de software em um ambiente de Programação Extrema (XP) (BECK, 2000) e propõe uma solução com potencial para minimizar esse problema. Especificamente, o problema, a ser tratado neste trabalho, consiste em melhorar as previsões dos gerentes de projeto – no âmbito do ambiente mencionado - com relação ao desempenho dos recursos humanos na geração de valor para o negócio. Tal valor para o negócio é alcançado através da implementação, por parte dos programadores, das diversas funcionalidades de um sistema de software. Para a construção da solução proposta neste trabalho, o autor analisou um sistema XP de desenvolvimento de software (composto por ambiente, pessoas e processo), conforme o processo de modelagem proposto por Streit (2006) e apoiado na revisão da literatura relevante. Em seguida, o autor estruturou esse sistema em um modelo conceitual para, finalmente, desenvolver um modelo computacional do sistema analisado, baseado em múltiplos agentes inteligentes modelados conforme a arquitetura Beliefs-Desires-Intentions (BDI), ou Crenças-Desejos-Intenções. O modelo computacional da simulação multi-agente foi desenvolvido com o apoio da ferramenta SeSAm (KLÜGL, 2006). Testado através da experimentação estatística 2k Fatorial (LAW e KELTON, 2000), o modelo de simulação multi-agente de processos de desenvolvimento de software, para ambientes de Programação Extrema, demonstrou eficácia e aplicabilidade prática sobre o problema em questão. / In this research, the author adresses the difficulty to forecast the performance of the human resources in a software development process in an Extreme Programming (XP) (BECK, 2000) environment and proposes a solution that may be suitable to minimize this problem. Specifically, the main problem consists on how to improve the assumptions of the project managers - in the aforementioned environment - related with the human resources performance in generating value for the business. This value generation is reached through the implementation, by programmers, of the various functionalities of a software system. To build the solution proposed in this research, the author analysed a XP software development system (composed of environment, people and process) considering the modeling process proposed by Streit (2006) and also the relevant related works. This system was later structured in a conceptual model and, in sequence, in a computational model based on the Beliefs-Desires-Intentions (BDI) architecture of intelligent agents. The computational model of the multi-agent simulation was build with the support of the SeSAm (KLÜGL, 2006) tool. The tests of the multi-agent simulation of XP software develoment process model used the 2k Factorial statistical experimentation (LAW e KELTON, 2000) and their results demonstrated the effectiveness and practical applicability of the model for the research problem.

Open source products such as software development tools and server applications are gaining popularity among expert users. There is however a notable lag in adoption of desktop open source software among ordinary users especially in Africa. A number of critical factors such as performance expectancy, effort expectancy and facilitating conditions have been suggested as the determinants of Information and Communication Technologies adoption in general. This study deemed it important to establish if the above factors are the determinants of desktop open source software adoption in Africa. The study aimed to establish the Open Source Software adoption levels among university students in Kenya as well as the factors affecting Open Source Software adoption in this population. The author further aimed to assess the applicability of popular technology acceptance models in the adoption of the software in the population under study. The study employed literature review, quantitative and qualitative approaches. The study also used both descriptive and explanatory research designs in answering the research questions. The Extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology was used as a theoretical framework because it has synthesised all its major predecessors and accommodated all the predecessors constructs. The other reason The Extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology was used is because the model was developed specifically for predicting voluntary technology adoption. This study established that the adoption of Free Open Source Software products in Kenya is very low and existing literature revealed that this is also the case in other developing countries. The study concluded that the factors affecting adoption of desktop Open Source Software by Kenyan university students are usability, user training, Open Source Software compatibility, social influence, prior experience, social economic status, job market demands, proprietary software piracy culture and patent and copyright laws. Hence the study suggested that the existing technology adoption models are not appropriate in predicting technology adoption in an Africa setup. The study proposed and validated an appropriate model that fits in this context. / School of Computing / D.Phil. (Information Systems)

Computing / (M.Sc. (Information Systems))

[pt] Associado a cada sistema de controle de versão existe uma ferramenta de comparação responsável pela extração das diferenças entre duas versões de um documento. Estas ferramentas costumam realizar a comparação baseando-se na informação textual dos documentos, em que o elemento indivisível na comparação é a linha ou a palavra. Porém, o conteúdo versionado normalmente é fortemente estruturado (como exemplo, linguagens de programação) e a utilização deste mecanismo pode desrespeitar limites sintáticos e outras propriedades do documento, dificultando a interpretação das alterações. Nesse trabalho foi construída uma ferramenta para identificar as diferenças entre duas versões de um documento utilizando um mecanismo de comparação baseado na sua estrutura sintática. Desta forma, é possível identificar com maior precisão as diferenças relevantes ao leitor, reduzindo o esforço para compreender a semântica das alterações. A ferramenta construída é capaz de suportar diferentes tipos de documentos a partir da implementação de componentes que tratem das sintaxes desejadas. O componente implementado como exemplo neste trabalho trata a sintaxe da linguagem de programação C++. / [en] Associated with each version control system there’s a comparison tool for extracting the differences between two versions of a document. These tools tend to make a comparison based on textual information from documents, in which the indivisible element is the line or word. But the content versioned is usually highly structured (for example, programming languages) and the use of this mechanism can disrespect syntactical limits and other properties of the document, becoming difficult to interpret what really changed. In this work we created a tool to identify differences between two versions of a document using a comparison mechanism based on the syntactic structure. Thus, it is possible to identify more precisely the relevant differences to the reader, reducing the effort to understand the semantics of the changes. The tool can support different types of documents by implementing components that interprets the desired syntax. The example syntax component implemented in this work deals with the syntax of the programming language C++.