This paper provides a report on the experimental collaborative and distributed development of a prototypic Widget-based PLE. The development process is described and detailed taking into account the requirements of a language learning scenario. First results are presented, and developer experiences are discussed critically with a focus on the development process as well as problems with current Widget technologies and interoperability.

abstract: The coordination of developing various complex and large-scale projects using computers has been well established and is the so-called computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). Collaborative software development consists of a group of teams working together to achieve a common goal for developing a high-quality, complex, and large-scale software system efficiently, and it requires common processes and communication channels among these teams. The common processes for coordination among software development teams can be handled by similar principles in CSCW. The development of complex and large-scale software becomes complicated due to the involvement of many software development teams. The development of such a software system can be largely improved by effective collaboration among the participating software development teams at both software components and system levels. The efficiency of developing software components depends on trusted coordination among the participating teams for sharing, processing, and managing information on various participating teams, which are often operating in a distributed environment. Participating teams may belong to the same organization or different organizations. Existing approaches to coordination in collaborative software development are based on using a centralized repository to store, process, and retrieve information on participating software development teams during the development. These approaches use a centralized authority, have a single point of failure, and restricted rights to own data and software. In this thesis, the generation of trusted coordination in collaborative software development using blockchain is studied, and an approach to achieving trusted cooperation for collaborative software development using blockchain is presented. The smart contracts are created in the blockchain to encode software specifications and acceptance criteria for the software results generated by participating teams. The blockchain used in the approach is a private blockchain because a private blockchain has the characteristics of providing non-repudiation, privacy, and integrity, which are required in trusted coordination of collaborative software development. This approach is implemented using Hyperledger, an open-source private blockchain. An example to illustrate the approach is also given. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Software Engineering 2020

Mob programming is a collaborative software development method that has gained increasing attention in both industry and research. While the focus of mob programming is on the benefits of teams programming together, there are also potential benefits for other aspects of the software development process. However, there is a lack of research on the use of the method outside the domain of programming. This study explores user-centred design (UCD) in mob programming through a case study of three software development teams at Sveriges Television, a Swedish public broadcasting company. Results show that the teams use the method for a variety of tasks in their daily work, calling for a rebranding of the method to mob development to encompass the broader scope. The integration of UCD is analysed through the principles of user-centred agile software development. The results indicate that a revision of these principles is needed to include the cross-functional and social factors that mob development adds to the software development process.