Browsing by Author "Clarke, Paul"

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Citation Count: Gulec, Ulas...et al., "A 3D virtual environment for training soccer referees", Computer Standards & Interfaces, Vol. 64, pp. 1-10, (2019).
A 3D virtual environment for training soccer referees
(Elsevier Science BV, 2019) Güleç, Ulaş; Yılmaz, Murat; İşler, Veysi; O'Connor, Rory V.; Clarke, Paul; 47439
Emerging digital technologies are being used in many ways by and in particular virtual environments provide new opportunities to gain experience on real-world phenomena without having to live the actual real-world experiences. In this study, a quantitative research approach supported by expert validation interviews was conducted to determine the availability of virtual environments in the training of soccer referees. The aim is to design a virtual environment for training purposes, representing a real-life soccer stadium to allow the referees to manage matches in an atmosphere similar to the real stadium atmosphere. At this point, the referees have a chance to reduce the number of errors that they make in real life by experiencing difficult decisions that they encounter during the actual match via using the virtual stadium. In addition, the decisions and reactions of the referees during the virtual match were observed with the number of different fans in the virtual stadium to understand whether the virtual stadium created a real stadium atmosphere for the referees. For this evaluation, Presence Questionnaire (PQ) and Immersive Tendencies Questionnaire (ITQ) were applied to the referees to measure their involvement levels. In addition, a semi-structure interview technique was utilized in order to understand participants' opinions about the system. These interviews show that the referees have a positive attitude towards the system since they can experience the events occurred in the match as a first person instead of watching them from camera as a third person. The findings of current study suggest that virtual environments can be used as a training tool to increase the experience levels of the soccer referees since they have an opportunity to decide about the positions without facing the real-world risks.
Citation Count: Yilmaz, Mert...et al., "A Gamification Approach to Improve the Software Development Process by Exploring the Personality of Software Practitioners", Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination (Spice 2016), Vol. 609, pp. 71-83, (2016).
A Gamification Approach to Improve the Software Development Process by Exploring the Personality of Software Practitioners
(Springer, 2016) Yılmaz, Mert; Yılmaz, Murat; O'Connor, Rory V.; Clarke, Paul
Although there are various kinds of processes designed to manage the complexities of software development, it is still a challenging endeavor. Recently, a significant number of researchers have started to investigate social problems such as incompatibilities with respect to personality that is likely to be encountered in all stages of the software development process. However, there is no computer-based artifact to reveal the personality types of software practitioners. To bridge this gap, a virtual 3D assessment environment is developed with the ability to immerse individuals similar to a realistic model of the assessment. The interactive questionnaire is based on previous interactive personality assessment framework, which was specifically designed for software engineers. Based on the developed tool, a study was conducted on software practitioners. The data gathered via a survey study from software practitioners is analyzed to observe the difference between the results of paper-based and interactive versions of the same assessment. The analysis of this research states that there is a significant difference between the results of participant's survey scores. Overall, these results indicate that proposed tool is relevant to help software professionals to improve the software development process when personality types are in consideration.
Citation Count: Ohri, İ...et al. "Adopting Augmented Reality for the Purpose of Software Development Process Training and Improvement: An Exploration",
Adopting Augmented Reality for the Purpose of Software Development Process Training and Improvement: An Exploration
(Springer Verlag, 2018) Ohri, İpek; Öge, İrem; Orkun, Bora; Yılmaz, Murat; Tüzün, Eray; Clarke, Paul; O'Connor, Rory V.
Augmented reality (AR) is a technological field of study that bridges the physical and digital world together with a view to improving user experience. AR holds great potential to change the delivery of software services or software process improvement by utilizing a specific set of components. The purpose of this exploratory study is to propose an integration framework to support AR for improving the onboarding process, notably in introducing new hires to the development process while performing their daily tasks. In addition, it also aims to enhance the software development workflow process using AR. Similar to a GPS device that can guide you from point A to point B, our goal is to create software artifacts like navigation components where software teams may benefit from digitally enhanced working conditions provided using AR. After conducting a review in the literature, we confirmed that there is lack of studies about the combination of augmented reality with software engineering disciplines for onboarding. In this paper, we formalized our approach based on the benefits of AR. Ultimately; we propose an AR-based preliminary model for improving the software development process.
Citation Count: Gulec, Ulas...et al., "Adopting Virtual Reality as a Medium for Software Development Process Education", Proceedings of The 2018 International Conference on Software and System Process (ICSSP 2018), pp. 71-75, (2018).
Adopting Virtual Reality as a Medium for Software Development Process Education
(Assoc Computing Machinery, 2018) Güleç, Ulaş; Yılmaz, Murat; İşler, Veysi; O'Connor, Rory V.; Clarke, Paul; 47439
Software development is a complex process of collaborative endeavour which requires hands-on experience starting from requirement analysis through to software testing and ultimately demands continuous maintenance so as to mitigate risks and uncertainty. Therefore, training experienced software practitioners is a challenging task. To address this gap, we propose an interactive virtual reality training environment for software practitioners to gain virtual experience based on the tasks of software development. The goal is to transport participants to a virtual software development organization where they experience simulated development process problems and conflicting situations, where they will interact virtually with distinctive personalities, roles and characters borrowed from real software development organizations. This PhD in progress paper investigates the literature and proposes a novel approach where participants can acquire important new process knowledge. Our preliminary observations suggest that a complementary VR-based training tool is likely to improve the experience of novice software developers and ultimately it has a great potential for training activities in software development organizations.
Citation Count: Yilmaz, Murat...et al. (2017). An examination of personality traits and how they impact on software development teams, Information And Software Technology, 86, 101-122.
An examination of personality traits and how they impact on software development teams
(Elsevier Science BV, 2017) Yılmaz, Murat; O'Connor, Rory V.; Colomo-Palacios, Ricardo; Clarke, Paul; 55248
Context Research has shown that a significant number of software projects fail due to social issues such as team or personality conflicts. However, only a limited number of empirical studies have been undertaken to understand the impact of individuals' personalities on software team configurations. These studies suffer from an important limitation as they lack a systematic and rigorous method to relate personality traits of software practitioners and software team structures. Objective: Based on an interactive personality profiling approach, the goal of this study is to reveal the personality traits of software practitioners with an aim to explore effective software team structures. Method: To explore the importance of individuals' personalities on software teams, we employed a two-step empirical approach. Firstly, to assess the personality traits of software practitioners, we developed a context-specific survey instrument, which was conducted on 216 participants from a middle-sized soft ware company. Secondly, we propose a novel team personality illustration method to visualize team structures. Results: Study results indicated that effective team structures support teams with higher emotional stability, agreeableness, extroversion, and conscientiousness personality traits. Conclusion: Furthermore, empirical results of the current study show that extroversion trait was more predominant than previously suggested in the literature, which was especially more observable among agile software development teams. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Citation Count: Clarke, Paul...et al., "An Investigation of Software Development Process Terminology", 16th International Conference on Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination (SPICE), Vol. 609, pp. 351-361, (2016).
An Investigation of Software Development Process Terminology
(2016) Mesquida, Antoni-Lluis; Ekert, Damjan; Ekstrom, J. J.; Gornostaja, Tatjana; Jovanovic, Milos; Johansen, Jorn; Mas, Antonia; Messnarz, Richard; Villar, Blanca Najera; O'Connor, Alexander; O'Connor, Rory V.; Reiner, Michael; Sauberer, Gabriele; Schmitz, Klaus-Dirk; Yılmaz, Murat; Clarke, Paul
The practice of software development has evolved considerably in recent decades, with new programming technologies, the affordability of hardware, pervasive internet access and mobile computing all contributing to the emergence of new software development processes. The newer process initiatives, which include those which are sometimes referred to as agile or lean methods, have brought with them new terms, which sometimes reflect the introduction of novel concepts. Other times, new terms correspond to long established concepts that have been repackaged. The net position is that we have a proliferation of language and term usage in the software development process domain, a problem which has implications for assessors and assessment frameworks, and for the broader community. In this paper, we explore this problem, finding that it is worthy of further research. Plus, we identify a technique suited to addressing this concern: the establishment of a canonical software process ontological model.
Citation Count: Marks, Gerard;...et.al. (2018). "An ISO/IEC 12207 Perspective on Software Development Process Adaptation", Software Quality Professional, Vol.20, No.2, pp.48-58.
An ISO/IEC 12207 Perspective on Software Development Process Adaptation
(2018) Marks, Gerard; O’Connor, Rory V.; Yılmaz, Murat; Clarke, Paul
In their earlier work, the authors had a sustained engagement with situational factors affecting software development, particularly how these factors affect the software development process. Part of this previous engagement involved the development of a situational factors reference framework. As part of an ongoing industrial engagement, the authors are currently examining situational factors and software development processes in a series of case studies. This latest case study is concerned with a small start-up organization. They start by identifying the software development process in this organization. Thereafter, the authors examine the situational context of the company, leading to an analysis of the relationship between the process and the situational context. Their general findings are consistent with their previous related work, supporting the case that a software development process is dependent on the organizational context, perhaps in a highly complex manner. In this particular case study, the authors also find that the role of organizational learning and process adaption is considered to be central to organizational survival.
Citation Count: Usfekes, Cağdaş...et al., "Auction-based serious game for bug tracking", Symmetry-Basel, Vol. 11, No. 10, (October 2019).
Auction-based serious game for bug tracking
(Inst Engineering Technology-IET, 2019) Üsfekes, Çağdaş; Tüzün, Eray; Yılmaz, Murat; Macip, Yagup; Clarke, Paul
Today, one of the challenges in software engineering is utilising application lifecycle management (ALM) tools effectively in software development. In particular, it is hard for software developers to engage with the work items that are appointed to themselves in these ALM tools. In this study, the authors have focused on bug tracking in ALM where one of the most important metrics is mean time to resolution that is the average time to fix a reported bug. To improve this metric, they developed a serious game application based on an auction-based reward mechanism. The ultimate aim of this approach is to create an incentive structure for software practitioners to find and resolved bugs that are auctioned where participants are encouraged to solve and test more bugs in less time and improve quality of software development in a competitive environment. They conduct hypothesis tests by performing a Monte Carlo simulation. The preliminary results of this research support the idea that using a gamification approach for an issue tracking system enhances the productivity and decreases mean time to resolution.
Citation Count: Güleç, U...et al,"Cengo: A Web-Based Serious Game To Increase the Programming Knowledge Levels of Computer Engineering Students",Communications in Computer and Information Science, Vol. 1060, pp. 237-248, (2019).
Cengo: A Web-Based Serious Game To Increase the Programming Knowledge Levels of Computer Engineering Students
(Springer Verlag, 2019) Güleç, Ulaş; Yılmaz, Murat; Yalçın, Alihan Doğuş; O'Connor, Rory V.; Clarke, Paul
In recent years there has been an increased use of serious games to help increase the level of knowledge and experience of individuals working in different domains. In particular serious games for educational purposes have been used in many domains including software engineering and computer science [1]. Hence, this study proposes a quantitative research approach to increase the programming knowledge levels of the first-year undergraduate students at computer engineering departments. For this aim, a responsive web platform was developed to teach the syntax and logic of the C programming language by using game elements. This environment provided students with an ability to independently investigate the C programming language continuously since the platform is always accessible. To better understand the effectiveness of the designed environment, 10 first-year computer engineering students were selected as a pilot experimental group. According to the results obtained from the user tests, this game can be used as an educational tool, which supports the traditional training methods, to increase the knowledge levels of students about the syntax and logic of the C programming language.
Citation Count: Yilmaz, Murat; O'Connor, Rory V.; Clarke, Paul, "Effective Social Productivity Measurements during Software Development: An Empirical Study", International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 457-490, (2016).
Effective Social Productivity Measurements during Software Development: An Empirical Study
(World Scientific Publ CO PTE LTD, 2016) Yılmaz, Murat; O'Connor, Rory V.; Clarke, Paul
Much of contemporary scientific discussion regarding factors that influence software development productivity is undertaken in various domains where there is an insuflcient empirical basis for exploring socio-technical factors of productivity that are specific to a software development organization. The purpose of the study is to characterize the multidimensional nature of software development productivity and its social aspects as a set of latent constructs (i.e. variables that are not directly observed) for a medium-sized software company. To this end, we designed an exploratory in-depthfield study based on the hypothesized productivity constructs, which were modeled by a set of factors identified from literature reviews, and later refined by industrial focus groups. In order to demonstrate the applicability of our approach, we conducted confirmatory factor analysis with the data attained from a questionnaire with 216 participants. To investigate factors of influence further, we analyzed the impact of selected team-based variables over the latent constructs of productivity. Taken together, our findings confirm that such an approach can be used to explore the quantifiable influence of socio-technical factors that would affect productivity of a particular software development organization. Ultimately, the resulting model provides guidance to explore the comparative importance of a set of firm-specific factors that may help to improve the productivity of the organization.
Citation Count: Clarke, P.; O'Connor, RV.; Leavy, B., "Exploring the relationship between software process adaptive capability and organisational performance" Ieee Transactions On Software Engineering, Vol.41, No.2, pp.1169-1183, (2015)
Exploring the relationship between software process adaptive capability and organizational performance
(IEEE Computer Soc, 2015) Clarke, Paul; O'Connor, Rory V.; Leavy, Brian; Yılmaz, Murat
Software development is a complex socio-technical activity, with the result that software development organisations need to establish and maintain robust software development processes. While much debate exists regarding the effectiveness of various software development approaches, no single approach is perfectly suited to all settings and no setting is unchanging. The capability to adapt the software process is therefore essential to sustaining an optimal software process. We designed an exploratory study to concurrently examine software process adaptive capability and organisational performance in 15 software development organisations, finding that companies with greater software process adaptive capability are shown to also experience greater business success. While our exploratory study of the complex relationship between these phenomena is limited in some respects, the findings indicate that software process adaptive capability may be worthy of further integration into software process engineering techniques. Software process adaptive capability may be an important organisational strength when deriving competitive advantage, and those responsible for the creation and evolution of software process models and methodologies may want to focus some of their future efforts in this area.
Citation Count: Yilmaz, Murat...et al., "Guest Editorial: Gamification and Persuasive Games for Software Engineering", IET Software, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 97-98, (2019).
Guest Editorial: Gamification and Persuasive Games for Software Engineering
(Inst Engineering Technology-IET, 2019) Yılmaz, Murat; O'Connor, Rory V.; Colomo-Palacios, Ricardo; Clarke, Paul
Citation Count: Clarke, Paul; O'Connor, Rory, V; Yilmaz, Murat, "In Search of the Origins and Enduring Impact of Agile Software Development", Proceedıngs Of The 2018 Internatıonal Conference On Software And System Process (Icssp 2018), (2018), pp. 142-146.
In Search of the Origins and Enduring Impact of Agile Software Development
(Assoc Computing Machinery, 2018) Clarke, Paul; O'Connor, Rory V.; Yılmaz,Murat; 55248
The Agile Manifesto is a philosophical touchpoint for all agile software development (ASD) methods. We examine the manifesto and certain agile methods in an effort to identify the major impacts of ASD. We have encountered some difficulty in delineating agile and non-agile software processes, which is partially the result of terminological confusion. It is clear from the volume of published research that ASD has made a significant contribution, and we have identified two lasting impacts: a reduction in iteration durations and a push for reduced levels of documentation. We find that the contemporary use of tooling to automate processes may not be wholly congruent with the manifesto and that many organisations may still rely on business contracts despite calls in the manifesto for greater levels of informal customer collaboration.
Citation Count: Clarke, Paul M...et al., "Refactoring Software Development Process Terminology Through the Use of Ontology", Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement, EUROSPI 2016, Vol. 633, pp. 47-57, (2016).
Refactoring Software Development Process Terminology Through the Use of Ontology
(Springer - Verlag, 2016) Clarke, Paul; Mesquida Calafat, Antoni Lluis; Ekert, Damjan; Ekstrom, Joseph J.; Gornostaja, Tatjana; Jovanovic, Milos; Johansen, Jorn; Mas, Antonia; Messnarz, Richard; Villar, Blanca Najera; O'Connor, Alexander; O'Connor, Rory V.; Reiner, Michael; Sauberer, Gabriele; Schmitz, Klaus-Dirk; Yılmaz, Murat
In work that is ongoing, the authors are examining the extent of software development process terminology drift. Initial findings suggest there is a degree of term confusion, with the mapping of concepts to terms lacking precision in some instances. Ontologies are concerned with identifying the concepts of relevance to a field of endeavour and mapping those concepts to terms such that term confusion is reduced. In this paper, we discuss how ontologies are developed. We also identify various sources of software process terminology. Our work to date indicates that the systematic development of a software development process ontology would be of benefit to the entire software development community. The development of such an ontology would in effect represent a systematic refactoring of the terminology and concepts produced over four decades of software process innovation.
Citation Count: Yilmaz, Murat...et al., "Software Developer's Journey A Story-Driven Approach to Support Software Practitioners", Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement, EUROSPI 2016, Vol. 633, pp. 203-211, (2016).
Software Developer's Journey A Story-Driven Approach to Support Software Practitioners
(Springer - Verlag, 2016) Yılmaz, Murat; Atasoy, Berke; O'Connor, Rory V.; Martens, Jean-Bernard; Clarke, Paul
Agile development requires a highly iterative and collaborative design process, which relies on the successful interpretation of software development activities amongst team members throughout the overall process. However, contemporary methods and tools that support agile efforts provide little help in addressing context-specific tacit knowledge, which is difficult to externalize without a shared method of interpretation. Without a continuously updated interpretation of the project vision, it is difficult to claim a shared mental model, while this is actually vital for the success of an agile process. In this paper, we address this issue and seek guidance in an approach that is commonly used in film storycraft. Film production has ample experience with externalizing experiences with the help of visual planning tools and related techniques to orchestrate the creative efforts of vast interdisciplinary production teams. We therefore propose that methods and tools from visual storycrafting can be adapted to assist software developers, not only with externalizing and discussing context-specific tacit knowledge but also to keep them creatively engaged in the development process.
Software Development Roles: A Multi-Project Empirical Investigation
(2015) Yılmaz, Murat; O'Connor, Rory V.; Clarke, Paul
In our earlier research work, we developed a conceptual framework that identifies the di?erent types of roles that can exist in contemporary software development projects (including both agile and traditional software development approaches). The purpose of the framework is to assist software project managers when tuning software development project roles to the demands of individual projects, with our previous research indicating that there is a need to tailor software development roles to individual projects. In this work, we extend the earlier research through the use of a series of semi-structured interviews within seven Turkish software companies. The results, which are consistent with previous findings, offer further evidence of the usefulness of the framework, while also identifying possible areas for future work in this space.
Citation Count: Clarke, Paul; Yilmaz, Murat, "Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination Conference 2016", Computer Standards & Interfaces, Vol. 54, pp. 117-118, (2017).
Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination Conference 2016
(Elsevier Science BV, 2017) Clarke, Paul; Yılmaz, Murat
Citation Count: Yılmaz, Murat...et al. "Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement", 29th European Conference, EuroSPI 2022, Salzburg, Austria, August 31 – September 2, 2022.
Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement
(2022) Yılmaz, Murat; Clarke, Paul; Messnarz, Richard; Wöran, Bruno
This volume constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 29th European Conference on Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement, EuroSPI 2022, held in Salzburg, Austria, in August-September 2022. The 49 full papers and 8 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 110 submissions. The papers are organized according to the following topical sections: SPI and emerging and multidisciplinary approaches to software engineering; digitalisation of industry, infrastructure and e-mobility; SPI and good/bad SPI practices in improvement; SPI and functional safety and cybersecurity; SPI and agile; SPI and standards and safety and security norms; SPI and team skills and diversity; SPI and recent innovations; virtual reality and augmented reality.