Browsing by Author "O'Connor, Rory V."

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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: Yılmaz, Murat; Al-Taei, A.; O’Connor, R.V., "A Machine-Based Personality Oriented Team Recommender for Software Development Organizations", Communications In Computer and Information Science, Vol. 543, pp. 75-86, (2015).
A Machine-Based Personality Oriented Team Recommender for Software Development Organizations
(Springer Verlag, 2015) Yılmaz, Murat; Al-Taei, Ali; O'Connor, Rory V.
Hiring the right person for the right job is always a challenging task in software development landscapes. To bridge this gap, software firms start using psychometric instruments for investigating the personality types of software practitioners. In our previous research, we have developed an MBTI-like instrument to reveal the personality types of software practitioners. This study aims to develop a personality-based team recommender mechanism to improve the effectiveness of software teams. The mechanism is based on predicting the possible patterns of teams using a machine-based classifier. The classifier is trained with empirical data (e.g. personality types, job roles), which was collected from 52 software practitioners working on five different software teams. 12 software practitioners were selected for the testing process who were recommended by the classifier to work for these teams. The preliminary results suggest that a personality-based team recommender system may provide an effective approach as compared with ad-hoc methods of team formation in software development organizations. Ultimately, the overall performance of the proposed classifier was 83.3%. These findings seem acceptable especially for tasks of suggestion where individuals might be able to fit in more than one team.
Citation Count: Yilmaz, M.; O’Connor, R.V.,"A Scrumban Integrated Gamification Approach to Guide Software Process İmprovement: A Turkish Case Study [Gamifikacijski Pristup S İntegriranom Scrumban Metodologijom U Poboljšanju Razvoja Softvera: Turska Analiza Slučaja]", Tehnicki Vjesnik, Vol. 23, No. 1, (2016).
A Scrumban Integrated Gamification Approach to Guide Software Process İmprovement: A Turkish Case Study [Gamifikacijski Pristup S İntegriranom Scrumban Metodologijom U Poboljšanju Razvoja Softvera: Turska Analiza Slučaja]
(Strojarski Facultet, 2016) Yılmaz, Murat; O'Connor, Rory V.
In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in tailoring agile development methodologies by combining different agile practices. The adoption of such a balancing approach requires a systematic customization of best practices among agile methodologies. This paper presents an empirical case study for adopting a hybrid Scrumban methodology with an integrated gamification approach, which was conducted in the context of a small-medium enterprise (SME). First, we conducted a focus group to better understand the potential inquiries that might have been useful to improve the development process. Secondly, we employed a cross-sectional survey approach to explore the company personnel’s opinions regarding the changes in the process. The survey data was collected from 30 practitioners who were working for the same project in a software development organization in a technology research centre. The descriptive statistics were calculated with paired sample t-tests being used to compare for integration process that contains three stages (i) initial stage, (ii) Scrumban stage, (iii) Scrumban with integrated Gamification stage. The preliminary results of this research support the idea that a set of game elements can be integrated with a hybrid software development methodology to enhance individual and organizational productivity.
Citation Count: Olgun, Serhan...et al., "A Systematic Investigation into the Use of Game Elements in the Context of Software Business Landscapes: A Systematic Literature Review", Software Process Improvement And Capability Determination, Spıce 2017, Vol. 770, pp. 384-398, (2017).
A Systematic Investigation into the Use of Game Elements in the Context of Software Business Landscapes: A Systematic Literature Review
(Springer-Verlag Berlin, 2017) Olgun, Serhan; Yılmaz, Murat; Clarke, Paul M.; O'Connor, Rory V.
The software development process is a set of socio-technical activities to produce software artifacts in which humans play a crucial role. Since it is a people centric activity, factors such as user motivation, engagement, communication and collaboration might constrain these activities. Therefore, software business organizations stand to benefit from adopting different tools and methods in order to overcome these obstacles and to improve their software business processes. Research has been made to increase software quality and enhance the software development process. Alongside these studies, innovative techniques and concepts are beneficial. As a solution, the notion of gamification (i.e. employing game elements in non-gaming contexts) has been introduced to enhance the software development process and overcome the challenges mostly related to human factors. However, the applicability of game elements in the context of software business landscapes is still a controversial issue and not totally proven as of yet. Numerous studies have been conducted to examine the benefits of gamification and how game elements affect the software development process. Thus, in this paper, a systematic literature review was conducted in order to investigate the application of game elements both in research and industrial levels of software development and as well as in software business landscapes.
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: Yilmaz, M...et al."Applying Blockchain to Improve the Integrity of the Software Development Process",Communications in Computer and Information Science, Vol. 1060, pp. 260-271, (2019).
Applying Blockchain to Improve the Integrity of the Software Development Process
(Springer Verlag, 2019) Yılmaz, Murat; Taşel, Serdar; Tüzün, Eray; Güleç, Ulaş; O'Connor, Rory V.; Clarke, Paul M.; 55346
Software development is a complex endeavor that encompasses application and implementation layers with functional (refers to what is done) and non-functional (how is done) aspects. The efforts to scale agile software development practices are not wholly able to address issues such as integrity, which is a crucial non-functional aspect of the software development process. However, if we consider most software failures are Byzantine failures (i.e., where components may fail and there is imperfect information on which a component has failed.) that might impair the operation but do not completely disable the production line. In this paper, we assume software practitioners who cause defects as Byzantine participants and claim that most software failures can be mitigated by viewing software development as the Byzantine Generals Problem. Consequently, we propose a test-driven incentive mechanism based on a blockchain concept to orchestrate the software development process where production is controlled by a similar infrastructure based on the working principles of blockchain. We discuss the model that integrates blockchain with the software development process, and provide some recommendations for future work to address the issues while orchestrating software production.
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, Paul M...et al., "Exploring Software Process Variation Arising from Differences in Situational Context", Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement (EUROSPI 2017), Vol. 748, pp. 29-42, (2017).
Exploring Software Process Variation Arising from Differences in Situational Context
(Springer-Verlag Berlin, 2017) Clarke, Paul M.; O'Connor, Rory V.; Solan, David; Elger, Peter; Yılmaz,Murat; Ennis, Adam; Gerrity, Mark; McGrath, Sean; Treanor, Ryan
The software development process is continuously changing, there is huge pressure to condense release cycles into shorter and shorter timeframes, tools are changing dramatically and companies must continually examine the efficacy of their development process. Attempting to hit a moving target is difficult and it is a decision which can have a major effect in terms of both the end-product and the business. In this paper, we discuss the role of situational context in deciding upon the software development process through the analysis of two case studies. The case studies take a detailed look at the organisational profile and context of each company in turn before we compare and contrast each situational context for factors that may influence the development process. We then compare the processes each company has chosen before our discussion of the role context plays in choosing a 'correct' software development process. While both companies have enjoyed sustained business growth and while both are agile in mindset, we find that they are in fact quite distinct in their processes, this distinction being driven by their different situational contexts.
Citation Count: Yilmaz, Murat; O'Connor, Rory V., "Exploring the Belief Systems of Software Development Professionals", Cybernetics and Systems, 46, No. 6-7, pp. 528-542, (2015).
Exploring the Belief Systems of Software Development Professionals
(Taylor&Francis INC, 2015) O'Connor, Rory V.; Yilmaz, Murat
It is commonly accepted that an individual's beliefs and actions are based on his or her assessment and perceptions of the world. In order to determine what practices an individual is likely to follow at any given time, it is necessary to understand the individual's behavioral intention in a given circumstance. From an Information Technology perspective, a software development professional's belief systems are potentially the basis for the adoption and implementation of new and innovative work practices and processes. In this article, we explore the belief systems of software development professionals in order to understand the beliefs underlying intention and practice, and we seek answers about how they adopt or reject new and innovative software development processes and practices. The results point out a strong influence of past experiences, personality types, and repeated behavior on current software development processes and practices in industrial settings.
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: Yilmaz, Murat; O'Connor, Rory V.; Mora, Manuel, "Improving Social Aspects of the Software Development Process: Games, Gamification and Related Approaches", Journal of Universal Computer Science, Vol. 22, No. 12, pp. 1487-1488, (2016).
Improving Social Aspects of the Software Development Process: Games, Gamification and Related Approaches
(Graz Univ Technolgoy, 2016) Yılmaz, Murat; O'Connor, Rory V.; Mora, Manuel
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: Sanchez-Gordon, Sandra...et al., "Integration of accessibility design patterns with the software implementation process of ISO/IEC 29110",Journal of Software-Evolution and Process, Vol. 31, No. 1, (2019).
Integration of accessibility design patterns with the software implementation process of ISO/IEC 29110
(Wiley, 2019) Sanchez-Gordon, Sandra; Sanchez-Gordon, Mary; Yılmaz, Murat; O'Connor, Rory V.; 55248
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines was developed by World Wide Web Consortium with a goal of providing a single shared standard for web content accessibility that meets the needs of individuals, organizations, and governments. Given that there is a large percentage of very small entities that develop software who also utilize the ISO/IEC software process standard, the purpose of this study is the development of software design patterns for users with visual disabilities. As a result, four accessibility design patterns are defined: Authentication adapter, Blindness adapter, Dichromatic color vision adapter, and Blurry vision adapter. These patterns will help to improve the design of the web applications built using them while being compliant with the ISO/IEC 29110 standard. The use of design patterns also enables the transfer of design experience to programming practices and improves the software documentation. To validate the set of patterns, an online course for Spanish speakers was developed, and the evaluation was carried out using simulators, automated tools, experts, and users. Simulators and automated tools showed no accessibility errors and experts evaluated 10 heuristics principles and did not identify any severity issues. Taken together, our results provide positive evidence that users with visual disabilities could benefit from the proposed features.
Citation Count: Nazligul, M. Denizci...et al., "Interactive three-dimensional virtual environment to reduce the public speaking anxiety levels of novice software engineers", IET Software, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 152-158, (April 2019).
Interactive three-dimensional virtual environment to reduce the public speaking anxiety levels of novice software engineers
(Inst Engineering Technology-IET, 2019) Güleç, Ulaş Nazlıgül, Merve Denizci; Yılmaz, M.; Güleç, Ulaş; Yılmaz, A. E.; İşler, V.; O'Connor, Rory V.; Gözcü, Mert Ali; Clarke, P.; 47439
Software engineering is a set of activities that rely not only on the technical tasks but also require abilities focused on social duties such as daily meetings and product introduction presentations. However, engineers may experience elevated levels of anxiety when required to present their work in an unfamiliar environment. More specifically, they may suffer from public speaking anxiety even though they are supposed to be effective in those social tasks as well as in their engineering activities. Fortunately, previous studies suggest that the virtual exposure intervention is an effective strategy to reduce public speaking anxiety. In this study, an interactive three-dimensional virtual environment similar to real classrooms and auditoriums was developed to examine whether this might decrease the anxiety levels of novice software engineers. To compare the traditional and virtual exposure intervention, the sample set was divided equally into two groups including one experimental group and one control group. For 4 weeks, the virtual exposure intervention was conducted in the experimental group, whereas the cognitive behaviour therapy-based psychoeducation was used in the control group. The findings from authors' study illustrate that the virtual exposure intervention may represent an alternative solution to the traditional interventions for software engineers seeking to overcome public presentation anxiety.