How Software Engineering Transforms Organizations: An Open and Qualitative Study on the Organizational Objectives and Motivations in Agile Transformations

Agile Transformations are challenging processes for organizations that look to extend the benefits of Agile philosophy and methods beyond software engineering.Despite the impact of these transformations on orga-nizations,they have not been extensively studied in academia.We conducted a study grounded in workshops and interviews with 99 participants from 30 organizations,including organizations undergoing transformations(“final organizations”)and companies supporting these processes(“consultants”).The study aims to understand the motivations,objectives,and factors driving and challenging these transformations.Over 700 responses were collected to the question and categorized into 32 objectives.The findings show that organizations primarily aim to achieve customer centricity and adaptability,both with 8%of the mentions.Other primary important objectives,with above 4%of mentions,include alignment of goals,lean delivery,sustainable processes,and a flatter,more team-based organizational structure.We also detect discrepancies in perspectives between the objectives identified by the two kinds of organizations and the existing agile literature and models.This misalignment highlights the need for practitioners to understand with the practical realities the organizations face.

Developing Lexicons for Enhanced Sentiment Analysis in Software Engineering:An Innovative Multilingual Approach for Social Media Reviews

Sentiment analysis is becoming increasingly important in today’s digital age, with social media being a significantsource of user-generated content. The development of sentiment lexicons that can support languages other thanEnglish is a challenging task, especially for analyzing sentiment analysis in social media reviews. Most existingsentiment analysis systems focus on English, leaving a significant research gap in other languages due to limitedresources and tools. This research aims to address this gap by building a sentiment lexicon for local languages,which is then used with a machine learning algorithm for efficient sentiment analysis. In the first step, a lexiconis developed that includes five languages: Urdu, Roman Urdu, Pashto, Roman Pashto, and English. The sentimentscores from SentiWordNet are associated with each word in the lexicon to produce an effective sentiment score. Inthe second step, a naive Bayesian algorithm is applied to the developed lexicon for efficient sentiment analysis ofRoman Pashto. Both the sentiment lexicon and sentiment analysis steps were evaluated using information retrievalmetrics, with an accuracy score of 0.89 for the sentiment lexicon and 0.83 for the sentiment analysis. The resultsshowcase the potential for improving software engineering tasks related to user feedback analysis and productdevelopment.

Building Custom Spreadsheet Functions with Python: End-User Software Engineering Approach

End-user computing empowers non-developers to manage data and applications, enhancing collaboration and efficiency. Spreadsheets, a prime example of end-user programming environments widely used in business for data analysis. However, Excel functionalities have limits compared to dedicated programming languages. This paper addresses this gap by proposing a prototype for integrating Python’s capabilities into Excel through on-premises desktop to build custom spreadsheet functions with Python. This approach overcomes potential latency issues associated with cloud-based solutions. This prototype utilizes Excel-DNA and IronPython. Excel-DNA allows creating custom Python functions that seamlessly integrate with Excel’s calculation engine. IronPython enables the execution of these Python (CSFs) directly within Excel. C# and VSTO add-ins form the core components, facilitating communication between Python and Excel. This approach empowers users with a potentially open-ended set of Python (CSFs) for tasks like mathematical calculations, statistical analysis, and even predictive modeling, all within the familiar Excel interface. This prototype demonstrates smooth integration, allowing users to call Python (CSFs) just like standard Excel functions. This research contributes to enhancing spreadsheet capabilities for end-user programmers by leveraging Python’s power within Excel. Future research could explore expanding data analysis capabilities by expanding the (CSFs) functions for complex calculations, statistical analysis, data manipulation, and even external library integration. The possibility of integrating machine learning models through the (CSFs) functions within the familiar Excel environment.

Exploration of the Integration of Software Engineering Thinking into Embedded System Design Course

Engineering practice is the key bridge between college education and actual work in the industry.In order to deliver qualified talents with engineering quality to the industry,this paper explores integrating software engineering thinking into the Embedded System Design course.A practical and effective teaching mode is designed consisting of immersive learning,case-based learning,progressive practice,interactive learning,and autonomous learning.Through this teaching mode,multi-levels of closed-loop have been established including final project cycle closed-loop,testing cycle closed-loop,and product cycle closed-loop.During this process,students gradually transition to putting forward product requirements,carrying out design and development,thinking and solving problems,collaborating,and assuring quality from the perspective of software engineering.The practice results show that students’engineering quality has been significantly improved.

Agile Development Methods in Software Engineering and Their Efficiency Analysis

This paper delves into Agile Development Methods in Software Engineering,contrasting them with the traditional Waterfall model and analyzing their efficiency.Agile methods,known for their adaptability and customer-centric approach,have gained prominence in the fast-paced software development industry.These methods,including Scrum,Kanban,and Extreme Programming(XP),are characterized by iterative cycles,collaborative efforts,and a focus on rapid delivery and quality improvement.The paper compares these agile methodologies to the sequential and rigid Waterfall model,highlighting agile’s superior flexibility,adaptability,and responsiveness to changing requirements.It emphasizes the importance of customer involvement in agile processes,which leads to higher satisfaction and better alignment with user expectations.The analysis reveals that agile methods not only enhance the speed of delivery but also improve the overall quality of the software product.The paper concludes that agile methodologies are more effective in today's dynamic software development environment,providing a robust framework for managing complex projects and ensuring the delivery of high-quality,relevant software solutions.

Construction and Reflection of Software Engineering Major Based on Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) Certification

With the rapid development of information technology,the demand for talents in the field of software engineering is growing.In order to cultivate high-quality software engineering talents who meet the market demand,universities have continuously carried out the construction of software engineering majors.Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology(ABET)certification,as an internationally recognized higher education quality assurance system,provides important reference and guidance for the construction of software engineering majors.Guided by student learning outcomes and core competencies,combined with the characteristics of software engineering talent cultivation,the innovation of talent cultivation mode takes industry-education integration and school-enterprise cooperation as the main development paths and explores comprehensive reform of the major in terms of professional positioning and goals,curriculum system,teaching conditions,and teachers.This comprehensive reform model has effectively promoted the development of major construction and improved the quality of talent cultivation.

Construction of the Curriculum System of Software Engineering Based on the Agile Development Method

Under the background of“new engineering”construction,software engineering teaching pays more attention to cultivating students’engineering practice and innovation ability.In view of the inconsistency between development and demand design,team division of labor,difficult measurement of individual contribution,single assessment method,and other problems in traditional practice teaching,this paper proposes that under the guidance of agile development methods,software engineering courses should adopt Scrum framework to organize course project practice,use agile collaboration platform to implement individual work,follow up experiment progress,and ensure effective project advancement.The statistical data of curriculum“diversity”assessment show that there is an obvious improvement effect on students’software engineering ability and quality.

Research and Practice of Blending Teaching Based on “MOOC + SPOC + Flipped Classroom” for Software Engineering

Based on "MOOC + SPOC + Flipped Classroom", a particular blending teaching pattern adapting to MOOC teaching is proposed to strengthen software engineering students' abilities to study themselves and practice innovatively. Firstly, the process of MOOC development in China is introduced. The distinguishing feature and effect of MOOC teaching are analyzed, followed by the comparison with traditional class. The online Plus offline blending teaching pattern is the combination of online self-study on MOOC before class, seminar study of flipped classroom in class and the summary after class. With the demonstration of a typical case, a progressive strategy is given to implement blending teaching. Finally, the blending teaching pattern is assessed from multiple perspectives, of which both advantages and disadvantages are dissected. Through primary exploration, introducing online study and flipped classroom, blending teaching plays a positive role in software engineering teaching, which means traditional teaching pattern is changed. Meanwhile, students' innovative consciousness and practical ability are inspired. Nevertheless, new problems arise, so that intensive practice and improvement are necessary.

The Reform Scheme of Practice-Courses Cooperation Training Pattern of Software Engineering Major of Overseas Chinese Universities

How to improve the employment of software engineering graduates, especially, how to effectively enhance the employment competitiveness of relevant overseas students in the context of "One Belt and One Road" is one of the core tasks of overseas Chinese universities. This paper proposes a reform plan for the practical training mode of school-enterprise cooperative project in the software engineering of overseas Chinese universities. The reform plan combines education concepts with practical research and development. It subdivides students and according to the characteristics of different types of students, and is carried out on campus, outside campus(in the province), and abroad(original area), which makes senior undergraduates fully understand the needs of enterprises, constantly improve their professional practice ability, and improve their competitiveness. Thus, the professional innovation and entrepreneurship ability of students is enhanced, and it also reduces the cost of employee entry.

Crowdsourced Requirements Engineering Challenges and Solutions:A Software Industry Perspective

Software crowdsourcing(SW CS)is an evolving software development paradigm,in which crowds of people are asked to solve various problems through an open call(with the encouragement of prizes for the top solutions).Because of its dynamic nature,SW CS has been progressively accepted and adopted in the software industry.However,issues pertinent to the understanding of requirements among crowds of people and requirements engineers are yet to be clarified and explained.If the requirements are not clear to the development team,it has a significant effect on the quality of the software product.This study aims to identify the potential challenges faced by requirements engineers when conducting the SW–CS based requirements engineering(RE)process.Moreover,solutions to overcome these challenges are also identified.Qualitative data analysis is performed on the interview data collected from software industry professionals.Consequently,20 SW–CS based RE challenges and their subsequent proposed solutions are devised,which are further grouped under seven categories.This study is beneficial for academicians,researchers and practitioners by providing detailed SW–CS based RE challenges and subsequent solutions that could eventually guide them to understand and effectively implement RE in SW CS.

Software Engineering Technology for the 21^(st) Century

In this paper we will discuss the software engineering technology for the 21 st century. First we review development over the last half century, overview application requirement and environment, accept a challenge. Then we outline following software engineering techniques: 1) Process;2) Analysis;3) Design;4) UML;5) Component;6) Java +XML;7) Integrated;8) Quality(ISO9000&CMM).

Human Factors Analysis in Software Engineering

The general human factors analysis analyzes human functions, effects and influence in a system. But in a narrow sense, it analyzes human influence upon the reliability of a system, it includes traditional human reliability analysis, human error analysis, man-machine interface analysis, human character analysis, and others. A software development project in software engineering is successful or not to be completely determined by human factors. In this paper, we discuss the human factors intensions, declare the importance of human factors analysis for software engineering by listed some instances. At last, we probe preliminarily into the mentality that a practitioner in software engineering should possess. Key words human factors analysis - software engineering - software reliability CLC number TP 311.5 Foundation item: Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (60173013)Biography: Xu Ren-zuo (1946-), male, Professor, research direction: software engineering, software reliability engineering, software safety and software testing.

Construction and Practices of the Course of Software Process&Tools Oriented Certified in Engineering Education

In recent years,it is the general trend to adopt the standards of international engineering education certification to construct curriculum.“Software Process and Tools”is one of the core courses of Harbin Institute of Technology’s software engineering undergraduate training program.Focusing on the construction work and practical exploration of the course in the process of reforming the software engineering professional curriculum system,and how to achieve the standards of engineering education certification,This paper makes a review and summary.This paper focuses on the status and the role of the course in the whole curriculum system,as well as project-driven teaching content design and practical teaching methods.And summarizes the experience and results of 3 rounds of teaching practice.

Development and Experience of“Software Project Practice”Course for the Master of Software Engineering

Practice is an important phase in the teaching of software engineering.How to improve students' practical ability is a common problem for many software colleges.The course of Software Project Practice is proposed to enhance students' practical skills.In this course,the students participate in the whole process of software development practice and take the exercise of entrepreneurial project development in their learning stage.

Software Architecture and Methodology as a Tool for Efficient Software Engineering Process: A Critical Appraisal

The foundation for any software system is its architecture. Software architecture is a view of the system that includes the system’s major components, the behaviour of those components as visible to the rest of the system, and the ways in which the components interact and coordinate to achieve the overall system’s goal. Every efficient software system arises as a result of sound architectural basement. This requires the use of good architecture engineering practices and methods. This paper recognizes software architecture practice as a discipline pervading all phases of software development and also presents an enhanced model for software engineering process which provides an avenue for speedy, efficient and timely delivery of software products to their intended users. The integration of software architecture into the phases of software development process in a generic software life cycle is also contained in this research report. This is to enable software engineers and system analysts to use effective software architecture practices and to employ appropriate methodology during the software engineering process.

Cognitive Software Engineering: A Research Framework and Roadmap

The work of software engineers is inherently cognitive. Integral to their duties is understanding and developing several artifacts. Each one is based on a specific model and a given level of abstraction. What distinguishes Software Engineering is the logical complexity of some artifacts (especially programs), the high dependency among them, and the fact that the success of the software project also depends on the human and social factors, which characterize the engineers as individuals and as a group. The complexity of the daily tasks within a software development team motivates the investigation on the relevance of automating the software professionals’ cognitive processes in order to make their work easier and more efficient. The success of this endeavor is expected to emerge as Cognitive Software Engineering. For this aim, the present article suggests a research framework and roadmap, which build on the current state of the art. Some future directions in the Cognitive Software Engineering are presented.

Usability Experiments to Evaluate UML/SysML-Based Model Driven Software Engineering Notations for Logic Control in Manufacturing Automation

Many industrial companies and researchers are looking for more efficient model driven engineering approaches (MDE) in software engineering of manufacturing automation systems (MS) especially for logic control programming, but are uncertain about the applicability and effort needed to implement those approaches in comparison to classical Programmable Logic Controller?(PLC) programming with IEC 61131-3. The paper summarizes results of usability experiments evaluating UML and SysML as software engineering notations for a MDE applied in the domain of manufacturing systems. Modeling MS needs to cover the domain specific characteristics,?i.e.?hybrid process, real time requirements and communication requirements. In addition the paper presents factors, constraint and practical experience for the development of further usability experiments. The paper gives examples of notational expressiveness and weaknesses of UML and SysML. The appendix delivers detailed master models, representing the correct best suited model, and evaluation schemes of the experiment, which is helpful if setting up own empirical experiments.

New Theoretical Aspects of Software Engineering for Development Applications and E-Learning

This paper presents new theoretical aspects of software engineering which oriented on product lines for building applied systems and software product families from readymade reusable components in conditions of program factories. These aspects are the new disciplines such as the theory of component programming;models variability and interoperability of system;theory for building systems and product families from components. Principles and methods of implementing these theories were realized in the instrumental and technological complex by lines of component development: assembling program factories using lines, e-learning to new theories and technologies in textbook of “Software Engineering” by the universities students.

Research and Exploration on the Construction of Double Qualified Teachers in Software Engineering

In order to solve the problem of insufficient integration of school-enterprise supervisors in the current school-enterprise cooperation model,this article introduces the ideas and results of the construction of a team with double-qualified instructors majored in software engineering.Specifically,the integration of production and education are carried out in three stages,i.e.,enterprise cooperation courses,enterprise internship,and graduation design(internship),by taking the software engineering major of the School of Information and Software Engineering of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China as a case study.

The Exploration of Talent Cultivation in Software Engineering“ Internet Plus Finance”

With the rapid development of the Internet finance industry,society has put forward urgent needs for“Internet Plus finance”composite talents,and also put forward challenges to talent cultivation in colleges and universities.To cultivate the talents in the“Internet Plus finance”,the School of Information and Software Engineering of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China(hereinafter“the School”)begins the 10 major measures,such as the construction of training programs,the construction of the curriculum system,the construction of the faculty team,and the construction of the practice base.Meanwhile,the School works together with banks,which have cooperated for a long time,to establish the talent cultivation system in the direction of“Internet Plus finance”in the software engineering major,solving the problem of interdisciplinary talent training in the field of software engineering and finance.