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.

Static Analysis Techniques for Fixing Software Defects in MPI-Based Parallel Programs

The Message Passing Interface (MPI) is a widely accepted standard for parallel computing on distributed memorysystems.However, MPI implementations can contain defects that impact the reliability and performance of parallelapplications. Detecting and correcting these defects is crucial, yet there is a lack of published models specificallydesigned for correctingMPI defects. To address this, we propose a model for detecting and correcting MPI defects(DC_MPI), which aims to detect and correct defects in various types of MPI communication, including blockingpoint-to-point (BPTP), nonblocking point-to-point (NBPTP), and collective communication (CC). The defectsaddressed by the DC_MPI model include illegal MPI calls, deadlocks (DL), race conditions (RC), and messagemismatches (MM). To assess the effectiveness of the DC_MPI model, we performed experiments on a datasetconsisting of 40 MPI codes. The results indicate that the model achieved a detection rate of 37 out of 40 codes,resulting in an overall detection accuracy of 92.5%. Additionally, the execution duration of the DC_MPI modelranged from 0.81 to 1.36 s. These findings show that the DC_MPI model is useful in detecting and correctingdefects in MPI implementations, thereby enhancing the reliability and performance of parallel applications. TheDC_MPImodel fills an important research gap and provides a valuable tool for improving the quality ofMPI-basedparallel computing systems.

HV Process Model of Software Development

Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is one of the major ingredients for the development of efficient software systems within a time frame and low-cost involvement. From the literature, it is evident that there are various kinds of process models that are used by the software industries for the development of small, medium and long-term software projects, but many of them do not cover risk management. It is quite obvious that the improper selection of the software development process model leads to failure of the software products as it is time bound activity. In the present work, a new software development process model is proposed which covers the risks at any stage of the development of the software product. The model is named a Hemant-Vipin (HV) process model and may be helpful for the software industries for development of the efficient software products and timely delivery at the end of the client. The efficiency of the HV process model is observed by considering various kinds of factors like requirement clarity, user feedback, change agility, predictability, risk identification, practical implementation, customer satisfaction, incremental development, use of ready-made components, quick design, resource organization and many more and found through a case study that the presented approach covers many of parameters in comparison of the existing process models. .

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A Defect Detection Method for the Primary Stage of Software Development

In the early stage of software development,a software requirements specification(SRS)is essential,and whether the requirements are clear and explicit is the key.However,due to various reasons,there may be a large number of misunderstandings.To generate high-quality software requirements specifications,numerous researchers have developed a variety of ways to improve the quality of SRS.In this paper,we propose a questions extraction method based on SRS elements decomposition,which evaluates the quality of SRS in the form of numerical indicators.The proposed method not only evaluates the quality of SRSs but also helps in the detection of defects,especially the description problem and omission defects in SRSs.To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method,we conducted a controlled experiment to compare the ability of checklist-based review(CBR)and the proposed method in the SRS review.The CBR is a classicmethod of reviewing SRS defects.After a lot of practice and improvement for a long time,CBR has excellent review ability in improving the quality of software requirements specifications.The experimental results with 40 graduate studentsmajoring in software engineering confirmed the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed method.However,the shortcomings and deficiencies of the proposed method are also observed through the experiment.Furthermore,the proposed method has been tried out by engineers with practical work experience in software development industry and received good feedback.

Fuzzy coloured petri nets‐based method to analyse and verify the functionality of software

Some types of software systems,like event‐based and non‐deterministic ones,are usually specified as rules so that we can analyse the system behaviour by drawing inferences from firing the rules.However,when the fuzzy rules are used for the specification of non‐deterministic behaviour and they contain a large number of variables,they constitute a complex form that is difficult to understand and infer.A solution is to visualise the system specification with the capability of automatic rule inference.In this study,by representing a high‐level system specification,the authors visualise rule representation and firing using fuzzy coloured Petri‐nets.Already,several fuzzy Petri‐nets‐based methods have been presented,but they either do not support a large number of rules and variables or do not consider significant cases like(a)the weight of the premise's propositions in the occurrence of the rule conclusion,(b)the weight of conclusion's proposition,(c)threshold values for premise and conclusion's propositions of the rule,and(d)the certainty factor(CF)for the rule or the conclusion's proposition.By considering cases(a)-(d),a wider variety of fuzzy rules are supported.The authors applied their model to the analysis of attacks against a part of a real secure water treatment system.In another real experiment,the authors applied the model to the two scenarios from their previous work and analysed the results.

Research on the Cultivation of Innovative Talents in Software Engineering Based on the OBE Concept

Under the background of New Engineering,focusing on talent cultivation,this article explores the teaching reform and innovation of software engineering majors.Starting from the goal of cultivating software engineering talents in the context of New Engineering,the concept of outcome-based education is introduced to study and explore the construction of innovative talent training models for software engineering majors in universities.Through recent years’application practice,initial results have been achieved,which can provide feasible methods and ideas for the cultivation of innovative talents in other majors.

Construction and Innovation of Comprehensive Evaluation Means of PBL+OBE-based Software Engineering Practical Courses

Software engineering is an engineering discipline that guides software developers to carry out software development,software maintenance,and software management.The traditional evaluation methods of software engineering courses do not highlight the training goal of outcomebased education(OBE).This paper systematically studies the evaluation methods for practical courses in software engineering from three aspects:course evaluation guidelines,course evaluation methods and course evaluation effects;establishes a comprehensive,scientific,and objective system of course evaluation;effectively measures students’learning effect;promotes teachers to continuously improve the teaching process;and thus improves the teaching quality of software engineering courses.Besides the general approach,this paper also takes software project construction practice as an example to demonstrate the effect of the proposed approach.

Research and Design of Consistent Project Cases for the Software Engineering Course Group

In order to enhance the abilities of practical innovation and solving complex engineering problems of students in the engineering context,we design a course cluster teaching model based on a unified enterprise-level project case.The program divides the knowledge points required by the project into the corresponding courses,and divides their realization into the practical teaching cases,so as to realize the design of teaching practice cases embodied in the unified project framework.This model allows students to practice projects based on the unified project background while learning knowledge from different courses.It not only allows students to learn abstract,fragmented,and difficult-to-understand knowledge systems thoroughly,but also integrates the knowledge into the practice of the enterprise-level project development,helping students experience the value of knowledge in complex engineering projects and thus improving their ability to solve complex engineering problems while learning theoretical knowledge.

Meta-SEE:Intelligent and Interactive Learning Framework for Software Engineering Education Based on Metaverse and Metacognition

With the rapid evolution of technology and the increasing complexity of software systems,there is a growing demand for effective educational approaches that empower learners to acquire and apply software engineering skills in practical contexts.This paper presents an intelligent and interactive learning(Meta-SEE)framework for software engineering education that combines the immersive capabilities of the metaverse with the cognitive processes of metacognition,to create an interactive and engaging learning environment.In the Meta-SEE framework,learners are immersed in a virtual world where they can collaboratively engage with concepts and practices of software engineering.Through the integration of metacognitive strategies,learners are empowered to monitor,regulate,and adapt their learning processes.By incorporating metacognition within the metaverse,learners gain a deeper understanding of their own thinking processes and become self-directed learners.In addition,MetaSEE has the potential to revolutionize software engineering education by offering a dynamic,immersive,and personalized learning experience.It allows learners to engage in realistic software development scenarios,explore complex systems,and collaborate with peers and instructors in virtual spaces.

Teaching Reform and Practice of Software Engineering Graduate Students by Implanting Scientific Research Literacy into Classroom Teaching Content

How to cultivate and improve graduate students’innovation and practical abilities in software engineering through the curriculum and teaching mode reform is an important issue.In this paper,a research literacy-driven teaching mode is proposed.It assists in the reform of the curriculum system.Then,a curriculum system construction framework is proposed,which involves the integration of research literacy into classroom teaching content.It assists in the cultivation of research abilities of graduate students in software engineering.The effectiveness of the curriculum reform is demonstrated through questionnaire surveys and research outcomes of the project team.The results show that the methods explored in this paper can serve as valuable references for future course design and teaching practice in computer-related courses for graduates.

How to Effectively Apply ChatGPT in Software Engineering Education?——A Perspective from Undergraduate Students

As a highly advanced conversational AI chatbot trained on extensive datasets,ChatGPT has garnered significant attention across various domains,including academia,industry,and education.In the field of education,existing studies primarily focus on 2 areas:Assessing the potential utility of ChatGPT in education by examining its capabilities and limitations;exploring the educational scenarios that could benefit from the integration of ChatGPT.In contrast to these studies,we conduct a user survey targeting undergraduate students specializing in Software Engineering,aiming to gain insights into their perceptions,challenges,and expectations regarding the utilization of ChatGPT.Based on the results of the survey,we provide valuable guidance on the effective incorporation of ChatGPT in the realm of software engineering education.

Teaching Reform Based on the Competency Model for Software Engineering-related Courses

This paper explores the reform and practice of software engineering-related courses based on the competency model of the Computing Curricula,and proposes some measures of teaching reform and talent cultivation in software engineering.The teaching reform emphasizes student-centered education,and focuses on the cultivation and enhancement of students’knowledge,skills,and dispositions.Based on the three elements of the competency model,specific measures of teaching reform are proposed for some professional courses in software engineering,to strengthen course relevance,improve knowledge systems,reform practical modes with a focus on skill development,and cultivate good dispositions through student-centered education.The teaching reform’s attempts and practice are conducted in some courses such as Advanced Web Technologies,Software Engineering,and Intelligent Terminal Systems and Application Development.Through the analysis and comparison of the implementation effects,significant improvements are observed in teaching effectiveness,students’mastery of knowledge and skills are noticeably improved,and the expected goals of the teaching reform are achieved.

A New Model of Software Engineering Education and Exploration of Professional Curriculum Teaching

This paper focuses on the problems,opportunities,and challenges faced by software engineering education in the new era.We have studied the core ideas of the new model and reform,the specific measures implemented,and the challenges and solutions faced.The new model and reform must focus on cultivating practical abilities,introducing interdisciplinary knowledge,and strengthening innovation awareness and entrepreneurial spirit.The process of reform and innovation is carried out from the aspects of teaching methods,teaching means,and course performance evaluation in the teaching practice of software engineering courses.We adopt a method of“question guiding,simple and easy to understand,flexible and diverse,and emphasizing practical results”,optimizing the curriculum design,providing diverse learning opportunities,and establishing a platform for the industry-university-research cooperation.Our teaching philosophy is to adhere to the viewpoint of innovative teaching ideas,optimizing teaching methods and teaching means,and comprehensively improving the teaching quality and level of software engineering education.

Research and Practice on the Multi-dimensional Course Goal Achievement Evaluation of Software Engineering

According to the standards of engineering education accreditation,the achievement paths and evaluation criteria of course goals are presented,aimed at the objectives of software engineering courses and the characteristics of hybrid teaching in Kunming University of Science and Technology.Then a multi-dimensional evaluation system for course goal achievement of software engineering is proposed.The practice’s results show that the multi-dimensional course goal achievement evaluation is helpful to the continuous improvement of course teaching,which can effectively support the evaluation of graduation outcomes.