Using GroupWare to support Software Engineering student group projects

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Using GroupWare to support Software Engineering
student group projects

• Sarah Drummond
• Department of Computer Science
• University of Durham

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What is Groupware

• ..computer-based systems that support groups of
  people engaged in a common task (or goal) and
  that provide an interface to a shared
  environment
• Ellis, Gibbs et al 1991
• Groupware is technology designed to facilitate
  the work of groups
• The term is ordinarily used to refer to a
  specific class of technologies relying on modern
  computer networks, such as email, newsgroups,
  videophones, or chat.

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Classification of Groupware

• Two primary dimensions
• Users working together at the same time real
  time (sync)
• or different times (async)
• Users working together in the same place
  (collocated or
• face-to-face) or in different places
  (non-collocated or
• distance).

 
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Groupware offers significant advantages

• to facilitate communication make it faster,
  clearer, more persuasive also enables
  communication where it wouldn't otherwise be
  possible
• to enable telecommuting - cuts down on travel
  costs
• to bring together multiple perspectives and
  expertise
• to form groups with common interests where it
  wouldn't be possible to gather a sufficient
  number of people face-to-face
• to save time and cost in coordinating group work
• to facilitate group problem-solving
• to enable new modes of communication, such as
  anonymous interchanges or structured interactions

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Research Areas

• Applying CSCW to SE
• Groupware is the technological component of CSCW
• SE education is a sub set of SE
• Groupware support for SE students

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What we did

• Typical SE activities identified
• e.g.exchange ideas, meetings, designs, document
  preparation, config man
• What groupware was available to support these
  activities synchronous and asynchronous
• Investigate the areas of CSCW and to determine
  the appropriateness of existing groupware to SE
  education
• Identify a set of requirements for collaborative
  working support for SE students
• Formulate hypotheses on SE students use of
  groupware
• Using case studies gather relevant data
  (qualitative and quantitative) to prove or
  disprove the hypotheses

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What is BSCW?

• A document storage and retrieval system allowing
  collaboration over the web supporting work of
  widely dispersed groups
• Users access system using standard
  user-name/password and server responds with a
  list of workspaces the user can enter. Each
  workspace (public or private) contains a number
  of shared objects
• Actions can be performed on these objects by
  workspace members
• Supports independent platforms via a WWW
  interface (runs on UNIX (incl. Linux) and NT)
• A notification service keeps users aware of each
  others activities
• Hierarchical file structure

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BSCW supporting SEG

• Central repository for work artifacts (including
  SE individual tasks)
• Simple work-flow mechanism
• Awareness of other members activities (historical
  trail)
• Functionality to support some SE activities
  (document creation/editing/versioning)
• Practical experience of using groupware

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Hypothesis 1

• The introduction of a WWW based asynchronous
  shared workspace into software engineering
  groupworking will aid group members to organise
  and coordinate their work
• Results summary
• The workspace provided a formal setting for
  the practical side of SE and was felt to be
  helpful and useful by providing a hierarchical
  structure, simple configuration management and
  awareness of other groups members activities

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Hypothesis 1
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Hypothesis 2

• Greater use of shared workspace functionality
  will be made as the project progresses
• Results summary
• The use of the workspace functions for SEG
  showed no significant increase in their use but
  the functions were used more appropriately. Not
  all functions were used only the essential
  ones!

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Hypothesis 3

• Students undertake more collaboration in the
  earlier stages of the software lifecycle
• Results summary
• Not possible to prove this as there is much
  interaction between SEG members that was not
  captured. But from general observations it was
  felt that there was more collaboration as the
  groups are forming, understanding the tasks in
  hand and the potential of each group member.

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BSCW usage
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Successes

• Provides a simple work-flow mechanism
• An awareness of group activities for both members
  and staff has proved very useful
• Students have gained valuable experience using
  groupware can appreciate the design challenges
  in such systems
• Introduction of CSCW module in curriculum
  covering CSCW applied to SE

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Problems

• Initial student motivation poor due to - lack of
  experience poor response times of server
  provision of additional UNIX group work file
  space
• Security issues resulted in students not being
  able to access SEGWorld from outside the
  University
• Short-term maintenance requires support - both
  administrative and technical
• Long-term evolution requires committed management
  and sufficient resources

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BSCW vs. Blackboard

• University has supported campus wide use of
  Blackboard (Durham University Online or DUO)
• DUO is an integrated learning environment
  offering not only facilities to structure
  learning content (web-pages, lecture notes, CAL
  applications, audio, video clips), but also
  provide student management, communication and
  assessment tools, and a range of other useful
  functions
• SEG moved from BSCW to DUO

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SEGs using DUO. What happened?

• Groupware is any type of software designed for
  groups and for communication
• Excellent one stop shop
• Has features to support some group interaction
  e.g. file exchange, but no configuration
  management
• Students hardly used DUO Unix group file space
  preferred
• Inflexible in supporting submission of
  deliverables
• BSCW is generic groupware designed specifically
  to support groups. DUO is generic groupware
  designed to do many functions with group support
  being minor NEITHER are designed for SE
  activities

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Conclusions

• Investigations into CSCW/SE were undertaken,
  hypotheses formulated and case studies done. Data
  collected. Data was evaluated to prove or
  disprove the hypotheses
• Use of BSCW has have been relatively successful
  but problems both technical and administrative
  did occur
• University wide introduction of DUO. New staff
  new ideas!
• DUO does not sufficiently support group
  interaction whereas BSCW does neither are
  designed with SE activities in mind
• Groupware is in the main generic and whilst
  offering some tailorability do not fully support
  SE processes e.g. code development
• SE students gained an insight into the benefits
  these technologies can provide and the problems
  that can arise when using them
• SE students require communication skills need
  to understand both technological and sociological
  factors associated with developing and using
  groupware

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References

• Checkland, P. (1997). CSCW in the contest of
  IS can the reality match the rhetoric? Keynote
  address in ECSCW 97, Lancaster University, UK
• Ellis, C.A., S.J. Gibbs et al (1991) Groupware
  Some Issues and Experiences. Communications of
  the ACM 34(1) 39-58