INES – National Institute of Science and Technology for Software Engineering

INES project awarded

INES researcher Herbert Diniz(CIn/UFPE) attended the Smart City Expo World Congress 2015 to represent the project Bike Cidadao and receive the prize of third position on Ceremony awards of Smart City App Hack – Fiware online competetition. The congress was held in Barcelona, Spain, from November 17th to 19th, 2015.

INES researcher at SBQS’2012

Last year, Vinicius Cardoso Garcia, one of the researches responsible for the projet S.Ma.R.T – Social Machines Research Team won the Software Quality Thesis and Dissertations Competition (CTDQS’2011) – type PhD. CTDQS aims to promote and award the best M.Sc. dissertations and Ph.D. thesis in the field of software quality, defended and approved in Brazil during the year 2010.

The CTDQS is also intended to encourage further work in postgraduate on Quality Software and stimulating University-Industry interaction in this area.

As a prize for the award, Vinicius was invited to attend the SBQS’2012 in Fortaleza, with passages paid by the event sponsor.

Besides, the following paper Agile Motodologies Adoption for Social Games Production with Distributed Teams (in portuguese) was accepted for publication at the conference.

ANTUNES, Jamilson Batista; GOMES, João Emanoel Ambrósio; OTERO, Lenin Ernesto Abadié; GARCIA, Vinicius Cardoso; MEIRA, Silvio Romero de Lemos Meira. Adoção de Metodologias Ágeis para Produção de Jogos Sociais com Times Distribuídos. XI Simpósio Brasileiro de Qualidade de Software (SBQS), Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil, 2012.

This activity is part of the project  ”S.Ma.R.T – Social Machines Research Team“.

Investigating Algorithms, Techniques and Tools for Search Based Software Engineering

Search Based Software Engineering (SBSE) is an emerging field in which Software Engineering problems are reformulated and modeled as optimization problems, and subsequently are solved using concepts, techniques, algorithms and search strategies. The search goal is to identify, among all possible solutions, one that is good enough according to appropriate metrics. The reformulation allows that problems, previously resolved by adopting intensively manual and intuitive methods, can be solved wholly or partially in a systematic and automated way. In addition, SBSE can provide solutions to problems considered intractable by other methods and techniques of Software Engineering, often leading to innovative solutions, not anticipated or even imagined.

In such a context, the aim of this project is to adopt, investigate, evaluate and develop SBSE concepts, algorithms, techniques and strategies in order to solve problems that arise in several areas of the Software Engineering discipline. The scope is widely open for different types of problems. However, initially, it focuses on developing approaches for composition, selection and allocation of software development teams, in both co-located and distributed settings. In particular, this project will take into account problems related to communication and coordination among software development teams, which are geographically distributed around the world. As widely known, such communication and coordination problems arises due to their different technical skills, and, mainly, conflicting cultural, social, organizational and even legal aspects, that, jointly, can significantly impact on software development cost, time and quality. Besides, the project also deals with problems related to search, selection and certification of software components in the context of Global Software Development (GSD) applied to Software Product Lines (SPL).

INES at SBIE 2010 – three papers, one awarded

INES presented three papers at the 21a edition of the “Simpósio Brasileiro de Informática na Educação – SBIE 2010” (Brasilian Computer Education Conference). This conference held in November, 23, in the city of João Pessoa, PB (http://www.ccae.ufpb.br/sbie2010/).

One of these papers was awarded and represent the results from the work-in-progress related to the INES project  “Desenvolvimento Dirigido por Modelos e Ontologias na construção de aplicações educacionais” (Model and Ontologies Driven Development in the construction of educational application).

Papers:
(i) Awarded – “Amadeus and IMS Learning Design: interoperability and reusability in a second generation virtual learning environment”
(Amadeus e IMS Learning Design: interoperabilidade e reutilização em um ambiente virtual de 2ª geração)

Authors
Alexsander Toledo, Webber Fantini, Edilson Silva, Alex Gomes  – Centro de Informática (CIn), Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), PE.
Ricardo Amorim, Dinani Amorim – Colegiado de Ciência da Computação, Faculdade de Ciências Aplicadas e Sociais de Petrolina (FACAPE), PE, e Universidade do Estado da Bahia (UNEB), BA.

Abstract
This work is centered in the adaptation of a learning management platform to the use of an educational ontology based on IMS LD specification. With this end, we made a mapping of concepts between ontology and platform, which are represented using database technology. After that, we defined the requirements for adapting the architecture and interfaces for the manipulation of IMS LD units of learning. The use of the ontology facilitates the manipulation of these units and the development of applications that implement IMS LD.

(ii) “Development of a Framework for Quality Instructional Design Ontologies”

Authors
Xin Li – Elearning Development – McGirr Associates – Wellington – New Zealand
Ricardo Amorim – Colegiado de Ciência da Computação, Faculdade de Ciências
Aplicadas e Sociais de Petrolina, PE e Universidade do Estado da Bahia, BA

Abstract
This paper proposes a framework for evaluating of quality, and guidance in an Instructional Design (ID) ontology development. A systematic search of the e-learning ontologies literature revealed key characteristics and issues relating to the intended purposes of ID ontologies. A synthesis of it contributed to identifying the four crucial elements of Reusability, Personalisation, Quality Assurance  and Applicability which was identified as relevant to the modelling, validation and execution processes  of the ontology development. The use of this framework would first, inform the development of a quality ID ontology that would meet the needs of both learners and ID authors and second, serve as a guide in evaluating different ID ontologies.

(iii) “A MDA solution based on Ontologies in the building of authoring tools for Units of Learning”
(Uma solução MDA baseada em Ontologias na construção de ferramentas de autoria para Unidades de Aprendizagem)

Authors
George Pacheco Pinto – Núcleo Interdepartamental de Pesquisa em Redes de Computadores (NUPERC), Universidade Salvador (UNIFACS) – Salvador, BA – Brasil

Laís do Nascimento Salvador – Departamento Ciência da Computação (DCC), Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA) Salvador, BA – Brasil

Ricardo Amorim – Departamento de Educação e Colegiado de Computação, Universidade do Estado da Bahia (UNEB) e Faculdade de Ciências Aplicadas e Sociais de Petrolina (FACAPE) – Petrolina, PE – Brasil

Abstract
In this paper, we present a prototype tool, MDAOnto, which uses domain ontology as the main element in the creation of CIM (Computer Independent Model) in an MDA (Model-Driven Architecture) approach. We describe the proposed approach as well as a use scenario in order to show how MDAOnto works with an educational domain ontology based on IMS LD specification.

INES Researchers win Best Paper Award at SBES 2010

The paper “Identifying Code Smells with Multiple Concern Views”, from  Glauco Carneiro (UFBA) and colleagues from UFBA, PUC-Rio and UFMG, won the Best Paper Award from the XXIV Brazilian Conference on Software Engineering.

Congratulations!