Using GroupWare to support software engineering student group projects Sarah Drummond Department of Computer Science University of Durham

2 What is Groupware 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 , newsgroups, videophones, or chat. What about usability issues?

3 Groupware categorised Same Time (synchronous) face-to-face Video conferencing Chat Same Place (co-located) Different Place (distance) Different Time (asynchronous) Shared computers Workflow systems 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).

4 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

5 Support for SEG Dedicated SEG collaborative working laboratory “SEGWorld”Creation of a virtual environment for student group work “SEGWorld” based on BSCW (Basic Support for Cooperative Work) On-line SE/SEG work materials and tutorial

6 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

7 What is BSCW (2) Supports independent platforms via a WWW interface A notification service keeps users aware of each others activities Hierarchical file structure Runs on UNIX (incl. Linux) and NT

8 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

9 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 Additional functionality through dev. of CGI scripts for on-line marking Introduction of CSCW module in curriculum covering CSCW applied to SE

10 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 – this has been resolved Long-term evolution requires committed management and sufficient resources - new server purchased and response time improved. Do we carry on with BSCW?

11 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……

12 SEG’s 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 Where do we go from here …..?

13 Conclusion Have experience of asynchronous groupware from a local perspective 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 DUO will be used this academic year as a repository for SE material – year long study of their use of this system will be undertaken Students do gain valuable experience using these technologies

14 Further information SEG and JTAP (distributed project) publications: BSCW: Blackboard:

15 Literature survey Software developed by teams 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 Necessary to understand how people work as groups and interact with machines - HCI

16 Criteria for success 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

17 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

18 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

19 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!

20 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.

21 Hypothesis 4 Synchronous communication has an important role to play in both collocated and distributed SE groupwork Results summary: This hypothesis was in part proved to be correct. For distributed students the benefits of components such as video and audio were minimal whilst chat and whiteboard proved to be useful. For collocated students synchronous communication was less important as face-to-face interaction was possible.

22 Conclusions The Criteria for success was fulfilled: investigations into CSCW/SE were undertaken, hypotheses formulated and case studies done. Data collected. Data was evaluated to prove or disprove the hypotheses 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