1. An Architecture to Support Learning,
Awareness, and Transparency in
Social Software Engineering
Wolfgang Reinhardt
Sascha Rinne
University of Paderborn
Institute of Computer Science

2. if you want to tweet
#icl09
#mashl09
#mashl09_5D

3. Social Software Engineering
• ambivalent term
• social activities represent a substantial part of daily development work
• developers not only communicate, they connect through shared artefacts
• social connections to people inside and outside the project
© Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn
• other projects, knowledge bases, bulletin boards, developer lists etc.
• domain experts do often not reside within the own organisation
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Wolfgang Reinhardt

4. Learning and KM in software projects
© Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn
• learning and understanding takes place by sharing of information and ad hoc
exchange of short messages
• inter-project networks are very important for learning in groups
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Wolfgang Reinhardt

5. Collaborative Development Environments (CDE)
„A virtual space wherein all stakeholders of a project - even if distributed by
time or distance - may negotiate, brainstorm, discuss, share knowledge, and
generally labor together to carry out some task, most often to create an
executable deliverable and its supporting artifacts“
Booch & Brown, 2003
© Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn
• mostly focussed on one single project
• support most stages of a developer‘s work
• several stages of maturity, most mature CDEs „encourage a vibrant
community of practice“
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Wolfgang Reinhardt

6. Existing approaches
• Trac and Assembla
• Focussed on single projects
• Lists of recent actions
• Sourceforge and Github
© Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn
• sites that handle multiple projects
• free and paid hosting
• main tools for software development
included (tracker, version control, file mgmt.)
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7. Lack of Transparency and Awareness
• many systems / tools used during software project
• lists of events are hard to understand
• many events not interesting for all people involved
• common focus on single projects, no support for project-spanning exchange
© Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn
• no easy way of finding domain experts and contact persons
• community often resides outside the hosting platform
• found help is externalised somewhere else, cannot be reused
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Wolfgang Reinhardt

8. Solution Design

9. Basic ideas and goals
• Platform that hosts multiple projects
• easy creation of new project for anyone
• allowing project-spanning exchange of expert knowledge and experiences
• embedding in a vibrant community
© Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn
• Mashups as design pattern
• leaving subsystems as they are and integrate events
• enhancing artefact- and person awareness and make process more
understandable and transparent
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Wolfgang Reinhardt

10. Organisational Requirements
• embedding of project-related activities in a community-context
• Community-embedded Cooperative Development Environment (CCDE)
• easy adding of new developers
• using commonly well-known software without making adaptions to it
© Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn
• automatic creation of instances of all required tools
• allowing project-spanning expert exchange
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Wolfgang Reinhardt

11. Data sources in SE projects
• Repository • Instant Messaging
• Issue Tracker • Audio/Video-Conferencing
• Wiki • Social Bookmarks
• Roadmap Planning • RSS Feeds
© Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn
• Blog / Microblog • Bulletin boards
• E-Mail • Shared Whiteboards
• Calendar • ........
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Wolfgang Reinhardt

12. Mashup as design pattern
• using standard software to meet organisational and technical requirements
• Repository: Subversion
• Wiki: MediaWiki
• Blog: Wordpress
© Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn
• Microblog: StatusNet aka Laconi.ca
• Issue Tracker, Roadmap planning, source code browser: Trac
• integration via a meta-navigation bar
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13. Event-based architecture
• subsystems serve as EventProvider
• adapter provides basic event data for eCopSoft core
• analyzers investigate according action / artefact more deeply
• semantical analysis of text-based artefacts, code-analysis and people
© Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn
tagging
• IntegrationLayer
• association of events / users / projects
• provides the API
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14. Semantic Web Approaches
• storage of all users and events in Artefact-Actor-Network
• layers of systems
consolidated artefact network
• semantical relations between artefact / users
consolidated social network
• interconnecting project spaces
© Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn
isReferencedBy isSupervisorOf
referencing isSupervisedBy
Organization
isUsed
owner isAuthor
modfier
uses
Projectspace A Projectspace B Projectspace C
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Wolfgang Reinhardt

15. Overall architecture (very schematical)
© Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn
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16. Creating Awareness & Transparency
© Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn
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17. Widget-like User Interface
© Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn
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18. What is still to do?

19. Conclusion
• embedding a CDE into a community
• supporting knowledge sharing and individual learning through ad-hoc
communication
© Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn
• Mashup of various well-known tools to support the development process
• connecting multiple separate projects
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20. Outlook
• End implementation ;)
• Complex Event Processing (CEP)
• aggregate events to gain a deeper understanding or to alarm people in the
project (traffic light system)
© Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn
• field test of the platform with student groups at UPB
• roll out as open platform for all students, employees and working groups
at the UPB
• assess the usage and quality of project-spanning helps
• Web-based and Desktop Widgets that allow staying up-to-date
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21. Thank you
Want to know more?
http://twitter.com/wollepb
http://isitjustme.de
http://artefact-actor-networks.net
Wolfgang Reinhardt
University of Paderborn
Institute of Computer Science
Working Group Didactics of Informatics
http://ddi.upb.de

23. Image sources
• http://de.fotolia.com/id/3805293
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/282237
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1011829
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/317067
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