Abstract

A system for evaluating and facilitating customized source code based on the usability guidelines using a usability code pattern analysis is provided . The system includes a decom pile module , a guideline loader module , an inspection mod ule , a validation module , a recommendation module , and one or more databases . The system obtains the input package from the user computing device to generate customized the usability code pattern for the input package by decompiling , inspecting and validating the input package against a vali dation case based on the usability guidelines . The input package layout files decompiled in XML and JAR file formats . The evaluation of the usability guideline is based on existing usability guidelines . The validation module vali dates the usability of the input package at each instance periodically using validation test cases .

Abstract

Introducing the fundamentals of software systems to early undergraduates is a tedious journey for the instructors. It is crucial for students as it lays the foundation and establishes a perception of the upcoming computing courses. With rapid advancements in technology and considering the changes in workforce practices, it is required to upgrade the course curriculum to up-skill the students in contrast to prevailing times. This paper discusses our journey towards upgrading a decade-old introductory course on Software Systems for early undergraduate students. We present our approach towards updating the course curriculum and its delivery modes to ease learnability among early undergraduate students. We implemented mixed pedagogy methods over the years and captured student feedback to evaluate our approach.

Abstract

The explosive growth of internet users and connected devices increased the threat vector surface. However, there is no single website or a search engine that provides information on vulnerabilities, threats, attacks, controls, etc. Ambiguity, bias and lack of credibility are some of the alarming issues while dealing with generic search engines on sensitive topics such as ‘Health’ and ‘Information Security’. A dedicated information security specific search engine benefits various stakeholders including security professionals, researchers, government, regulators and others. We implemented a fine grained approach that identifies sub-domains of information security, extracts related URLs and content and assesses search results credibility to enhance adoption of information security specific search engine. To identify sub-domains and extract seed and child URLs, a fine grained approach that extends an efficient Artificial Bee Colony algorithm was implemented. About 34,007 seed URLs and 400,726 child URLs of various sub-domains of the information security were extracted. The results of the proposed approach identified more URLs (seed and child) of sub-domains as compared to existing approaches while consuming less computing resources.

Abstract

With increasing computing power, capacity and internet connectivity, the ability to learn has crossed classroom boundaries in the form of online learning. The adoption rate and effectiveness of online learning continues to be an area of research. Collaborative and Cooperative (CoCo) learning involves a joint effort by students to understand and solve problems or tasks. Adoption of open source software has also increased with technology-aided collaboration and cooperation. Leveraging the practices of crowdsourced software development, we propose CoCo Learning approach for technical education using virtual labs. About 145 undergraduate engineering students from various institutes participated in our study for a period of one full semester. About 92% of the students conducted an average of 24 virtual experiments with this approach. Nearly 90% of the faculty from these institutes also confirmed that their students' understanding of courses has improved while delivering tangible software artifacts as outcomes.

Abstract

Requirements Engineering in the industry is expertise-driven, heavily manual, and centered around various types of requirement specification documents being prepared and maintained. These specification documents are in diverse formats and vary depending on whether it is a business requirement document, functional specification, interface specification, client specification, and so on. These diverse specification documents embed crucial product knowledge such as functional decomposition of the domain into features, feature hierarchy, feature types and their specific feature characteristics, dependencies, business context, etc. Moreover, in a product development scenario, thousands of pages of requirement specification documentation is created over the years. Comprehending functionality and its associated context from large volumes of specification documents is a highly complex task. To address this problem, we propose to digitalize the requirement specification documents into processable models. This paper discusses the salient aspects involved in the digitalization of requirements knowledge from diverse requirement specification documents. It proposes an AI engine for the automatic transformation of diverse text-based requirement specifications into machine-processable models using NLP techniques and the generation of context-sensitive user stories. The paper describes the key requirement abstractions and concepts essential in an industrial scenario, the conceptual meta-model, and DizReq engine (AI engine for digitalizing requirements) implementation for automatically transforming diverse requirement specifications into user stories embedding the business context. The evaluation results from digitalizing specifications of an IT product suite are discussed: mean feature extraction efficiency is 40 features/file, mean user story extraction efficiency is 71 user stories/file, feature extraction accuracy is 94%, and requirement extraction accuracy is 98%. Keywords: NLP, NLP4RE, model extraction, requirements digitalization, requireme

Abstract

The adoption of Machine Learning (ML) in software applications has increased in domains like healthcare, banking and others. leading to coining of the term MLWare applications. However, challenges like diverse code base, complex components, lack of expertise, etc. persist in development and maintenance of these applications. Application of software engineering patterns and practices for the development of MLWare applications can improve maintainability, extensibility, scalability and other software quality parameters. In this paper, we propose an approach for developing MLWare applications using a pattern oriented approach. We demonstrate the approach on a credit risk scorecard application that can helps loan officer identify risk patterns and make loan decisions.

Abstract

Student internships are necessary for every student to learn and apply the learning to deliver tangible and relevant outcomes. In-person internship opportunities are less in number and have major challenges in scaling such as lesser number of available projects in relevant technologies, inadequate mentorship during the internship, varying college calendars and others. This paper presents SRIP (Student Remote Internship Program) approach which focuses on the domain of programming in open source technologies and projects for the internships that are relevant to 2nd and 3rd year engineering college students. It aims to overcome the stated challenges and simultaneously make a contribution to the open source community. Virtual Labs is the open source repository that we leveraged to implement SRIP pilot study for interns to contribute and develop programming skills.

Abstract

Most financial institutions, NGOs, and self help groups (SHG) are now using web technology to create outreach. However, for non-mainstream users, like those in rural India, the web application’s non vernacular language, unfamiliar terminology, complex financial models, and user’s own poor digital exposure, together creates a mistrust in the web applications, which tends to result in poor adoption. This inhibits financial literacy initiatives and slows down Financial Inclusion, which is a Millennium Goal. We treat this as a web accessibility problem, and look for prior work on transforming published web content for making it suitable for easy consumption by non-mainstream users. To this end we present a systematic literature review, which forages through 1068 records related to page transformation, to RQ1) uncover existing motivators for transforming an existing web page, RQ2) surface the approaches taken, and …

Abstract

Virtual Labs allow performance of experiments without real world instrumentation needs. Most of these virtual experiments are simulation based and developed using proprietary or Open Source simulation, Adobe Flash, and other client side software. The procedural steps involved in conducting these experiments are hardwired and require software modification for enhancements or alignment to the course structure. We propose a model based approach that eases development of virtual experiments without dependency on software programmers for any changes. We demonstrate our model driven based approach on Chemical Sciences labs of Virtual Labs, a Government of India initiative. With our model driven based approach, the effort for new experiment development or FOSS conversion of existing experiments that were using outdated technologies is less than a person day as compared to more than a person …

Abstract

VR development practices have a diverse set of practices compared to traditional software development. Tasks like scene design, acoustic design, vergence manipulation, image depth, etc. are specific to VR apps and hence require evaluation processes that may be different from the traditional means. Usability Evaluation is one such process which is being executed in an unconventional way by Industrial Practitioners today. In this paper, the researchers detail a Systematic Literature Review of the Usability Evaluation Methods practised by Industrial researchers while building VR Products. The researchers found that VR Product teams follow unique methods to improve usability in their products. Further, the researchers consolidate these methods and provide insights into choosing the best to build a real-world VR Product based on the defined product constraints