Software Engineering Research

Laurie Williams


Funding

Title: Science of Security Lablet
Agency/Program: National Security Agency
Duration: September 2013 - August 2017
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams, coPI Munindar Singh
Amount:  $ 8,107,679
The North Carolina State University (NCSU), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Carnegie Mellon University each received grant funds from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) to stimulate the creation of a more scientific basis for the design and analysis of trusted systems.

Title: EDU:  Motivating and Reaching Students and Professionals with Software Security Education
Agency/Program: National Science Foundation
Duration: September 2013 - August 2017
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams, CoPIs: Emerson Murphy Hill, Kevin Ollver
Amount:  $ 300,00
Create software security education resources and offer though on-site classroom education, asynchronous delivery mechanisms, and a massively open on-line course (MOOC).

Title: On Educational Materials for Secure and Privacy-Preserving Development of Healthcare IT Electronic Health Record Applications
Agency/Program: IBM
Duration: January 1, 2011 – December 31, 2011
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams
Amount:  $ 10,000
The grant proposed to develop teaching materials, which can be used to educate students and software developers about important security and privacy-preserving considerations and techniques for the development of electronic health record applications.

Title:  Planning Poker and Automated Acceptance Testing Support for Jazz
Agency/Program: IBM
Duration: September 1, 2010 – August 31, 2010
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams
Amount:  $ 20,000
The grant proposed to extend Jazz’s capability to include support for distributed teams to play the Planning Game.  By playing the Planning Game, the extended development team defines and estimates the requirements statements.

Title:  IBM PhD Fellowship for Ben Smith
Agency/Program:  IBM
Duration:  August 15, 2010 – August 14, 2011
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams
Amount:  $24,000
Funding to support PhD for Ben Smith  

Title:  Use of Affordable Open Source Systems by Rural/Small-Practice Health Professionals
Program:  Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
Duration:  September 2009 – September 2011
Principle Investigators:  Laurie Williams and Mladen Vouk (NCSU); Jaqueline Halladay (UNC-CH)
Amount:  $298,712
National efforts are focused on improving medical quality and reducing medical costs by implementing standardized electronic medical record keeping which enables secure exchange of health information between different systems.  However, rural health care providers and those who have small offices may not have the financial resources or expertise to purchase and maintain necessary expensive hardware and software applications which are necessary to join in this move toward electronic medical records (EMRs). We propose that the EMR application needs of rural and small-practice ambulatory health care providers be satisfied via open source EMR applications that are reliable, secure, privacy-preserving, standards/regulations-based, and able to be integrated with other health care systems.  Both hardware and software installation, usage, and maintenance are securely optimized to improve affordability via a virtual computing environment. 

Title:  Defect Observability
Program:  ABB
Duration:  August 2009 – May 2012
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams 
Amount:  $170,234
Real-time systems often exhibit some level of non-determinism with regard to defect observability. Testers frequently must run tests multiple times in order to have some assurance that the test actually passes. This costs ABB (and industry in general) significant time and effort. We study these types of defects to understand why they exhibit non-determinism and what techniques or tools can be used to better observe the software and control the non-determinism.

Title:  Open Source Health Care and the Virtual Computing Laboratory
Program/Agency:  IBM
Duration:  September 1, 2009 – August 31, 2010
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams 
Amount:  $20,000
National efforts are focused on improving medical quality and reducing medical costs by implementing standardized electronic medical record keeping which enables secure exchange of health information between different systems.  Our project researches an affordable and secure solution for hosting open source EMRs on a cloud/virtual computing platform.

Title: On the Use of Software Metrics as a Predictor of Software Security Problems
Agency/Program: Army Research Office
Duration: July 2008 – December 2009
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams
Amount:  $ 117,413
Extensive research has shown that software metrics can be used to identify fault- and failure-pronecomponents and to predict the overall quality of a system early and throughout the software development lifecycle, before products are released for use. We seek to extend this work to identify security metrics to effectively identifyvulnerability-prone and attack-prone componentsof software run in a virtualized computing environment and to predict the overall security of the virtualized system prior to release.  Specifically, we will examine the capability of security metrics obtained from code artifacts, inspections, and testing to highlight security for the risk-based prioritization of re-design, inspection, and testing efforts to fortify software as necessary. 

Title:  IBM PhD Fellowship for Sarah Smith Heckman
Agency/Program:  IBM
Duration:  August 15, 2008 – August 14, 2009
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams
Amount:  $23,318
Funding to support PhD for Sarah Smith Heckman  

Title:  Requirements Definition, Estimation, Clarification, and Validation in Jazz
Agency/Program: IBM
Duration: September 1, 2008 – August 31, 2009
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams
Amount:  $ 20,000
The grant proposed to extend Jazz’s capability to include support for distributed teams to play the Planning Game.  By playing the Planning Game, the extended development team defines and estimates the requirements statements.

Title: Supporting Pair Programming and Virtualization of the Jazz Development Environment
Agency/Program: IBM
Duration: January 1, 2008 – December 31, 2009
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams and Michael Devetsikiotis
Amount:  $ 25,000
A focus of the research will be on enhancing the Jazz environment to include distributed pair programming between members of a team and instructing students to be part of a collaborative, distributed team within this environment.

Title: On Agility in Software Reliability and Software Security Engineering
Agency/Program: North Carolina Center for Advanced Computing and Communications
Duration: August 15, 2008 – August 14, 2009
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams
Amount:  $ 40,000
The objective of this proposal is to create and empirically assess the efficacy of two Wideband Delphi estimation approaches that can bring software reliability and security engineering practices into an agile software development method.

Title: On the Use of Security Metrics to Predict Vulnerability- and Attack-Prone Software Components
Agency/Program: North Carolina Center for Advanced Computing and Communications
Duration: Januaary 1, 2008 – December 31, 2008
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams
Amount:  $ 40,000
The work outlined in this proposal focuses on the use of security metrics to prioritize risk-based software engineering for security. Specifically, the objective of this proposal is to build a predictive model based upon security metrics obtained from code artifacts, inspections, and testing to highlight vulnerability-prone and attack-prone components for the risk-based prioritization of re-design, inspection, and testing efforts.

Title:  IBM PhD Fellowship for Sarah Smith Heckman
Agency/Program:  IBM
Duration:  August 15, 2007 – August 14, 2008
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams
Amount:  $23,318
Funding to support PhD for Sarah Smith Heckman  

Title:  Hot Spot Identification and Test-Driven Development
Agency/Program:  Nortel
Duration:  September 20, 2006 – December 31, 2007
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams
Amount:  $ 45,982
The grant involves the collaboration on two projects for improving software quality at Nortel. In one project, a means for identifying "hot spots" in code will be developed and validated based upon historical data (static complexity, code churn, defect history for the module and potentially code coverage data). In the second project, we will examine the efficacy the test test-driven development practice for improving software quality.

Title:  IBM PhD Fellowship for Sarah Smith Heckman
Agency/Program:  IBM
Duration:  August 15, 2006 – August 14, 2007
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams
Amount:  $23,318
Funding to support PhD for Sarah Smith Heckman

Title:  Software Testing Curricular Materials Development
Agency/Program:  IBM
Duration:  July 1, 2006 – June 30, 2007
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams
Amount:  $27,000
This project involves the development of curricular materials related to software test. These resources will be freely provided to all educators via the Open Seminar in Software Engineering (http://openseminar.org/se).   

Title:  On Expediting Software Engineering AWAREness of Anomalous Code
Agency/Program:  North Carolina Center for Advanced Computing and Communications
Duration:  July 1, 2006 – June 30, 2007
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams and Tao Xie
Amount:  $40,000
AWARE will continuously provide the programmer with prioritized and trained information on faults revealed via compilation, static analysis, and dynamic testing.  AWARE will provide the programmer with better diagnosis information, and ultimately, we believe will improve programmer productivity and product quality. We will assess the efficacy of providing the programmer with this stream of information by working with CACC members.

Title:  The STARS Alliance:  A Southeastern Partnership for Diverse Participation in Computing
Agency/Program:  National Science Foundation
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams, Sally Berenson, Mladen Vouk [NCSU subcontractor to UNC-Charlotte]
Duration:  January 2006 – January 2009
Amount:  $491, 711
Graduate Research Assistant: Kristy Boyer, Kevin Damm, Lauren Hayward
The goal of our alliance is to broaden participation in computing (BPC) by developing a cohesive system of regional partnerships that will collaboratively and systematically implement, disseminate, and institutionalize effective practices for recruiting, bridging, and graduating into computing disciplines women, under-represented minorities, and persons with disabilities. 

Title:  Academy for Software Engineering Educators and Trainers
Agency/Program:  National Science Foundation
Duration:  Sept. 1, 2005 – Sept. 1, 2006
Principle Investigator:  Laurie Williams
Amount:  $10,000
A special one-day Academy for Software Engineering Educators & Trainers will be offered on the day prior to the start of The Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEE&T).  This funding supports two US student and three US new faculty Academy attendees. 

Title: Using Validation and Verification Certificates to Estimate Software Defect Density
Agency/Program: National Science Foundation
Duration: June 1, 2005 – May 15, 2006
Amount: $150,000
Principle Investigator: Laurie Williams
Our research objective is to build a parametric model which utilizes a persistent record of the validation and verification (V&V) practices used with a program to estimate the defect density of that program. The persistent record of the V&V practices are recorded as certificates which are automatically recorded and maintained with the code.

Title: Continuous Checking of Static Analysis and Automated Unit Tests for Java Programs
Agency/Program: North Carolina Center for Advanced Computing and Communications
Duration: July 1, 2005 – June 30, 2006
Amount: $40,000
Principle Investigator: Laurie Williams and Jun Xu (coPI)
Both static analysis and dynamic testing are important for finding defects in software applications. We propose to develop the Continuous Checking tool that would use the computer's available CPU cycles and continuously provide feedback to software developers on compilation, static analysis, and testing defects. The user can train the tool to reduce false positives reported from static analysis. Performing development in the presence of a fault (logic or semantic) lengthens the time to correct the fault as new code builds upon the fault. The longer the developer is unaware of the fault, the worse its effects will be. Continuous Checking provides the developer with information on compilation, static analysis, and testing faults while the new code is fresh in the developer's mind. We will implement Continuous Checking as a plug-in for the open source Eclipse development environment and will validate the effectiveness of the tool via empirical studies of open source programs and by working closely with CACC members.

Title: Supporting Evidence-Based Software Engineering
Agency/Program: North Carolina Center for Advanced Computing and Communications
Duration: July 1, 2005 – June 30, 2006
Amount: $40,000
Principle Investigator: Laurie Williams
To inform their decision making, industry professionals are most influenced by compelling evidence on the effectiveness of a technique in live situations in an environment such as their own. However, very few software engineering research studies involve industrial organizations. As a result, practitioners cannot use evidence grounded in research results to inform their decision making. Short of receiving industry-based results, practitioners may too often base their technology choices on intuition rather than evidence. The field of evidence-based software engineering (EBSE) is emerging to address these challenges. With CACC member support, we have established an exemplar industry/research collaboration focused on the examination of Extreme Programming and agile practices. We have structured and extensively performed the type of industrial case study research that is often lacking. In this proposal, we seek to continue and further this collaboration, broadening beyond Extreme Programming and agile practices to any technology or process of interest to members. As part of this research, we will adapt an Eclipse plug-in to enable detailed causal analysis of field failures and to empirically examine the defect-removal efficacy of validation and verification techniques, such as inspections, unit testing, and system testing.

Title: In Regression Testing Without Code
Agency: ABB
Duration: January 2005 – May 2007
Amount: $115,067
Principle Investigator: Laurie Williams
The goal of this research project is to to devise and validate a method of regression test selection for software components for which source code is not available to software development organizations incorporating the components into their products. This includes all third party components that are used ‘off the shelf', as well as internal components where the source code is not readily available at the time of the regression test selection. It should be understood that the set of tests selected without the code is going to represent a superset of the tests that would ideally be selected if the code were available: more tests are needed, due to the lack of code, to ensure that nothing is missed.

Title: Test Case Prioritization
Agency: ABB
Duration: September 2004 – December 2004
Amount: $14,500
Principle Investigator: Laurie Williams
Abstract:
Preliminary studies of regression test selection for software components for which source code is not available to software development organizations incorporating the components into their products.

Title: Incorporating Automated Inspection into the Emerald Decision Support System
Agency: Nortel Networks
Duration: May 15, 2004 – December 31, 2004
Amount: $15,354
Principle Investigators: Laurie Williams and Mladen Vouk (coPI)
Abstract:
Software inspection has been shown to be an effective defect removal practice, leading to higher quality software with lower field failures. Automated software inspection tools are emerging for identifying a subset of defects in a less labor-intensive manner than manual inspection. Results of an initial research partnership between North Carolina State University and Nortel Networks supported the use of automated inspection as an efficient predictor of field failures and are effective for identifying fault-prone modules. In this grant we propose to continue our analysis examining the potential and economic viability of automated inspection. Additionally, we will investigate incorporating automated inspection results into Nortel's Emerald decision support system.

Title: On the Identification of Agile and Plan-Driven Best Practices
Agency/Program: North Carolina Center for Advanced Computing and Communications
Duration: July 1, 2004 – June 30, 2004
Amount: $40,000
Principle Investigators: Laurie Williams, Carla Savage (coPI), and Jason Osborne (coPI)
Abstract:
The use of a defined process when developing software is often considered an important success strategy. As evidence, a requirement of both the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and ISO 9001 is the use of a defined process by software development teams. However, using a defined software process “out of the box” might cause unforeseen difficulties because the practices of the chosen process are incompatible with the project characteristics and the team culture. Thus, there is a need for a methodology for systematically constructing custom software processes to address particular problems and team characteristics. Most often, such process customization is guided by the intuition of a project lead rather than through informed decision making. While the intuition of the team lead is important, basing important tailoring decisions on instinct alone can lead to undesirable surprises. The objective of this proposal is to define and validate a methodology for identifying software development best practices or sets of best practices to guide the tailoring of defined processes. In this way, organizations can choose a set of mutually-supportive and non-conflicting practices for software development based on their project characteristics.

Title: CAREER: The Test-Driven Development of Secure and Reliable Software Applications
Agency/Program: National Science Foundation
Duration: April 2004 – February 2009
Amount: $406,000
Principle Investigator: Laurie Williams
Abstract:
Our nation's critical infrastructure demands that our current and future IT professionals have the knowledge, tools, and techniques to produce reliable and trustworthy software. The objective of this research is to extend, validate, and disseminate a software development practice to aid in the prevention of computer-related disasters. The practice is based upon test-driven development (TDD), a software development technique with tight verification and validation feedback loops. The proposed work extends the TDD practice and provides a supportive open-source tool for explicitly situating security and reliability as primary attributes considered in these tight feedback loops. Additionally, the research examines the composition of TDD and pair programming/pair testing as a security- and reliability-enhancing tuple of development practices. The study will also examine the potential of pair programming/pair testing for improving the success/retention of socially-oriented women, men, and minorities in the IT workforce . The intellectual merits of this proposal include an enhanced TDD-based software development practice to mitigate security concerns and a catalog of security testing patterns disseminated via the Internet. The broad impacts of the proposal include an interuniversity student competition to build excitement about developing secure and reliable software applications and a revised undergraduate software engineering textbook integrating security and reliability topics.

Title: Establishing an OpenSeminar for Eclipse-based Software Engineering Education
Agency/Program: IBM Eclipse Innovation Award
Duration: January 2004 – December 2004
Amount: $21,000
PrincipIe Investigators: Michael Rappa and Laurie Williams (coPI)
Abstract:
Experience provides excellent infrastructure for software engineering education. Eclipse is readily available for student use and is a popular and effective development environment. By carefully choosing from available plug-ins, educators can customize the tool to map to the learning objectives of the course. Students learn important lessons about open source technology and program modularity. However, educators are busy and changing curricula and development platform can be time consuming. We propose the creation and the initial population of an OpenSeminar for Eclipse-based software engineering education. The OpenSeminar will enable professors from different universities to work collaboratively to create an online seminar and to customize it to the needs of their own students.

Title: Distributed Extreme Programming with Eclipse
Agency/Program: IBM Eclipse Innovation Award
Duration: January 2004 – December 2004
Amount: $20,000
Principle Investigators: Ed Gehringer and Laurie Williams (coPI)
Abstract:
To facilitate Extreme Programming (XP) with remote customers or distributed developers, collaboration tools are needed. NetMeeting and VNC are examples of free collaboration tools available on most Microsoft Windows PCs. However, these tools use communication bandwidth very poorly. An Eclipse plug-in, Sangam, will be developed to support distributed XP.

Title: On Assessing Transitions to Extreme Programming
Agency/Program: Tekelec, Inc.
Duration: January 2004 – August 2004
Amount: $35,735
Principle Investigator: Laurie Williams
Abstract:
Software organizations are increasingly adopting the software development practices associated with the Extreme Programming (XP) methodology. The research team will work with two Tekelec software development teams to adapt and transition to the XP practices and methodologies for use in their projects. Additionally, the research team will assess the teams' transitions relative to the Extreme Programming Evaluation Framework.

Title: Serviceability Enhancements: Comprehensive or Needs Based?*
Agency/Program: IBM
Duration: November 2003 – November 2004
Amount: $40,000
Principle Investigator: Laurie Williams
Abstract:
In today's software development business environment, time-to-market is a dominant factor of business success. The acceleration of change and intense competition mean that organizations need to constantly innovate or risk failure or lack of profitability. Additionally, applications must continuously evolve to meet new demands to outpace (or meet) competitive offerings. These competitive factors motivate the compression of the software development process.  Typical product characteristics that suffer from such compressed development cycle are usability, reliability, and serviceability. The primary focus of this study is serviceability.  Serviceability is defined as the measure of the ease of diagnosing a problem and its time to resolution once a problem is reported by a customer. The PI proposes the empirical comparison of two strategies for managing the cost of and customer satisfaction related to serviceability. Additionally, the research will explore means for proactively improving serviceability.

Title: Agile Software Dependability
Agency/Program: Nortel
Duration: September 2003 – May 2004
Amount: $24,515
Principle Investigators: Laurie Williams and Mladen Vouk (co-PI)
Abstract:
Agile practices relate to the dependability of software systems in two ways. First, developers rapidly cycle from one software development practice to another (such as concept, test, design, code, test, design, code, etc.). The purpose of this cycling is to get feedback early and often on decisions that have been made – from requirements decisions to design decisions and the like. This continual feedback provides “early and often” checks on factors that ultimately impact the dependability of the project. Additionally, the concept of agility leads to the proper mapping of the right mix of dependability practices to the determination of “good enough dependability” for a particular project. The determination of what is “good enough” is dependent upon the project characteristics and requirements. As a step in an agile dependability effort, the research team will work with Nortel to study the corporation's current practices in software dependability in relation to industry best practices. The vehicle for this study will be a web-based self-assessment questionnaire which will be administered to development organizations with a corresponding “Best Practices in Reliability” resource guide.

Title: Mapping CMMI to ISO Standard 12207-15504
Agency/Program: ABB
Duration: September 1, 2003 – May 31, 2004
Amount: $25,000
Principle Investigators: Annie Anton and Laurie Williams (coPI)
Abstract:
The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Capability Maturity Model - Intigrated (CMMI) was mapped to ISO Standard 12207-15504 to identify similarities and differences.

Title: Extending Extreme Programming
Agency/Program: National Science Foundation
Duration: July 1, 2003 – May 15, 2004
Amount: $47,893
Principle Investigators: Laurie Williams and Mladen Vouk (coPI)
Abstract:
The Extreme Programming methodology was designed for relatively small teams of collocated programmers working on non-critical, small-medium, object-oriented projects. Little empirical assessment has been done on the methodology, though a sizable amount of anecdotal evidence supports the use of the methodology under these conditions. We are proposing collaborative research in which we will empirically assess the efficacy of Extreme Programming practices in a high-confidence, secure, functional programming project. Additionally, we will work on integrating formal methods, reliability, and security testing into the set of Extreme Programming practices.

Title: Collaboration through Agile Software Development Practices: A Means for Improvement in Quality and Retention of the IT Workforce
Agency/Program: National Science Foundation
Duration: August 2003 – August 2006
Amount: $693,860
Principle Investigators: Laurie Williams, Sarah Berenson (CoPI, NCSU), Mladen Vouk (CoPI, NCSU), Winser Alexander (coPI, NCSU), Virginia Knight (CoPI, Meredith College), Barrett Koster (CoPI, Meredith College), Sung Yoon (CoPI, NCA&T), Jason Osborne, (Senior Personnel, NCSU)
Abstract:
This ITWF award to North Carolina State and North Carolina A&T Universities and to Meredith College will support a three-year study of the collaborative aspects of agile software development methodologies. We believe the collaboration and the social component inherent in these methodologies is appealing to people whose learning and training models are socially oriented, such as some minority groups, women, and men. This collaboration may help this population in their preparation for and their success/retention in the IT workforce. The project's objective is to perform extensive, longitudinal experimentation in advanced undergraduate software engineering college classes at the three institutions to examine student success and retention in the educational and training pipeline when the classes utilize an agile software development model. The treatment will involve the development of agile software development curricular materials for software engineering classes.

Title: Agile Quality Assurance: Agile Practices or Best Practices?
Agency/Program: North Carolina Center for Advanced Computing and Communications
Duration: July 1, 2003 – June 30, 2003
Amount: $42,894
PrincipIe Investigators: Laurie Williams and Mladen Vouk
Abstract:
With most agile (or iterative) software methodologies, extended periods of time are never spent on any one development practice. Instead, developers rapidly cycle from one practice to another (such as concept, test, design, code, test, design, code . . .). The purpose of this cycling is to get feedback early and often on decisions that have been made – from requirements decisions to design decisions and the like. The quality assurance practices of the agile methodologies are the backbone of the essential feedback necessary with agile development. There are strong indications that an appropriate agile methodology can improve both the quality of the software product and the productivity of the software team. The PIs desire to work with development teams within the CACC member organizations to assess and extend agile quality assurance practices and to determine which of these practices are candidates for industry best practices.

Title:Good Enough” Reliability Tool*
Agency/Program: IBM Eclipse Innovation Award
Duration: January 1, 2003 – December 31, 2003
Amount: $28,000
PrincipIe Investigators: Laurie Williams and Mladen Vouk (CoPI)
Abstract:
Extreme Programming (XP), an Agile software development process designed for small to mid-size projects, has strong customer involvement, a simplified requirements gathering and prioritization practice, and an emphasis on testing via open source xUnit tools. Some of these tools already can be plugged into Eclipse. We are developing extensions to this Agile methodology, and we propose to encapsulate our extensions in an Eclipse plug-in that would enable its user to estimate the probability that a software system under development performs according to its requirements based on a specified usage profile, i.e., the user would estimate its reliability based on pre-release, as well as post-release information. Specifically, we propose the development of an Eclipse plug-in to extend the current JUnit plug-in to support reliability measurement. These novel practices and this plug-in could be utilized with XP as well as other non-XP software development methodologies.

Title: Knowledge Management
Agency/Program: ABB
Amount: $25,000
Duration: August 15, 2002 – May 15, 2003
Principle Investigator: Laurie Williams and Annie Anton (CoPI)
Abstract:
Reengineer a software engineering knowledge base and assess the efficacy of the knowledge base.

Title: Assessing Agile Requirements Practices
Agency/Program: North Carolina Center for Advanced Computing and Communications
Amount: $ 43,419
Duration: July 1, 2001 – July 1, 2002
Principle Investigator: Laurie Williams and Annie Anton (coPI)
Abstract:
Since the waterfall software development model was published in 1970's, most programming teams have striven to collect a complete set of requirements before proceeding further in the development cycle. A new model, called agile software development, has emerged in recent years and is rapidly gaining in popularity and use. Agile methodologies reduce the emphasis on collecting a complete set of requirement early and, instead, incorporate new and changing requirements throughout the cycle. Proponents of these methodologies claim that their agile practices lead to more satisfied customers and to a superior success rate of delivering high quality software on-time. The PIs desire to work with development teams within the CACC member organizations to integrate agile requirements practices into the teams' software development process. The PIs will assess the outcome of these teams in order to validate the claims of the agile proponents.

Title: An Investigation of Learning Content Objects in the Industrial Learning Context
Agency/Program: ABB
Amount: $20,000
Duration: August 15, 2001 – May 15, 2002
Principle Investigators: Laurie Williams and Annie Anton (CoPI)
Abstract:
An investigation of the use of learning objects to create course content.

Title: Analyzing Emerging Software Development Methodologies and Practices
Agency/Program: North Carolina Center for Advanced Computing and Communications
Amount: $47,895
Duration: July 1, 2001 – July 1, 2002
Principle Investigators: Laurie Williams and Annie Anton (Co PI)
Software development organizations often lack the ability to quantitatively analyze the effectiveness of their software development methodology. Additionally, these organizations are frequently unable to assess the efficacy of new practices integrated into their methodologies. This lack of information is risky and may be detrimental to the business operations of a given organization. As a case-in-point, the Extreme Programming (XP) methodology is gaining popularity at an exponential rate despite the lack of comprehensive, quantifiable studies demonstrating its effectiveness. Many feel lightweight, agile processes, such as XP, are particularly well suited for the volatile environments such as those found in emerging eCommerce application development.

Title: Pair-Learning in Undergraduate Computer Science Education
Agency/Program: National Science Foundation
Amount: $227,110
Duration: January 2001 – December 2003
Principle Investigators: Laurie Williams
Abstract:
The goal of our research project is to show that when undergraduate computer science students work in pairs on laboratory exercises and programming assignments, their overall learning experience is improved. Computer science educators will incorporate pair-learning into a variety of different classes, primarily at the freshman level. We will conduct educational studies to measure the impact of pair-learning on our students' aptitude for, and attitudes toward, computer science. Based on our experience, we will create and disseminate educational materials for teachers, teaching assistants, and students to support the transition from solo-learning to pair-learning. Our research has the potential to revolutionize the way that computer science is taught.

Title: Incorporating the Collaborative Software Process
Agency/Program: Eyecast, Inc.
Duration: September 2000 – August 2001
Amount: $108,107
Principle Investigator: Laurie Williams
Graduate Research Assistant: Ashish Sureka
Abstract:
This grant proposes that a software development group in Nortel is educated in the Collaborative Software Process (CSP). Process data would be collected by the software engineers in this group. This data will be used to analyze the effectiveness of pair-programming. Additionally, some engineers would work in groups of three, practicing triad-programming. Their process data will also be analyzed to determine the effectiveness of this working arrangement.  This grant also proposes the development of two software tools.  One would be used for on-demand computer-based training of the CSP.  The other is a process data collection and analysis tool.

Title: Integrating Collaborative Programming into a Disciplined Software Process
Agency/Program: Nortel, Inc.
Amount: $65,000
Duration: November 2000 – November 2001
Principle Investigator: Laurie Williams
This grant proposes that a software development group in Eyecase is educated in the Collaborative Software Process (CSP). Process data would be collected by the software engineers in this group. This data will be used to analyze the effectiveness of pair-programming. Their process data will also be analyzed to determine the effectiveness of this working arrangement.  This grant also proposes the development of two software tools.  One would be used for on-demand computer-based training of the CSP.  The other is a process data collection and analysis tool.


  This page last updated: Sunday, February 19, 2017 10:09 PM