Isabel John

dblp:18/5628 · DBLP profile ↗
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24ranked-venue papers
13as first author
4since 2021 · last 2025
0009-0006-3248-5462ORCID · corroborated

Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several

Software engineering, systems software and programming languages · 18 · 10 first-authorApplied, interdisciplinary, general and emerging computing · 18 · 12 first-author · 4 since 2021Artificial intelligence and machine learning · 14 · 9 first-authorHuman-computer interaction and ubiquitous computing · 5 · 3 first-author · 4 since 2021Databases, data management, data science and information retrieval · 1
YearPublicationVenuePosition
2025 Coaching and Engineering Synergy for Effective Vocational Tools: The COACH_ING Model
abstract
Today, more than ever, in a market oriented towards sustainability, inclusion, and new technologies, it is necessary to integrate educational and guidance systems with tools that enable future professionals to choose their career path and later contribute to the collective good. To foster good career choices for engineers we have developed the COACH_ING model presented in earlier papers. In this paper we want to present a project and an experiment, conducted at an engineering faculty of a European university as part of a country wide Guidance and Tutoring Project. In our COACH_ING model, used by the faculty and professional associations for over seven years, new tools have been implemented for conscious career choice guidance and the enhancement of one's professional potential, via future-oriented educational concepts. The activities took place in structured workshops during which, assessments and questionnaires were systematically administered to gather useful research data and monitor the development of reference skills drawn from coaching and engineering. Specifically, the tool DIRECTING, presented at the EFEA2021, now called DIRECTINGVer2, has been enriched, as a questionnaire, with new elements based on empirical validations performed in the meantime. The collected data provided new insights into the level of learning of specific reference parameters related to the$\mathbf{C O A C H \_ I N G}$model intersecting Dublin Descriptors as a broadly known framework for qualification in degree programs. In the individual interventions, classroom techniques specific to new guidance models were respected, with the aim of developing an open mindset in students, through conditions initially defined based on the mastery of 16 skills and 8 MCs (Macro Capabilities) of the COACH_ING model. During our not-traditional lab, data emerged regarding eight MCs and four clusters of the questionnaire. Participants were involved in group work to bring out their knowledge and potential (as presented at ICL2024). Through focus groups and 1-to-1 sessions, we verified the actual level of confidence and acquisition of knowledge related to both the MCs and the dimensions identified in the Clusters: communication, teamwork, goal and project, relationship. The model finds its foundations in coaching process engineering, building a life project and choosing one's personalized future path. There emerges a strong need to focus on the advancement of engineering education and the concepts to be conveyed to future engineers so that they can act for their own benefit and that of the surrounding world, making conscious choices.
Viviana Callea, Isabel John, Apollonia Matrisciano, Mihai Ursache
EDUCON2
2025 No More Binge Learning - Using Gamification Elements to Support Distributed Practice in Engineering Education
abstract
An effective technique to support sustainable learning is distributed practice, a method shown to enhance long-term knowledge retention. As part of our research agenda, we aim to investigate suitable design strategies for eLearning courses that support distributed practice through intrinsic motivation. Our most recent strategy followed the idea of linking the acquisition of badges gained by completing a set of quizzes with a small extrinsic reward, a small bonus in the exam grade. We built a course with quizzes and timed badges with staged deadlines for the badges to ensure students do the quizzes during the semester and not shortly before the exam. An initial evaluation of this course design yielded encouraging results. The assessment showed that students learned a great deal from the quizzes and were highly motivated by the quizzes and by receiving the badges. Qualitative feedback highlighted increased motivation, increased engagement, and lower levels of perceived stress among students, who attributed these changes to the platform's ability to make learning more enjoyable and less monotonous. This paper argues that the strategic use of gamification in engineering education can significantly support distributed practice by creating an interactive, motivating, and supportive learning environment.
Isabel John, Anne Hess, Tobias Fertig
EDUCON1
2024 Evaluation of a Gamified Elearning Course for Agile Methods
abstract
For teaching agile methods in an IT undergraduate course we built up a gamified blended learning course. We created the course with gamification elements like videos, quizzes, badges, and points within the learning management system Moodle. To do so we used a gamification concept based on MDA (Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics). The goal of the gamification concept was to increase intrinsic motivation of the students. We evaluated the motivation of our students with a questionnaire that is based on the psychological motivation theory STD (Self Determination Theory). The paper will shortly show how we built up the course in Moodle, and also gives some details on the used plugins and gamification elements. The main focus is on the evaluation which was done using a standardized questionnaire on intrinsic motivation built upon SDT at the beginning and at the end of our course. 39 students participated before taking the course and 16 after the completion of the course. The evaluation shows that some elements in the course like Videos and quizzes increase the motivation clearly whereas others do not. We could show an increase of intrinsic motivation in some factors of the questionnaire we used, but not in all factors.
Isabel John, Tobias Fertig
EDUCON1
2022 Gamification for Software Engineering Students - an Experience Report
abstract
In this paper we describe the evolution of a gamified course on agile methods and Scrum in software engineering teaching at university. The course covers among other topics, agile project management and scrum. For knowledge tranfer we used different gamification approaches in this course over the years, including point based gamification and story based gamification but also simple approaches like quizzes. The gamified e-learning course was realized with the learning management system Moodle. We describe how the course was built up in moodle, give some technical details on the used plugins and gamification elements. We describe our experiences with the different gamification approaches and give some lessons learned.
Isabel John, Tobias Fertig
EDUCON1
2019 How Can Computer Science Faculties Increase the Proportion of Women in Computer Science by Using Robots?
abstract
As women belong to a minority in computer science, this work aims to provide possible K-12 STEM education initiatives how computer science faculties can contribute to increasing the proportion of women in computer science by using robots. Through applying these initiatives, faculties can help to reduce the gender imbalance, increase diversity and the amount of computer science specialists, who are requested immensely. Based on the results of conducted requirements elicitation a concept for programming an application with the NAO robot which trains vocabularies, as well as a concept with the Cozmo robot which piles up cubes, were developed. First tests were performed with female and male high school students. Either concept consists of an introduction of possible robotics application fields, a presentation explaining the Python program code of the concept as well as corresponding exercises with the robot and Python. Evaluation of the workshop concepts through questionnaires showed that both concepts have the potential to increase the proportion of women and to motivate female as well as male students for computer science. Moreover, recommendations for further robotics projects with respect to motivating young women for STEM can be made based on the insights of the requirements elicitation and the evaluation of the concepts. Nevertheless, further refinement and validation has to be undertaken. Long-term as well as short-term initiatives are feasible with the developed concepts. All participating schools showed high interest in both types of initiatives and further cooperation.
Lisa Keller, Isabel John
EDUCON2
2010 Evaluation of a Method for Proactively Managing the Evolving Scope of a Software Product Line
Karina Villela, Jörg Dörr, Isabel John
REFSQ3
2010 Managing Requirements in Product Lines
Danilo Beuche, Isabel John
SPLC2
2010 The Rise and Fall of Product Line Architectures
Isabel John, Christa Schwanninger, Eduardo Santana de Almeida
SPLC1
2010 Evolutionary Product Line Scoping
Isabel John, Karina Villela
SPLC1
2009 A decade of scoping: a survey
Isabel John, Michael Eisenbarth
SPLC1
2009 Evolutionary product line requirements engineering
Isabel John, Karina Villela
SPLC1
2008 Evolutionary Product Line Requirements Engineering
abstract
Product line engineering has a widespread use in industry now. Therefore there is a high need for customizable, adaptable, and also for mature methods. Scoping and product line analysis are a unique and integral part of product line engineering. In these phases we determine where to reuse and what to reuse, establishing the basis for all technical, managerial, and investment decisions in the product line to come. Furthermore, these early phases are highly context dependant. In this tutorial we will give an introduction on how to analyze an environment with the purpose of planning a product line and its future evolution. We focus on product line requirements engineering methods, comprising product line scoping, analysis, and planning for evolution.
Isabel John, Karina Villela
SPLC1
2007 Using Requirements Management Tools in Software Product Line Engineering: The State of the Practice
abstract
A software product line oriented approach to developing systems has an impact on the development process as a whole. Although the basic idea of product lines is simple, systematic implementation of the approach is a challenging task. In fact, today's software product lines have such complex variability that their handling must be supported by tools, otherwise a systematic approach would not be possible. The same holds for requirements management of product lines. On the basis of specific industrial scenarios the paper derives important requirements that have to be observed if requirements management tools are to be usefully applied to product lines. Current requirements management tools are evaluated on the basis of these requirements in their daily industrial use. The presented requirements can indicate the future direction of tool development and method research.
Danilo Beuche, Andreas Birk 0001, Heinrich Dreier, Andreas Fleischmann, Heidi Galle, Gerald Heller, Dirk Janzen, Isabel John, Ramin Tavakoli Kolagari, Thomas von der Maßen, Andreas Wolfram
SPLC8
2006 Software Product Lines Doctoral Symposium
abstract
The SPLC doctoral symposium provides a platform for young researchers to present their work to an international audience and discuss it with each other and with experts in the field. The symposium addresses research activities in the field of Software Product Lines Topics of Interest include all aspects of the development phases, management, evaluation, reuse, and maintenance of software product lines.
Isabel John, Leonard J. Bass, Giuseppe Lami
SPLC1
2006 A Practical Guide to Product Line Scoping
abstract
Over the last years scoping has been established as the initial activity for starting product line engineering. To be successful in defining the right scope for more than 5 years in industrial projects, we always had to customize our generic scoping process to the organizational context, projects constraints, available artifacts, and resources. In this paper, we present an update of the scoping process that explicitly integrates 21 customization factors. In our experience customization of scoping is crucial to the overall product line success, since the scope is the basis for all further product line activities.
Isabel John, Jens Knodel, Theresa Lehner, Dirk Muthig
SPLC1
2006 Experiences with Product Line Development of Embedded Systems at Testo AG
abstract
Product line practices are increasingly becoming popular in the domain of embedded software systems. This paper presents results of assessing success, consistency, and quality of Testo's product line of climate and flue gas measurement devices after its construction and the delivery of three commercial products. The results of the assessment showed that the incremental introduction of architecture-centric product line development can be considered successful even though there is no quantifiable reduction of time-to-market as well as development and maintenance costs so far. The success is mainly shown by the ability of Testo to develop more complex products and the satisfaction of the involved developers. A major issue encountered is ensuring the quality of reusable components and the conformance of the products to the architecture during development and maintenance
Ronny Kolb, Isabel John, Jens Knodel, Dirk Muthig, Uwe Haury, Gerald Meier
SPLC2
2005 Introducing the puLSE approach to an embedded system population at testo AG
abstract
Over the last few years, product line engineering has become a major theme in software engineering research, and is increasingly becoming a central topic of software engineering practice in the embedded domain.Migrating towards a product line approach is not an easy feat. It is even less so, if it is done under tight technology constraints in an embedded environment. It becomes even more difficult if the transition directly aims at integrating two product families into a single product population. In this paper, we discuss our experiences with a project where we successfully dealt with these difficulties and achieved a successful product line transition. In our paper we strongly emphasize the role of technology transfer, as many facets of product line know-how had to be transferred to guarantee a complete transition to product line engineering. From the experiences of this project many lessons learned can be deduced, which can be transferred to different environments.
Klaus Schmid, Isabel John, Ronny Kolb, Gerald Meier
ICSE2
2004 SPLYR - The First Software Product Lines Young Researchers Workshop
Birgit Geppert, Isabel John, Giuseppe Lami
SPLC2
2004 Starting Product Lines (I) - Systematic Product Line Planning and Adoption
Isabel John, Klaus Schmid
SPLC1
2004 Starting Product Lines (II) - Product Line Analysis and Modeling
Isabel John, Klaus Schmid
SPLC1
2004 A customizable approach to full lifecycle variability management
Klaus Schmid, Isabel John
Sci. Comput. Program.2
2002 Tutorial on Practical Product Line Scoping and Modeling
Klaus Schmid, Isabel John
ICSR2
2002 Efficient and Systematic Software Evolution through Domain Analysis
abstract
The goal of any domain analysis approach is to identify and document requirements on a set of systems in the same application domain in order to make development and maintenance activities more efficient. Experience in domain analysis often reports on valuable results with respect to requirements on a company's system family but, on the other hand, it is seen as an effort-intensive approach, which may consequently be seen as not economically useful for software development today. We describe experience with an approach towards domain analysis that tries to overcome this general problem by systematically coordinating domain analysis effort and necessary product (family) evolution activities. The result was the realization of a Web interface to an existing system family as well as a significant improvement of the existing software's usability, flexibility, and maintainability.
Isabel John, Dirk Muthig, Peter Sody, Enno Tolzmann
RE1
1997 Knowledge-based Document Analysis
abstract
The performance of document analysis systems significantly depends on knowledge about the application domain that can be exploited in the analysis process. Typically one has to deal with different sources of knowledge like syntactic knowledge, semantic knowledge or strategic knowledge guiding the analysis process. We present a knowledge based document analysis system based on tasks. It allows to model and to interpret structural knowledge about documents and knowledge about the analysis process declaratively in a common framework.
Karl-Hans Bläsius, Beate Grawemeyer, Isabel John, Norbert Kuhn
ICDAR3