Agentic AI, where AI systems have their own forms of agency, will present some of the most critical challenges that computing education will face, including regulatory gaps and amplified cascading social and ethical impacts. This working group proposes a landscape analysis of the ethical and societal implications of using Agentic AI in higher computing education. By exploring emerging literature and use cases of Agentic AI, we aim to contribute a timely landscape study exploring 1) the emerging challenges and opportunities associated with Agentic AI, 2) how higher education is beginning to adopt and use Agentic AI and the resulting ethical and societal impacts, and 3) the implications (e.g. challenges, opportunities, limitations) of integrating Agentic AI in computing education. The expected outputs are: 1) a protocol and literature scoping review of Agentic AI in education, and 2) an analysis of current practices and use cases in computing education. Together, these outputs aim to identify emerging patterns, use cases, key challenges, and principles to support the ethical and responsible integration of Agentic AI in education.

Generative AI (GenAI) presents societal and ethical challenges related to equity, academic integrity, bias, and data provenance. This working group will consider the ethical and societal impacts of GenAI in higher computing education. In this paper, we outline the goals, methodology and expected deliverables of the working group. In particular, we will carry out a systematic literature review to address a wide set of issues and topics covering the rapidly emerging technology of GenAI from the perspective of its ethical and social impacts, we will provide an evaluation of university policies on the adoption and guidelines for use of GenAI for computing education and develop a framework to outline the ethical and societal impacts of GenAI in computing education. This work synthesizes existing research and considers the implications for educational and professional codes of ethics.

The academic preparation of computing graduates ready for successful long-term careers remains challenging due to a variety of factors, with most universities still unable to incorporate competencies into their education. Competencies refer to the knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions expected from these graduates during task performance. This panel presents three different perspectives on how work experiences may be incorporated into the program curriculum to develop the needed competencies.

This research paper describes and extends the outcomes from an in- depth study investigating the difference in the expected skills requirements from junior software engineers to senior software engineers, and reflections on the findings from that study. It is a given that senior software engineers have more experience and skills than junior software engineers. However, a focus on their differing competencies and dispositions provides an enhanced mechanism for comparison. Gaps were identified in assessing “professional knowledge” as categorized by the IEEE/ACM Computing Curriculum Overview Report (CC2020), and in assessing “dispositions”. It appeared that the specific scenario of comparing the expected competencies between junior and senior software engineers, tested the framework for assessing competencies developed in the CC2020 project and applied in its mapping to the IEEE/ACM Computer Science (CS2013) approved curriculum. In this study into the difference between Junior and Senior Software Engineers, an initial review of relevant literature was conducted. The review found that research analyzing job requirements for software engineers of different levels was limited; “experience” as a keyword was seldom mentioned; and a common distinction was made between “soft” and “hard” skills - the latter being skills that were “technical”, such as programming languages, frameworks, libraries, and tools, whereas soft skills referred to skills such as personality traits, attitudes, and teamwork skills. In our extension of that work the notion of soft skills was unpacked into professional skills and dispositions. The process of mapping from the CC2020 competency framework to the CS2013 curriculum had deliberately modelled how to represent a competency-based rather than a knowledge-based curriculum. The critical deficiency identified here was the limitation imposed by adopting a skills framework based on the cognitive taxonomy, and thereby unwittingly omitting the crucial companion aspects addressed within the affective taxonomy. This paper explores that limitation and its implications, by extending the mapping methodology used in CC2020 assessing the development of professional skills and nurturing of dispositions. This methodology was employed to demonstrate how the software engineers moved in competency from junior roles to senior roles. A new approach that marries the cognitive and affective aspects of learning “professional knowledge” and developing “dispositions” for competency-based curricula is presented. An example and a strategy for its extension in assessing the development of software engineers' competencies are provided.

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to make its presence felt in transforming workplaces around the world, and the Information Technology industry in particular, it is essential to understand its impact on the work practices of IT professionals, and the implications for computing students and curricula. This research project builds on work initiated jointly, in Sweden, New Zealand and Scotland, investigating concerns about the increasing impacts of Artificial Intelligence in IT Sector workplaces for employee work engagement and the implications for tertiary study, assessment and curricula in computing. "Work engagement", has been defined as the positive inner state where employees are fully present and engaged in their work, and is closely linked to motivation, learning, productivity, and accountability. Within the context of (Generative) AI at work, IT professionals have been noted as early adopters of AI. Their involvement in implementing and utilising AI technologies can provide valuable insights into the interplay between AI and work engagement. The implications for students are significant as future IT professionals, who must acquire and enhance competencies to adapt and thrive in digital workplaces.

Security as a key non-functional requirement of software development is often ignored and devalued in DevOps programs, with security seen as an inhibitor to high velocity required in DevOps implementation. Hence, the DevSecOps approach as a security-orientated expansion to DevOps, has aimed to integrate security into DevOps implementation by promoting collaboration among development, operation and security teams. DevSecOps is a topical concept and rapidly emerging area of practice in both academic and industrial settings. We reviewed both the white and grey literature to identify recent researches and practical trends of DevSecOps, aiming to: (a) review, document and analyze the current state of DevSecOps in the existing literature; (b) investigate the application of DevSecOps in Global Software Engineering (GSE) contexts. A Multi-vocal Literature Review on DevSecOps and its global application was conducted, by executing a dual-track strategy including white (104 studies) and grey (43 studies) literature from 2012 to 2021. A Thematic Analysis was performed to identify, synthesize and analyze the themes within data for reporting the MLR results. Through the Multi-vocal Literature Review and Thematic Analysis, this paper identifies five major aspects of DevSecOps (Definitions, Challenges, Practices, Tools/Technologies, and Metrics/Measurement); collects related themes of each aspect; and generates a Challenge-Practice-Tool-Metric (CPTM) model by integrating the themes of the latter four aspects within a lifecycle model. Moreover, an unexplored area relating to the global application of DevSecOps has been identified. Based on MLR results, a CPTM (Challenge-Practice-Tool-Metric) model is built to reveal the current status of DevSecOps. The model provides a breakdown and a broad landscape of DevSecOps, from which researchers and practitioners may select an area of focus to improve their knowledge or practice. With DevSecOps spanning the many stages of the lifecycle, we believe the model will enable emphases and absences such as global aspects to be investigated. Editor’s note: Open Science material was validated by the Journal of Systems and Software Open Science Board.

The ACM/IEEE-CS Computing Curricula 2020 report was published in March 2021. The report is global in its attention and covers all aspects of the computing disciplines that had ACM/IEEE approved curricula: Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Information Technology and Cyber Security.The CC2020 Steering Committee analysed all the approved curricula in the six discipline areas and looked for any overlaps. For example, all the areas have some aspect of programming but not all at the same level. Using a thematic analysis methodology, a "Landscape of Computing Knowledge" table was then developed with six main topic areas which included 34 subsections. Each computing discipline specified a minimum and maximum value for each subsection for that discipline, suggesting an importance range within which most degree programs are likely to fall.The CC2020 project then developed online visualisations of the knowledge areas, where stakeholders can assess a degree program with the values required and then match it against any of the current approved curricula. This tool enables users to compare individual degrees with the ACM/IEEE curricula recommendations, to collect the structure and focus of computing degrees globally and compare computing degrees across institutions globally. It also enables industry to understand the different areas and contribute to curriculum development. This tool has now been used to gather structure and variation of degree programs globally.This paper will describe and reflect on the development of the Landscape of Computing Knowledge table, and the development of the visualization tool. Insights from the first workshops that have investigated how to use the tool and its utility will be reviewed.

This special session will introduce the participants to the CC2020 Visualization Tool based on the Landscape of Computing Knowledge Table and its 34 topics areas. It will guide them through the process of assigning a minimum and maximum value to the discipline areas of their own degree programme, then enter them into the application and allow the participants to see where in the landscape of computing their own program fits. It will also allow participants to compare their own programme with any other programme entered into the application. We hope to populate the database with programmes from all over the world over the next few months to ensure a global reach for comparison. There has never been a tool to compare computing degrees and this tool not only allows for comparison with current approved curricula but also allows participants to compare their degree with each other. This tool also enables employers to develop a guideline for potential employees and compare with job definitions to help with alignment of qualifications and competencies.

Driven by the need to coordinate activities of multiple agile development teams cooperating to produce a large software product, software-intensive organizations are turning to scaling agile software development frameworks. Despite the growing adoption of various scaling agile frameworks, there is little empirical evidence of how effective their practices are in mitigating risk, especially in global software development (GSD), where project failure is a known problem. In this study, we develop a GSD Risk Catalog of 63 risks to assess the degree to which two scaling agile frameworks–Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) and the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)–address software project risks in GSD. We examined data from two longitudinal case studies implementing each framework to identify the extent to which the framework practices address GSD risks. Scaling agile frameworks appear to help companies eliminate or mitigate many traditional risks in GSD, especially relating to users and customers. However, several important risks were not eliminated or mitigated. These persistent risks in the main belonged to the Environment quadrant highlighting the inherent risk in developing software across geographic boundaries. Perhaps these frameworks (and arguably any framework), would have difficulty alleviating, issues that appear to be outside the immediate control of the organization.

Competency is often associated with proficiency, expertise, capability, and performance. Professional schools such as those in dentistry and medicine generally require the practice of skills and knowledge within human environments for someone to become a competent professional in their respective fields. In computing, competency is a relatively new concept. For decades, computing curricula focused on knowledge. However, competency is much more than knowledge. The ACM/IEEE Computing Curricula 2020 (CC2020) project identifies competency as a combination of knowledge, skills, and human dispositions, in context or task. That is, knowledge alone is not enough to produce a competent graduate from a computing program. Industry expects graduates to perform competently from the first day of employment. While computing educators have been sharing computing knowledge for decades, can they do it better under the rubric of competency? The authors leverage on the current activities of the CC2020 project, their personal experiences, and outcomes from current research on computing competency and related topics. Future directions and strategies for transforming the current paradigm of knowledge-based learning toward a broad acceptance of competency-based learning are an important part of this work. The authors recommend several steps needed to achieve such a transformation over time. While universities are not training grounds for industry needs, it would be a mistake to ignore such influence within the rubric of competency-based learning. This work will be of interest to all computing and engineering educators.

Computing Curriculum models have been historically framed from a cognitive perspective. Typically, the focus has been on bodies of knowledge and increasingly the notion of supporting skills and abilities. More recent curriculum documents such as the IT2017 curriculum have moved towards a professional competency approach and have included the further important notion of dispositions.While these dispositions are seen as complementing and supporting the traditional elements of knowledge and skills, exactly how they are conceptualised and operationalised is still being developed. The ACM/IEEE-CS Computing Curriculum 2020 Overview Project (CC2020) has been working towards this goal, in part driven by the very practical purpose of enabling visualisation of the multiple components of the existing and differing curriculum reports, incorporating the notion of dispositions and enabling them to be mapped to clusters of knowledge and skills embodied in selected curriculum statements.This paper reports on progress to date towards conceptualising and operationalising the notion of dispositions within the CC2020 project, reviews the research challenges faced, the models adopted and the findings to date.

This Working Group aims to take the current approved Computer Science curricula document, CS2013, and redevelop it into competency statements. The CC2020 project has designed and built a prototype of a visualization tool to compare and contrast current computing curricula. Three basic approaches were taken to portray the base data that will be used for the tool: the first being expert-defined competencies, the second based on mining, and the third based on expert-defined knowledge areas. The visualization tool takes competency statements from each of the current approved computing curricula and visually represents them. Using competency to frame curricula and describe educational outcomes in computing is not new. Since the CC2005 report was published several additional curricula have appeared and the information technology, information systems, and software engineering communities have developed three approaches to defining computing competency in the context of developing their curricula reports. In future the CC2020 report advocates that all new curricula will be written as competency statements. Currently the CS2013 curricula is expressed in learning outcomes rather than the competency statements, so it is essential to be able to demonstrate Computer Science curricula in these new terms to accommodate the new direction and demonstrate Computer Science in the new visualization tool.

We are pleased to introduce this Special Issue on Global Software Engineering Education published by the ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE) that focuses on educational practices to prepare students for a global workplace. This issue comes at a time when universities are recognizing the need to provide courses that address the challenges of distributed development and presents research that will facilitate course leaders currently running, or embarking on, Global Software Engineering Education (GSE-Ed).

We examine controversial issues surrounding the locus of control in the implementation of learning agreements, plans or contracts, in the context of the U.K. university-level Graduate Apprenticeship scheme. We begin by giving an account of the stakeholders and their positions as well as their motivating principles as they strive to maintain their respective loci of control with regard to the negotiation of the learning agreement. We then describe the idiomatic challenges to implementation of a learning agreement and subsequent plan in work-based learning environments with a range of employers from different sectors. An investigation into the manner in which learning agreement tenets are changed due to competing pressures on the various stakeholders leads to a discussion of challenges to successful prioritisation of the learning plan that occur as a result of mutually exclusive requirement sets. We discuss the challenges that may present themselves in which the requirements of one set of stakeholders appear to conflict with others and the questions that are raised as those involved seek to ensure suitable standards of academic quality in difficult cases. Finally, we discuss whether learning agreements are the most appropriate operational instruments for maintaining standards in these circumstances.

Agile software development has become increasingly common in software vendor organisations, and their impact on practices and roles is now extending beyond the project level across the entire organisation. In this study, we investigate how a major Australia-based multi-site global software vendor transitioned from a structured to a Scaled Agile approach.

Global Software Engineering (GSE) is a reality for even the smallest companies, so software engineering students need to learn how to work in a globally distributed development context. Many approaches to teaching GSE have been described in the literature. Since the majority of software development is done by engineers working in small or medium sized enterprises (SMEs) we now ask: Are today's students being trained to work effectively in small distributed companies? We surveyed three GSE SMEs to identify which of 70 Global Teaming Model (GTM) practices were problematic and important to this sample. We then mapped recommendations for GSE educators to those pinpointed GTM practices. Finally, we analysed the level to which these needed GTM practices were addressed by the GSE-Education (GSE-Ed) literature, and who performed these practices. Nine GTM practices were found important and relevant to all three SMEs. Seven of these were addressed by GSE-Ed recommendations, and two were seen to be lacking. A rich set of 63 unique GSE-Ed recommendations were found to support the seven GTM practices, but our analysis unearthed a surprising complexity of roles and responsibilities undertaken by the instructor in GSE-Ed courses. As a result student and client involvement in coordination and collaboration activities tended to be weakened or non-existent. In order to ensure graduates are prepared for the reality, practitioners of SMEs need to take on a more active role in the education process. Also, students need to be given more responsibility so they can learn the broader professional and management skills required when developing software in multi-site SME teams.

The DevOps phenomenon is gaining popularity through its ability to support continuous value delivery and ready accommodation of change. However, given the relative immaturity and general confusion about DevOps, a common view of expectations from a DevOps role is lacking. Through investigation of online job advertisements, combined with interviews, we identified key Knowledge Areas, Skills and Capabilities for a DevOps role and their relative importance in New Zealand's job market. Our analysis also revealed the global dimensions and the emerging nature of the DevOps role in GSE projects. This research adds a small advanced economy (New Zealand) perspective to the literature on DevOps job advertisements and should be of value to employers, job seekers, researchers as well educators and policy makers.

Outsourcing is typically considered to occur in three phases: decision, transition and operation. As outsourcing is now well established the switching of vendors and transitioning from one system to another is common. However, most of the research to date on outsourcing has focused on the decision and operation phases, leaving a gap between theory and practice concerning the transition phase. Transition in outsourcing entails the changing of systems, business processes and/or vendors. If a suitable transition approach is not applied pressures for another transition can immediately build. This paper presents results from a case study carried out on the 'Novopay Project' in which the Ministry of Education in New Zealand changed their vendor from an onshore to a near-shore provider. This project resulted in a sequence of three transitions, with each following a different approach as a direct result of the experiences encountered in the previous transition. In this research we made use of the rich 'data dump' of evidence provided by the Ministry of Education (MoE). Our analysis describes how a client organization can become trapped in a continuous transition cycle if a suitable approach is not applied. Transition1 involved the client - MoE - moving from complete outsourcing to selective insourcing. After realizing that they did not have the capabilities to manage insourcing, Transition2 was initiated. In Transition2 the sourcing approach reverted back to complete outsourcing. When it was realized that the new vendor in Transition2 could not in fact deliver a new service model or support end-users in following new business processes, Transition3 was initiated. In Transition3, the client established an internal company to insource service operations to support end-users. Transition can be a sound business strategy initiated for a range of reasons. However, if a flawed sourcing approach is chosen it can result in 'continuous transition'.

Even though a computer science or computing-oriented degree is unavoidably broken into semesters and courses, we always hope that our students form a holistic picture of the discipline by the time they graduate. Yet we do not have too many opportunities to make this point in a convincing manner. The goal of this working group will be to address a well-defined portion of this problem: revealing the significant connections between algorithmic courses (such as Discrete Math, Data Structures, Algorithms) and systems oriented courses (such as Organization, Computer Networks, Operating Systems, and Hardware) that may be missed by students.

An ITiCSE 2015 conference working group report has recently delivered a comprehensive systematic review of the literature addressing the challenges and solutions in teaching global software engineering courses. In this panel session, a group of authors of that report will review the findings, and present their own views on teaching such courses, the pros and cons and their own motivations and experiences, together with strategies that have proven effective. We argue that these courses are critical for preparing students for practice as software engineers in today's global settings, but they are certainly not for the faint-hearted. After the review and presentation of position statements by panelists there will be a question and answer session with the audience and a discussion elaborating on the next frontiers in research and practice for global software engineering education.

Active learning is a popular concept for motivating learning. Learning agreements are one strategy towards this goal. They can be used to aid the students to take ownership of their learning and in becoming more active in a course. Learning Agreements are especially useful tools for scaffolding learning in courses with a focus on developing the professional competencies of students, such as in Open Ended Group Projects, Work Integrated Learning or other authentic learning contexts. Such educational contexts are complex and we have found it necessary to scaffold student learning using agreements based on professional competencies. This has led to a pedagogical framework, which has found successful application in a number of contexts. This framework has been built based on discussions with students, and has involved the development of a supporting wiki which contains descriptions of the different professional competencies involved in the learning agreement. The IT based framework has been iteratively developed together with the students taking the course in the fall of 2015. The development and assessment of this framework is contrasted in the context of two courses using learning agreements, one (in Sweden) with a focus on development of professional competencies and the other (in New Zealand) addressing a mix of professional competencies and subject knowledge in a work integrated learning setting.

Quality assurance is a subject that has grown dramatically in importance in recent times. In previous work, we have described how the ACM Curricula can be used to support the Quality Assurance process of educational programs, using the Computer Science program at Reykjavik University as an example. Faculty members and employers of graduates participated in the process, that resulted in providing both detailed quantitative data and qualitative information. The assessment also raised awareness of how abstract topics and learning outcomes from an international standard can be used when revising the curricula of a particular course in a CS program. Quality assurance is indeed a continuous process, where the results of evaluations should be used to drive improvements. In this paper we focus on how a Database course was re-structured based on a recent quality assurance process.

How can students be included as critical stakeholders in the systems and services provided by a university? To address the whole student experience, we engaged students and employees at a large Swedish university in a vision seminar process to elicit how these groups envisioned an ideal future university, and the necessary changes to technology and organisational structures required to achieve this ideal version. The process entailed six four-hour workshops with four groups consisting of six participants each. A survey instrument was used to follow up on the participants' experiences of participating in the vision seminar process and their thoughts on the future of the university. The results show that the participating students were more positive compared to the university employees. The students envisioned harmonized interdepartmental systems, seamlessly integrating a variety of services into one university-provided solution. The employees envisioned their future work as flexible, enabled by technology providing excellent support without hindering pedagogical and organisational development. Using technological frames, these visions of the future are identified, analysed and discussed in relation to the quality of university education and a holistic view on students' university experience. Finally we discuss the broader implications of the visions on the future of university education.

We examine the concept of motivation from the perspective of Self Determination Theory and give a brief overview of relevant results. We also consider the optimal state known as "Flow" and give an account of its conceptualisation in the theory due to Csikszentmihalyi. After discussion of ways in which these concepts can be measured, we describe a set of preliminary studies that investigate motivation and flow in the context of a first year computing class. We analyse student responses to enquiries about perceptions of motivation and flow experiences and look at links between them. We also discuss intrinsic motivation within the subject.

Software has always been considered as malleable. Changes to software requirements are inevitable during the development process. Despite many software engineering advances over several decades, requirements changes are a source of project risk, particularly when businesses and technologies are evolving rapidly. Although effectively managing requirements changes is a critical aspect of software engineering, conceptions of requirements change in the literature and approaches to their management in practice still seem rudimentary. The overall goal of this study is to better understand the process of requirements change management. We present findings from an exploratory case study of requirements change management in a globally distributed setting. In this context we noted a contrast with the traditional models of requirements change. In theory, change control policies and formal processes are considered as a natural strategy to deal with requirements changes. Yet we observed that "informal requirements changes" (InfRc) were pervasive and unavoidable. Our results reveal an equally 'natural' informal change management process that is required to handle InfRc in parallel. We present a novel model of requirements change which, we argue, better represents the phenomenon and more realistically incorporates both the informal and formal types of change.

Context: Post-release user feedback plays an integral role in improving software quality and informing new features. Given its growing importance, feedback concerning security enhancements is particularly noteworthy. In considering the rapid uptake of Android we have examined the scale and severity of Android security threats as reported by its stakeholders. Objective: We systematically mine Android issue logs to derive insights into stakeholder perceptions and experiences in relation to certain Android security issues. Method: We employed contextual analysis techniques to study issues raised regarding confidentiality and privacy in the last three major Android releases, considering covariance of stakeholder comments, and the level of consistency in user preferences and priorities. Results: Confidentiality and privacy concerns varied in severity, and were most prevalent over Jelly Bean releases. Issues raised in regard to confidentiality related mostly to access, user credentials and permission management, while privacy concerns were mainly expressed about phone locking. Community users also expressed divergent preferences for new security features, ranging from more relaxed to very strict. Conclusions: Strategies that support continuous corrective measures for both old and new Android releases would likely maintain stakeholder confidence. An approach that provides users with basic default security settings, but with the power to configure additional security features if desired, would provide the best balance for Android's wide cohort of stakeholders.

The rapid development in the IT area brings a series of shifts, in underlying theories, technology and work practices. In the normal course of events, most changes are evolutionary, with small, incremental improvements being made to theoretical understanding or practical application. Occasionally, however, changes occur of such magnitude that they do not just alter current operational practice but require a thorough reappraisal of the underlying assumptions on which that practice is based. In short, they require a review of the dominant way of thinking, or paradigm. Ability to adapt to evolving circumstances is critical, not only for industrial and commercial organisations, but also for individual employees, to survive and remain successful during paradigm shifts. How can we prepare our students so they can survive in a working life characterized by frequent paradigm shifts? It is important that CS and IT education prepares students for coping with shifts induced by technological development in their future careers, that students develop the competencies needed. To understand what competencies are needed, it is important to investigate characteristics among employees that have flourished in earlier paradigm shifts and not least to build knowledge on how to develop learning environments where such competencies and personal characteristics can be achieved This paper is about setting the stage for an action research project aimed at enhancing education with regard to being able to survive paradigm shifts in the IT industry.

With a goal of preparing software engineering students for practice in today's global settings, Uppsala University has for some years run courses involving global collaboration. The "IT in Society" course is one such course which applies an 'Open Ended Group Project' model, in partnership with a local health sector client and global educational partners. Within each iteration of the course, students across the partnering institutions are given a brief around an open-ended problem. They work in collaboration with their client and stakeholders to investigate options and produce a report with their findings and recommendations, informed by global perspectives. The report may or may not be supported by working software prototypes. We analyze student evaluations & reflections on the course to unpack their perceptions of software engineering, the perceived relevance of a global learning experience and its role in reshaping their identities as global software engineers.

Globally distributed stakeholders employ various collaborative technologies to manage requirements. While these technologies facilitate requirements collaboration, their perceived purpose, use and structure co-evolve over time. In this paper we report the results of a study in two global software development settings involving client-vendor relationships. In both cases we noted that the vendor and client sites appropriated spreadsheet technology in quite specific ways, for use locally and for bridging across sites. Yet these spreadsheet files were embedded within different collaborative technologies. Through close study we note how team members practices co-evolved with the spreadsheet artefacts involved in the process of managing requirements change. We note how through a single spreadsheet cell, we may see a world as in William Blake's "grain of sand". Through the evolution of a spreadsheet's structure or content we expose how seemingly incremental local changes have far wider implications for global requirements change management.

Global Software Engineering (GSE) research contains few examples consciously applying what Glass and colleagues have termed an 'evaluative-critical' approach. In this study we apply dilemma analysis to conduct a critical review of a major (and ongoing) near shore Business Process Outsourcing project in New Zealand. The project has become so troubled that a Government Minister has recently been assigned responsibility for troubleshooting it. The 'Novo pay' project concerns the implementation of a nationwide payroll system responsible for the payment of some 110,000 teachers and education sector staff. An Australian company won the contract for customizing and implementing the Novo pay system, taking over from an existing New Zealand service provider. We demonstrate how a modified form of dilemma analysis can be a powerful technique for highlighting risks and stakeholder impacts from empirical data, and that adopting an evaluative-critical approach to such projects can usefully highlight tensions and barriers to satisfactory project outcomes.

Possibilities for collaboration in globally distributed projects have radically changed with the introduction of new Collaborative Technologies (CTs) in the Web 2.0 era. The use of such technologies in the context of students collaborating in a globally distributed project is little explored in research. A better understanding would provide opportunities for improving the collaboration, and more importantly is that a better understanding would improve the possibility of scaffolding, and student learning in general. In this paper we present results from a study of students' use of CTs in a globally distributed project with a focus on the challenges encountered in trying to collaborate using this technology. The study is focused on a few aspects of how a combination of CTs could be utilized and issues associated with their set up and adaption for use. We discuss potential reasons for the observed patterns of technology use and how they influenced the collaboration environment around a globally distributed student project.

Collaborative Technology (CT) plays an important role in overcoming the challenges of globally distributed projects. It enables collaboration, but the specific choice of technology also imposes constraints on how projects are conducted. Over the past decade, we have engaged in an action research programme to develop an Open-Ended Group Project situated in an educational framework in which international collaboration, including interaction with a real world client, is an essential component. This paper investigates the manner in which students reflected on their patterns of CT use within the collaborative setting. In general, these reflections were found to be superficial and descriptive, exhibiting a reductive view of CT as a set of technological features, which acted as a neutral medium for communication and participation. One consequence of this was a lack of awareness of the ways in which the technology influenced the behaviour of individual students or the collaborative nature of the group. We explore some potential causes for this and reflect on some difficulties faced by the students. These have important pedagogical implications for courses in which the learning objectives include the development of suitable competencies for working in a global collaborative environment.

Global software development practices are shaped by the challenges of time and 'distance', notions perceived to separate sites in a multi-site collaboration. Yet while sites may be fixed, the actors in global projects are mobile, so distance becomes a dynamic spatial dimension rather than a static concept. This empirical study applies grounded theory to unpack the nature of mobility within a three site globally distributed team setting. We develop a model for mapping the movements of team members in local and global spaces, and demonstrate its operation through static snapshots and dynamic patterns evolving over time. Through this study we highlight the complexity of 'mobility' as one facet of 'space' in globally distributed teams and illuminate its tight coupling with the accompanying dimensions of accessibility and context awareness.

This paper describes the development of a classification scheme that can be used to investigate the characteristics of introductory programming examinations. We describe the process of developing the scheme, explain its categories, and present a taste of the results of a pilot analysis of a set of CS1 exam papers. This study is part of a project that aims to investigate the nature and composition of formal examination instruments used in the summative assessment of introductory programming students, and the pedagogical intentions of the educators who construct these instruments.

The internationalization of tertiary education is giving rise to a number of 'export education' models, but cross-cultural collaborative educational programmes pose several challenges. Most undergraduate computing degrees include a capstone project as a means of consolidating student learning within an integrative final learning experience, which aims to prepare them for further study or varying forms of professional practice. Typically these projects are coordinated and conducted in an 'onshore' setting, although notable exceptions do exist. We report our early experiences and the key decisions taken in replicating an 'onshore' capstone course from a New Zealand setting, to a full student cohort studying our Bachelor of Computer and Information Sciences in a 'farshore' context in Vietnam. We explore the myriad of issues relating to the oversight, design and structuring of the course, when tailoring an inherently open ended team based project to a radically different remote setting.

The prevailing notion of time which pervades reports on global software development practice is the linear notion of time as a scarce commodity to be optimized through working across global boundaries. This `temponomic' view of time provides a useful but limited model through which to understand how time operates in practice within globally distributed teams. We report findings from an in depth empirical study which employed a grounded analysis of the many dimensions of time in action within a global team setting. A situated analysis of the actions at each of three globally distributed sites, demonstrates how the differing aspects of time interact, and how some of the known challenges in working globally, can be viewed from a temporal viewpoint. We argue that this more nuanced understanding of how time functions in globally distributed teams may help managers and researchers develop more appropriate practices and models for managing such teams.

Working in global software engineering teams (GSETs), presents a plethora of challenges. In addition to the global developers working directly within their teams, a number of further actors perform support roles through a set of dasiabackstagepsila activities which underpin the degree of ldquoCollaborative Technology Fitrdquo between the sites. While crucial to the success of GSETs, the work of these actors in establishing and maintaining alignment between the sites has been little researched. A novel ldquoTheory of Collaborative Technology Fit (CTF)rdquo incorporates these ldquotechnology-use mediationrdquo activities in a multidimensional model and provides both a theorization and a diagnostic tool for potential use by a variety of Global Virtual Teams. Three field work studies that have utilized the model in various ways are reported in this presentation.

Researching global software engineering teams (GSETs), presents several phenomena of interest, and raises several issues relating to choice of method. Given the important function of both time and space when studying GSETs in field settings, dasiasnapshotpsila research methods (such as the use of questionnaires, and even interviews), tend to fall short in capturing some of the innate complexities. Researchers from the Information Systems discipline have recommended the use of such research methods as qualitative case studies and action research, but for software engineering researchers such methods appear uncommon. Action Research in particular, where the researcher is an active participant and even change agent challenges the notion of dasiaobjectivepsila science. This paper focuses on the design and conduct of empirical software engineering research from an interpretive viewpoint, and demonstrates its application to theory development in field studies within global virtual team contexts. The paper argues for a wider set of perspectives and an extension of the repertoire for researching the complex, dynamic and essentially human phenomena represented by GSETs.

This paper extends the work of the BRACElet project [17] by assessing the program comprehension skills of intermediate level students. Student performance on a pathfinder algorithm simulation task is reviewed to assess the students' comprehension levels, as categorized according to the SOLO educational taxonomy. The paper describes the nature of student responses, and the variety of representations provided, illustrating the role of discovery in effective student learning.

Recent calls for a new discipline of 'web science' have proposed extending computer science to incorporate the social dimensions of computing. In this paper we outline a Masters course in Collaborative Computing, which employs a combination of collaborative pedagogy, collaborative technologies, and a corpus of research data from Global Virtual Teams to blend the technology and the social dimensions within a research linked course context. We review the effectiveness of this model of learning and the conduct of the course over the five years since its inception.

One indication of the maturation of Computer Science Education as a research-based discipline is the recent emergence of several large-scale studies spanning multiple institutions. This paper examines a "family" of these multi-institutional, multi-national studies, detailing core elements and points of difference in both study design and the organization of the research team, and highlighting the costs and benefits associated with the different approaches.

"Students' awareness of their own group processes can be poor (or Absent)" [1]. Yet professional software development situates much work within groups, and capstone courses are often designed to develop capabilities, such as effective teamwork. Supervising group processes can be challenging, and encouraging students to reflect upon group functioning can be a delicate exercise. A technique is outlined below, for group performance review and diagnosis of issues preventing teams functioning effectively.

No abstract available.

This paper reports selected results from the most recent of a series of international collaborative trials between students at Auckland University of Technology and Uppsala University. The trials require students to work together in virtual groups, comprising students from each institution, to perform a common task. The topic of this paper is how to form and sustain more effective virtual groups. In this trial a cyber-icebreaker task has been introduced and its contribution to group effectiveness is explored. Some conclusions are drawn pinpointing the strengths and weaknesses of this trial design, and some insights into effective design of electronic collaborative learning groups are gained.

No abstract available.

This paper reports the results of a collaborative learning exercise between students at Auckland Institute of Technology and Uppsala University. The exercise was conducted using both a Lotus Notes Domino™ collaborative database and electronic mail to support students working in remote groups to perform a common task. Issues concerning the logistics of such an exercise, student participation and evaluations of the process, ethical considerations and the quality of the learning process are discussed. Some conclusions are drawn concerning the value of Group Ware technology to support this form of collaborative learning, and suggestions are made for future developments.

This presentation reports on progress in using Groupware concepts, to assist collaborative learning across boundaries of time and space, to broaden the student learning experience and develop capabilities in the use of IT for cross cultural communication.