Abstract The Software Process Improvement (SPI) Manifesto is based on three basic values: people, business focus and organisational change underpinning the philosophy of SPI. In turn, these values bring up to date certain SPI principles serving as a foundation for action in software development. The authors of this paper carried out a pilot expert validation of the sociocultural dimension of the sociocultural, technical, economic, environmental, political, legal, ethical and demographic analysis of the SPI Manifesto. Further, the authors report on the rationale and results of the pilot validation of both the survey instrument and the qualitative responses generated by the field experts, targeting to enlighten and reinforce the importance of the sociocultural dimension of the SPI Manifesto in research and development. The related literature review findings and the pilot research study strengthen this target. The pilot study with experts in particular provided stronger indications that the sociocultural dimension is considered of high importance by between 62% and 88% of the respondents, who were IT and computing professionals and software practitioners from academia and industry.

Abstract Literature on systems development has been progressively identifying the importance of social aspects in systems development. However, there is often a failure of participants in the recognition, and fulfilment, of ethical duties concerning the concepts of health, safety, and well‐being. A rational appeal can be made to normative defensible ethical rules in order to arrive at a judicious, morally justifiable judgement. In this paper, our first step is to report on the findings of a literature review, which presents the current health and safety issues concerning usage of computers in organisations and the workplace. Building on our earlier research on basic generic deontological and teleological moral principles and theories, we prescribe a set of moral rights and duties that must be exercised and fulfilled by stakeholders in systems development in order for them to exhibit moral behaviour. By identifying, and recommending a set of defensible moral obligations that must be fulfilled in the development and deployment of systems, protagonists—such as, project managers, software engineering teams, systems analysts, and clients—can fulfil their ethical duties, thus increasing the likelihood of deployed systems that are compliant with principles of health, safety, and well‐being of its users.

Abstract Didactic, teacher‐centred approaches and rote learning have long been discredited and gradually replaced by participative, interactive and creative learning sessions. Formal classroom sessions are being replaced or augmented by self‐directed study increasingly in distance mode. The evolution and affordability of technologies enables massive participation in studies, not only for short training for professional updating but also for longer study periods and attainment of qualifications. The rapid changes in society and technology demand that everybody continuously updates their knowledge and skills in their area of expertise and gain knowledge, skills and competencies in other areas for a successful life of careers and not necessarily a career for life as was the norm in the past. It is important to safeguard the quality of independent assessment and certification methods. In this paper, we consider the main delivery methods and their impact on assessment methods and associated results. With reference to the European Certification and Qualification Association framework and the recently completed European Union co‐funded Lifelong Learning Programme project VALO, we juxtapose the delivery methods used and the examination results at different partner institutions. We extract observed issues and trends, which could be principles to be adopted by future projects with regards to process improvement and performance enhancement. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

SUMMARY Knowledge sharing is by far the most important component of a knowledge management programme. Organizations strive to gain competitive advantage through efficiencies. When organizations realize that organizational knowledge is by far the most valuable resource, they need to find ways for efficient and effective knowledge sharing. We explore the barriers to knowledge sharing especially in virtual and multicultural teams. In particular, we unfold the human and cultural challenges that can create added competitive value for virtual and networked organizations. We conclude that the ideal environment and working practices will be to change the mindset and behaviour of team members so that instead of perceiving knowledge sharing as an extra task for the team members, isolated from the knowledge of other team members, it (knowledge sharing) becomes the natural way to work for everyone. Finally, we propose the dynamic knowledge acquisition and sharing lifecycle (KASL‐II) model for aiding the knowledge sharing process by showing the stages of translating an organization's mission and goals into objectives, and how decisions and actions operate for materialising these objectives. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The development of the Internet and the World Wide Web presents both Information Systems professionals and business managers with many new ethical problems. It is therefore, necessary to teach students about professional issues. This paper looks at how Professional Issues entered the Higher Education curriculum during the last decade. In particular we present the experience gained within the School of Informatics and Multimedia Technology at the University of North London through the integration of case studies for the Professional Issues part of the In-Course-Assessment (ICA) of a Software Engineering module. The case studies fulfil one of the two core capabilities covered in the module. The marking scheme and two different resolutions to the ethical dilemma posed in one of the scenarios (case studies) reached by particular students are presented together with our conclusion and indications of further action and research.