Open Source Research Group » Teaching

Impressions from Victor Sauermann’s Talk on “Die Rolle des Softwarearchitekten” in ARCH

Dirk Riehle — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:44:43 +0000

Today, Victor Sauermann of DATEV eG lectured on the role and responsibilities of a software architect. Herr Sauermann is a lead architect at DATEV eG, the largest German provider of tax and accounting software. The class, our architecture seminar, was well attended and we listened and discussed intently. Below, please find some photo impressions. Thank you, Victor, for teaching us!

Impressions from @ulfschubert’s Talk on User Experience Design

Dirk Riehle — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:02:38 +0000

Today, Ulf Schubert, leader of DATEV’s User Experience Design group, lectured about, well, User Experience Design (UXD). Below, please find some photo impressions. Thank you, Ulf, for teaching us! And we are hoping for more UXD teaching!

Why We Teach The Way We Do

Dirk Riehle — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:48:12 +0000

Today, a colleague confided in me:

“Dirk, if I were a student, I wouldn’t attend your classes. I never liked to speak up and would rather cram for an exam at the end of the semester rather than open my mouth in class.”

Well, that was quite the bummer. However:

We teach to make the most of your time: To achieve the highest possible learning in the shortest amount of time. Your (student) time is precious, and so is ours. For that, we encourage active class participation. To make this clear, parts of your grades depend on that participation.

Look at the following increasing steps of class engagement:

Showing up
Above + listening to the lecturer
Above + thinking about what you are hearing
Above + verbalizing your thoughts (speaking up)
Above + answering to someone else’s thoughts
Above + collaborating to solve a problem

Make a guess, where you are learning the most, and where your learning time is spent most effectively?

Our best teaching takes place in lab courses. We alternate between Nailing your Thesis, a research lab course, and The AMOS Project, a software development lab course. Beyond that, we teach in seminars, where we have guided discussions around student presentations. Only after that, we do plain lectures.

Look at how your time is spent. In a lab course, you actively engage in a defined weekly rhythm. At the end of the semester, you are done. No cramming for exams, of which there are many in parallel. No short-term learning, to be forgotten once the exam is over. We (intend to) create long-term practical knowledge and know-how.

So, that’s it. There is much more to be said, but I’ll leave it like this. If you are afraid of speaking up in class, ask your friends of how bad it really is. We don’t bite, we make it easy. And we don’t look kindly at people who talk to much. One good comment in class is wholly sufficient for the whole session. Once you got the hang of it, it is not only easy, but gratifying to do.

Impressions from @acbullinger and Uta Renken’s Social Research Collaboration Talk in Nailing your Thesis

Dirk Riehle — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:27:16 +0000

Today, Angelika C. Bullinger and Uta Renken lectured in Nailing your Thesis (NYT), our research lab course. They presented a recent research paper of theirs; topically fitting, it was on social research networks and collaboration between scientists. The initial presentation was followed by an in-depth discussion of research method and results as well as the research and paper writing process. Please find some photo impressions below. Thank you, Frau Bullinger and Renken, for teaching us!

Impressions from @WolfgangKeller’s Talk on Enterprise Architecture Management

Dirk Riehle — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:55:34 +0000

Today, Wolfgang Keller of Object Architects lectured in ARCH on Enterprise Architecture Management. Below, please find some photo impressions as well as some tweets. Thank you, Wolfgang, for teaching us!

EAM deals with the portfolio of business solution architectures from @wolfgangkeller
Small applications (revenue) don’t need IT support from @wolfgangkeller
Costs in IT: 60-70% in technical arch/infra, only 30-40% in apps from @wolfgangkeller
EAM = business arch + apps arch + tech. architecture, data centers from @wolfgangkeller
Don’t assume you can functionally derive architecture from strategy from @wolfgangkeller
All layers from infra up to strategy evolve by themselves, interact from @wolfgangkeller
EAM = system of systems, ultra-large scale systems, metaphor of a metropolis from @wolfgangkeller
Job of the EAM architect: compliance, security, risk mgmt, architecture in the large from @wolfgangkeller
EAM architects need global compliance awareness, in particular to US laws e.g. SOX from @wolfgangkeller

SS 2012 Courses Online in StudOn

Dirk Riehle — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:30:00 +0000

Our two main courses for SS 2012 are:

The AMOS Project (AMOS), StudOn, impressions from prior instances
Product Management (PROD), StudOn, impressions from prior instances

You can now register . . . → Read More: SS 2012 Courses Online in StudOn

Upcoming Industry Talk: Die Rolle des Software-Architekten by Victor Sauermann of DATEV eG

Dirk Riehle — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:27:08 +0000

We will host an industry talk (free and open to the public)

by: Victor Sauermann, DATEV eG
about: Die Rolle des Software-Architekten (*)
on: Jan 30, 2012, 10:00 Uhr
at: Rm 04.150, Martensstr. 3 (“blaues Hochhaus”)
as part of: ARCH

Abstract: ”The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.” (Thucydides) Dies beschreibt die Aufgabe eines Architekten am besten. Denn geht es bei größeren Software Projekten um Qualität spricht man von Software-Architekturen. Und diese werden von Architekten entworfen, gepflegt, kommuniziert, gegebenenfalls auch verteidigt und natürlich verantwortet. In diesem Vortrag soll die Signifikanz der Software-Architektur im Allgemeinen und die damit verbundenen Aufgaben des Architekten im Speziellen klargestellt werden.

Speaker: Victor Sauermann ist Senior Software Architect bei der DATEV eG in Nürnberg. Zu seinen Aufgabengebieten gehören u.a. der Entwurf und die Bewertung von Architekturen. Aber vor allem die Etablierung und das Vorantreiben einer Referenzarchitektur innerhalb der Entwicklung bei der DATEV eG. Bevor er bei der DATEV eG begann, arbeitete er mehrere Jahre bei der Siemens AG in Erlangen und entwickelte sich vom reinen Software Entwickler und Netzwerk Administrator bis hin zum Software Architekten und Projektleiter.

(*) … oder der Software-Architektin

Upcoming Industry Talk: Enterprise Architecture Management by Wolfgang Keller of Object Architects

Dirk Riehle — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:26:44 +0000

We will host an industry talk (free and open to the public)

by: Wolfgang Keller, Object Architects
about: IT-Unternehmensarchitektur – Ein Überblick
on: Jan 23, 2012, 10:00 Uhr
at: Rm 04.150, Martensstr. 3 (“blaues Hochhaus”)
as part of: ARCH

Abstract: IT-Unternehmensarchitektur befasst sich damit, wie man komplette Anwendungslandschaften, beziehungsweise die IT-Investitionen eines Unternehmens so steuern kann, dass für das Unternehmen daraus (gemessen an seinen Zielen) der optimale Nutzen entstehen kann. Der Vortrag gibt einen Überblick über wichtige Prozess der IT-Unternehmensarchitektur und stellt einen musterbasierten Ansatz vor, mit dem man die eigene Funktion für IT-Unternehmensarchitektur so an die Gegebenheiten eines Unternehmens anpassen kann, dass man mit möglichst geringem Aufwand möglichst hohen Nutzen erzielt. Dazu benötigt man Zielmuster, Muster für Prozesse und Muster für Informationsmodelle.

Speaker: Wolfgang Keller befasst sich seit mehr als 20 Jahren mit dem Bau großer, individueller Softwaresysteme, meist für Versicherungen und Banken. Nach ersten Jahren bei sd&m (heute Capgemini) arbeitete er in verschiedenen Architekturfunktionen des Generali Konzerns, zuletzt als Chefarchitekt in Deutschland. Seit 2006 arbeitet er freiberuflich als Unternehmensarchitekt und Projektleiter. Er ist Autor diverser Fachbücher und sonstiger Publikationen.

Remark: Relevantes Buch für den Vortrag: Wolfgang Keller: IT-Unternehmensarchitektur, dpunkt Verlag, 2006. Vortrag basiert auf zweiter, überarbeiteter und erweiterter Auflage, erscheint Ende Februar 2012. Web: www.objectarchitects.biz

OSR Group Thesis: Product Features in Commercial Open Source

Dirk Riehle — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 11:24:26 +0000

Abstract: Although open source software has developed from a negligible phenomenon to an integral part of today’s business world, there are still companies which cannot see its commercial viability. As a consequence, these companies keep on ignoring this wide-spread trend, therefore missing possible profits and the chance to gain an advantage over their competitors. In order to provide arguments for the economic potential of open source software, a comprehensive model of commercially viable product features is described in the present thesis. This hierarchically structured model was created based on interview analysis, literature research and expert discussions and provides a detailed analysis of each feature, while explaining why these features are of economic value. Additionally, practical knowledge of open source companies is incorporated into this work through the use of a survey. The results of this survey are used to validate and expand the model and to generate insight about both importance and bundling of features. In the end, the reader will see which aspects of open source software products can be used to generate profit.

Keywords: Open source; commercial open source; single-vendor open source; open core model; open source distributors; product features; software product feature model

PDFs: Master Thesis, Aufgabenstellung

Reference: Florian Weikert. Product Features in Commercial Open Source Software. Bachelor Thesis, Friedrich Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nürnberg: 2012.

Letter to Stakeholders (Year-End 2011)

Dirk Riehle — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 12:02:29 +0000

The Open Source Research Group is looking back on a second successful year at the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU).

Overview

Research
Teaching
Entrepreneurship
Public Service
Thank You!
Publications
Student Theses
More Links

1. Research

In our open source software engineering research, empirical work is farthest ahead, with interesting results: For example, by analyzing developer work rhythms we were able to show that most open source is being developed weekdays, 9-5, on company time. No surprise, you might say, but someone had to prove it. In the same vein, we have been empirically analyzing open source programming behavior, with more interesting results on how to improve tools to be published next year.

Open source is not only software, but a collaboration model and a legal framework as well. The adoption of this collaboration model in various contexts only accelerated during 2011. We are actively researching open-source-based collaboration models for industry consortia and for firm-internal use (so-called „inner source“). IT user consortia provide IT user firms with lower costs and higher flexibility while avoiding strategic vendor lock-in. Inner source allows a software development firm to benefit from successful open source best practices and make its development more effective. Such work raises even more governance questions than before and we have been publishing accordingly [1] [3] [12] [13].

In our software engineering work we went public with our first open source project this year, the Sweble Wikitext parser. This component lets users parse in Wikipedia (and other Mediawiki content) and analyze its data. This component, developed by OSR Group Ph.D. student Hannes Dohrn, has quickly been picking up a user community with first contributions on the horizon. For more information, check out the project website at http://sweble.org [4] [6] [7] [9] [10] [11].

After a first failed DFG grant proposal in 2010, we are finally working on new proposals again, both for the DFG, the European Union framework program, and others. The EU proposals are about inner source and open source community processes.

Prof. Riehle traveled repeatedly to China in 2011 and intends to keep doing so. Informal collaborations exist with Prof. Schneider of City University of Hong Kong and Prof. Bai of Tsinghua University, and we hope to deepen these relationship and take them to the next level. Chinese research partners are a key focus of our international interactions.

Our industry sponsorship and collaboration has been accelerating. Next to SUSE and Google, our 2010 sponsors, who continued their sponsorship, we added Bearingpoint and Bosch as new 2011 project partners and sponsors. We are looking forward to more fruitful years of collaboration. We were also able to receive friendly financial gestures from GfK, Univention, Quinscape, and WeWebU and are looking forward to future collaboration as well.

In addition, we performed the usual services on journal (ISM, IEEE Software, SoSyM, JSS, IST) and conference committee (OSS, ICSE (SEIP Track), AOSD (Modularity Track), HT (Track 3)) review boards.

2. Teaching

We teach as part of the applied software engineering alliance at FAU. To our existing classes AMOS (the “agile methods and open source” lab course), FIRM (how software product firms work), and NYT (“nailing your thesis”, i.e. how to perform research) we added the new classes PROD (software product management) and ARCH (software architecture). These classes are co-taught with our industry lecturers Dr. Martin Jung, Dr. Erich Meier, Stefan Probst, and Michael Rohrmüller who we would like to thank for their engagement!

We are particularly proud of the product management class, for two reasons: First, product management is perhaps the most important function in software development organizations, yet it is almost completely being neglected in computer science university teaching. Second, we have started to develop our own set of (Harvard Business School-style) cases to improve the dire situation that little good teaching material is available.

A “case” describes in 5-10 pages a specific decision situation that a company once faced and we use it to guide the class discussion around that decision. At the end of the class session a real person from the case comes into class to discuss the students’ conclusions! For this, we are collaborating with local companies (and are still looking for more).

3. Entrepreneurship

2011 was the year when our entrepreneurship teaching was bearing first tangible fruits. The Mydosis project, an outgrowth of our 2010 AMOS class, received EXIST funding, about EUR 100,000. Congratulations to the team of Markus Stipp, Christoph Wille, and Johannes Link! [8] We have high hopes that Mydosis will help improve medical practices in pediatrics and turn a profit as well. For more information, check out http://mydosis.de.

Free Seas Ahoy!, the 2011 AMOS project, is on its way. Please find a first impression at http://fsahoy.com.

4. Public service

During 2011, Prof. Riehle provided his expert opinion in various forums. The two main noteworthy (and pro-longed) engagements that we can publicly talk about are his membership of

an expert advisory board to one of the public foundations for the German Enquette Commission “Internet und Digitale Gesellschaft”, and
an expert advisory board to the “Open Commons Region Linz”, which advises the city and region of Linz in their Open Government, Open Data, Open Source, etc. efforts.

Not surprisingly, Prof. Riehle has been spending a fair amount of time in Berlin this last year.

Thank You!

At the end of this year we would like to thank

SUSE, Google, Bearingpoint, Bosch, Univention, GfK, Quinscape, and WeWebU for their new or continued sponsorship,
Dr. Martin Jung, Dr. Erich Meier, Stefan Probst, and Michael Rohrmüller for their engagement in helping us teach practical software engineering and entrepreneurship, and
Prof. Bernd Hindel, Prof. Detlef Kips, Dr. Norbert Oster, and Dr. Klaudia Dussa-Zieger for their collaboration as part of the Applied Software Engineering Alliance.

All the best for 2012! And please subscribe to our blog at http://osr.cs.fau.de for on-going information and late-breaking news!

For the Open Source Research Group,

Prof. Dr. Dirk Riehle, M.B.A.

Publications

Abstracts and PDFs are available from http://dirkriehle.com/publications.

RIEHLE, D. 2011. Controlling and Steering Open Source Projects. IEEE Computer vol. 44, no. 7 (July 2011), 93-96.
RIEHLE, D. 2011. Lessons Learned from Using Design Patterns in Industry Projects. Transactions on Pattern Languages of Programming II, LNCS 6510. Springer-Verlag, 2011, 1-15.
RIEHLE, D. 2011. The Single-Vendor Commercial Open Source Business Model. Information Systems and e-Business Management. Springer Verlag, 2010, 13 pages. Republished from The Commercial Open Source Business Model. Value Creation in e-Business Management, LNBIP 36. NELSON, M.L. et al., Eds. Springer Verlag, 2009, 18–30. Republished from The Commercial Open Source Business Model. In Proceedings of the 15th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS 2009). AIS Electronic Library, 2009, Paper 104.
DOHRN, H., AND RIEHLE, D. 2011. Design and Implementation of the Sweble Wikitext Parser: Unlocking the Structured Data of Wikipedia. In Proceedings of the 7th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration (WikiSym 2011). ACM Press, 2011.
SCHÖNDIENST, V., KRASNOVA, H., GÜNTHER, O., AND RIEHLE, D. 2011. Micro-Blogging Adoption in the Enterprise: An Empirical Analysis. In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI 2011), 931-940.
DOHRN, H., AND RIEHLE, D. 2011. WOM: An Object Model for Wikitext. Technical Report CS-2011-05 (July 2011). University of Erlangen, Germany, 2011.

Student Theses

Abstracts and PDFs are available from http://osr.cs.fau.de/category/final-theses/.

Jing Tang. Improving the Wikipedia Parser. Diplomarbeit, Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg: 2011.
Christoph Wille. Marketing a Community-Based Open Data Portal. Master Thesis, Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg: 2011.
Sebastian Berschneider. Analyse und Vergleich von Open Source Vereinigungen. Bachelorarbeit, Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg: 2011.
Guido Leisker. Abschnittsbasierte Textklassifikation in der Wikipedia. Magisterarbeit, Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg: 2011.
Martin Helmreich. Best Practices of Adopting Open Source Software in Closed Source Software Products. Diplomarbeit, Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg: 2011.
Ke Chang. Open Source Collaboration Codified. Diplomarbeit, Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg: 2011.
Florian Weikert. Ein Modell der Produkte von Open-Source-Unternehmen. Bachelor-Arbeit, Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg: 2011.