Enhancing collaboration in software development

Abstract

Software Development is nowadays regarded as a collaborative proces~ with a number of teams working in parallel on different tasks. Delocalisation of groups pushed by a strong commercial influence is presenting new challenges within this area, as teams spread across countries require flawless interaction between one another. A number of tools referred to as software collaborative tools, have been developed to aid software engineers and developers in the software development process. Some systems offer a common data store, allowing the sharing of documents. Others are targeted at the production of code as the sole activity in the development process. Others have offered collaborative support through some form of emerging communication. From email and instant messaging to web-based applications, it became common practice for software engineers to identify the benefits that such technologies offer, and take advantage of them by integrating these into their projects. With the wide spread use of the web, one has seen the development of large multiplayer online games where users interact with one another in a shared space. This has created a large base of 3D virtual world users. Although many may consider these 3D virtual worlds as primarily a leisure activity, products such as Second Life have already proven to be of great benefit in areas like education and corporate solutions such as meetings, conferences and training. This indicates that these sectors have already explored this dimension and have found some potential and value in its usage. It is therefore worth exploring this potential within the area of collaborative software engineering too. The study revolves around the development of a collaborative virtual environment within Second Life. This 3D virtual environment has a user base of twelve million users; referred to as Residents, and offers a development platform. These factors make this virtual world the ideal candidate for the development of the solution. The expected benefits offered by such an approach are those of a sense of presence and immersion within the digital world with an approximation to physical reality. The realistic representation of the team members within the virtual world improves upon the sense of awareness of the presence of others, together with their actions. These are all contributing factors towards a faster and broader spread of a project's shared knowledge and consequently faster prototyping of the artefacts. Functional tests have shown that the objects developed together with the technologies already present in SL such as IMs and voice chat, support the communication and interaction between Residents. Although software development approaches tests could not be conducted, it is considered that Collab might provide benefits to the RAD and WINWIN Spiral models. Evaluation of the collaborative experience offered by the 3D collaborative environment is deemed successful in so far as the expected results are achieved. Results show that although face-to-face interaction remains the ultimate preferred model of collaboration, 3D virtual environments like Collab offer positive results. Also, the comments received from the participants in the evaluation sessions proved to be very positive. They have been willing to be exposed to new approaches and some are even faithful that virtual worlds have great potential in collaborative software development.