RUP DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL LEARNING PLATFORM

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Jacek Jakieła

Rzeszow University of Technology

Joanna Wójcik

University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow

RUP DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT

OF SOCIAL LEARNING PLATFORM

Introduction

Nowadays most people understand quite well the need for life-long learning. It holds for students who are at the beginning of their career ladders as well as for professionals who would like to be highly competitive in their workplaces. How- ever it requires ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge. This process may be significantly improved by ICT (Information and Communication technologies) based interactive tools used for professional development.

Tischner European University (TEU) in Cracow is developing an innovative education model as a means to meet students’ expectations and to adapt the university education policy to socioeconomic changes in such areas as: social development, blended learning and open source philosophy. As a part of this model, a comprehensive education offer supported by innovative state-of-the-art ICT solutions in the form of social learning platform called WeLearning have been developed. The users of this platform may become members of a community of active learners that participate in discussions, meetings and can develop education stuff (e.g. articles, DL modules, and infographics) on the platform. The goal of TEU is to make the philosophy of life-long learning among Poles more popular.

In case of most development processes of web based solutions, project activities are usually done informally. It works for small and technically simple projects with clearly stated requirements and centralized small project teams.

The characteristics of TEU WeLearning project such as decentralization of stakeholders, not fully explored application domain, the size of project team and innovativeness as well as technical complexity of software solution required more disciplined approach. On the other hand, because of time constraints the development process should not be too formal. As a solution to a problem, Ra-

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Jacek Jakieła, Joanna Wójcik 66

tional Unified Process (RUP) methodology has been selected for WeLearning project. RUP has proven its value in the industry by delivering significant returns on investment (ROI) to the companies and organizations that have adopted it [Kruc03]. It provides disciplined approach to the development process but at the same time the formalization level can be customized to project’s environment. The paper describes RUP driven development process of social learning platform and explains why decision of selecting RUP was a proper choice. What is more, all project activities undertaken have been analyzed and described from two main perspectives. The former regards RUP as software development approach and ac- cording to the latter RUP is considered as a software engineering process.

System under Development

The system under development is intended to be an internet platform that will help to create and share knowledge, as well as to develop skills and a sense of community among like-minded individuals. This community is not supposed to be made available exclusively for students, staff, and sympathizers of TEU, but from the very start it is open for everyone interested, regardless of age, level of education, or university affiliation. The only condition is a life-long hunger for knowledge and willingness to make new acquaintances with like-minded individuals. The interests of the users of the platform and their activities will be used as a way to measure the job and education market. The university will then be able to plan its endeavors (for example: the opening of new courses of study, creating new specializations) to ensure the best qualifications for its graduates and to build an interesting additional offer (cultural events, trips, conferences with interesting people). Besides basic functionalities planned, the platform will be equipped with mechanisms of gamification that will take the solution to new level of educational quality. According to the definition, gamification is “the use of game design elements in a non-game context” [Dete11]. The concept of ap- plying game-design thinking to non-game applications has gained common acceptance in everyday activity. The huge success of using these two strategies (social media and gamification) pointed the way to the use of this type of mechanisms in other fields including education. The main objective is to encour- age students to learn since some methods of learning that are often labeled as boring are met with resistance.

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RUP DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL… 67

Why RUP?

There are several reasons why RUP methodology has been selected for the project. First of all it provides a disciplined approach to assigning tasks and responsibilities within a development organization. Its goal is to ensure the pro- duction of high-quality software that meets the needs of its end users within a predictable schedule and budget [KrKB03]. Secondly RUP is adaptable and extendable process framework. It can be properly configured to suit the needs of the specific project. Next reason is that one can select proper formalization level for the development process. In the areas where there are requirements concerning formal documentation, adequate RUP artifacts can be developed. In other places less formal approach may be taken. Finally RUP promotes best practices of software development so called Spirit of the RUP developed by many profes- sionals and organizations all over the world. One of the most important aspects is that RUP is an iterative process what makes the development more flexible and adaptable to changing requirements of the system’s owner and stakeholders.

RUP as a Software Development Approach

During the project both aspects of the RUP methodology have been taken into consideration. Firstly RUP is considered as a software development approach. It includes several essential principles driving the development process.

They are the following [Kruc03]:

• attack major risks early and continuously… or they will attack you,

• ensure that you deliver value to your customer,

• stay focused on executable software,

• accommodate change early in the project,

• baseline an executable architecture early on,

• build your system with components,

• work together as one team,

• make quality a way of life, not an afterthought.

All of them have been implemented in the project to some extent. System under development is innovative solution that has not been developed so far by other educational institutions. It means that there are no reference models which can be taken into consideration during the process of functionality planning and architecture selection. Therefore there are many possible risks related to the development process of this kind of platform. The risk has been mitigated by con- ducting extensive research involving all stakeholders. There are several ques-

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tions that had to be taken into consideration before project started. Sample questions asked and answered are: What are the possibilities of creating and moderat- ing of active learners’ community? What are the possible methods and techniques used for e-learning that will stimulate interest and drive educational content development? What about motivational system? What mechanisms implemented will make them tick? What kind of revenue generation model can be applied (if any) to platform content? Should the access to the content be free or it is possible to re- ceive payments for premium platform functionalities and educational stuff? In order to answer these general questions, in every category more specific ones have been formulated and research planned. For example for the first category related to potential of social learning platform the following questions have been identified:

• Do the prospects use social platforms? If yes which platforms? How often do they use this kind of services?

• Do the prospects know any social learning platforms or social platforms that offer educational services and content?

• What do the prospects mean by Distance Learning? What kind of associa- tions do they have with regard to Distance Learning concept?

• Do the prospects have any experience with Distance Learning?

• What are the pros and cons of Distance Learning according to prospects opinion?

• Do the prospects use Wikipedia? How do they rate its content?

• Do the prospects have the skills and motivations for developing educational materials related to subjects they study and to sharing them with classmates?

Questions regarding other categories have also been elaborated [BaIP12a, BaIP12b]. Based on the questions prepared, research has been planned and conducted including such groups as students, alumni, university staff, external experts and employers. The research results enabled to make more informed decisions about platform’s functionality, content as well as techniques and methods used. It also reduced the risks related to development and introduction of such unique and non-standard solution. More detailed description of the research is presented in the section of the paper, describing Inception phase of the project.

Final issue concerning risk management is related to iterative development. All of the projects tasks have been done in iterative fashion.

As in all other ICT projects, delivering value to customer is very important and obvious goal. However the tasks that should be taken in order to achieve this goal are sometimes poorly specified and vague. The situation looks different in case of RUP. RUP provides recommendations derived from best practices of software development. Recommendations regard three aspects: iterative development, communication with customers and capturing functional requirements

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[Barn07]. As has already been mentioned the project under consideration has adopted iterative approach. What is more, after every iteration, meeting with stakeholders have been arranged and conducted. During the meetings presenta- tions of system functionalities developed so far have been delivered and feedback from stakeholders gathered. All remarks have been taken into account during following iterations. This enabled to reduce the gap between stakeholders’

requirements and system under development functionality.

Finally, according to RUP, use case method has been used for capturing requirements. After all use cases have been specified, they drove whole development process. Since use cases describe how a user will interact with the system, they are easy for a user to relate to. And since they describe the interaction in a time-sequential order, it is easy for both users and analysts to identify any holes in the use case [Barn07].

Because of the project’s time constraints Stay focused on executable soft- ware principle has been adopted. This means that the progress of the project has been measured with regard to ready to use executable software. Therefore, main focus was not on RUP documentation artifacts but on modules (or functions in- side modules) fully implemented, tested and presented to stakeholders. A clear focus on executable software forced right thinking among project team. Less risk of overanalyzing and theorizing has been run, and it was possible to prove which solutions are optimal. As was written in [KrKB03] forcing closure by producing executable software is often the fastest way of mitigating risk.

Continuous communication with stakeholders also enabled to accommodate changes early in all stages of the project. This approach has reduced costs of changes and minimized requirements creep. Before the project started, the research results have been deeply analyzed, all insights discussed with stakeholders and the contract describing the system scope approved by them. After functional and non-functional requirements have been gathered and specified, they have been presented to stakeholders and elaborated according to their hints and comments. What is more, decisions on solution final architecture were made before elaboration phase. Changes related to design and implementation have been managed rather easily as component base approach to system modules were taken. All the functionalities have been implemented with the use of customized by developers off-the-shelf elements, that are well tested and verified in many solutions working on-line.

Common knowledge is that people are the project’s most important asset.

Project under consideration was organized around cross-functional team that consisted of project manager, system analysts, user experience and SEO expert

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as well as developers. During implementation stage developers coordinated their tasks quite smoothly as they knew each other very well because of many projects done together so far. The same held for system analysts and UX expert. Every team member was informed about state of project once or twice a week during meetings organized by the project manager. There was also continuous asyn- chronous and synchronous communication done via e-mail and instant messen- gers. Unfortunately every day stand-up meetings have not been organized. The reason was decentralization and responsibilities of team members related to other projects and classes (part of the team was sourced from university staff).

As a solution to this problem, project documentation, constantly updated by system analysts, was published on-line in the form of interactive website, where everybody could analyze the contents, check the current state of the project and drill down the artifacts to the abstraction level she/he was interested in. As experience showed, this solution improved communication significantly and par- tially compensated the lack of every day short meetings.

RUP as a Software Engineering Process

The RUP is also software engineering process. All the stages and activities in the life-cycle are well-defined and well-structured with essential milestones and decision points precisely articulated. RUP clearly defines who is responsible for what, how things are done, and when to do them [Kruc03]. Structure of the RUP is presented on Figure 1. Process has two dimensions: static and dynamic. Static structure describes how process elements are logically grouped into core process disciplines. Basic process elements are: activities, disciplines, artifacts, and roles.

Dynamic structure shows how the process, expressed in terms of cycles, phases, iterations, and milestones, unfolds over the lifecycle of a project [KrKB03].

RUP defines four main phases: inception, elaboration, construction and transi- tion. In inception phase a good understanding of what system to build is gotten. It is done by getting a high-level understanding of all the requirements and defining the system’s scope. In this stage the focus is also on mitigating business risks, and producing the business case for building the system. Finally it is important to get acceptance of all stakeholders and decide whether to proceed with the project.

During elaboration phase most technically difficult tasks such as: design, implementation, testing, and baselining an executable architecture (including subsystems, their interfaces, key components, and architectural mechanisms) are undertaken. What is more, major technical risks are addressed by code implementation and validation [Barn07].

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The research was conducted from the end of October to the beginning of December 2012. Every focus group had 1,5 hour session time and the results were recorded, transcripted and coded.

For coding the results Atlas.ti software has been used. Focus groups members were informed in advance about the scope and goal of the research and the participation was fully voluntary. What is more all indicators and codes were op- erationalized in order to properly mark quotations selected from recordings (for details see [BaIP12a, BaIP12b, BaIP12c]).

All of the stakeholders answered the questions from the following modules:

Diagnosis of opportunities related to creation and moderation of life-long learn- ing virtual communities, Social potential of learning platform, Scope and type of learning methods and techniques, Scope and topics of subject-matter, Motivation system and Diagnosis of opportunities related to introduction of payments for access to platform’s content.

Second group of stakeholders included employers. The research was con- ducted in the form of structured In-Depth Expert Interviews with the use of sce- nario prepared in advance. The Expert interview is ideal tool for presenting ideas and content and encourages subject matter experts to share knowledge from an area under consideration. Ten experts from social media and ICT fields have been selected. This group consisted of entrepreneurs (ISPs and social portals owners – zadane.pl) and experts (social media investors and advisers, start-up practitioners, and on-line brand creation experts).

The research was conducted in December 2012 and every interview lasted from 0,5 to 1 hour. Every expert was informed in advance about the goal of research and the participation as in previous groups was fully voluntary. In case of this group new questions categories have been introduced such as: Verification of technical capa- bilities of different social platforms including open source solutions and Market de- mand for this kind of services as well as prospect employees who are using them.

University staff members constituted the third group which opinions were analyzed. As in case of employers, the research regarding university staff mem- bers was conducted in the form of structured In-Depth Expert Interviews. Group included 18 people – 6 from Tischner European University in Cracow, 6 from University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszów and 6 from University of Management and Administration in Zamość. The group consisted of decision makers such as vice presidents, deans, heads of departments and lec- turers. Part of them have been dealing with e-learning issues for some time. Be- sides the research modules already mentioned they were supposed to answer questions related to their experience with e-learning, key platform features, evaluation and certification processes and platform’s brand building process.

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types and storyboards were created to present the system from the user perspec- tive. Users usually are able to better understand functional specification when it is presented in terms of screens they can see during interaction with system under development. Then non-functional requirements have been described and project glossary developed. Because of large number of use cases, they have been divided into modules. The architecture of WeLearning platform is presented in Appendix 1.

In order to plan the first release of the system and iterations, for all use cases priorities have been set and labor intensity estimated. Use cases priorities were determined by strategic stakeholders (system owner). Labor intensity esti- mates were provided by developers. For every iteration use cases were selected according to defined priorities and time needed for development.

First iteration (iteration 0) was responsible for baselining executable architecture of the solution. Therefore the tasks undertaken regarded auditing hard- ware architecture for platform, server virtualization, installation and configuration of CMS and frameworks (Gantry 4, Twitter Bootstrap), and selecting Joomla extensions as well as self-contained systems that will enable to imple- ment planned platform’s functionality.

Table 1 presents main CMS extensions chosen for development [Wojc12].

Table 1 CMS Extensions Selected for the Platform

Extension Name Related Platform Functionality

SobiPro Social Bookmarking

JomSocial

Networking Groups Galleries Calendar

Communication among community members Dashboard

Meetings

EasyBlog Blogs JS Jobs Job e-Marketplace

Kunena Forums

Besides Joomla extensions that can be relatively easy installed and configured, some functionalities required self-contained systems that had to be inte- grated with WeLearning platform. For educational resources management (DL modules) Moodle® LMS has been selected. Video conferences will be supported by BigBlueButton solution and synchronous communication by CometChat.

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Because it should be possible for users to access platform with mobile de- vices, system was implemented with Twitter Bootstrap framework, which can be used for Responsive Web Design. WeLearning solution was equipped with flexi- ble and dynamic user interface which automatically recognizes screen resolution and rescales all GUI elements.

Reliability requirements was implemented through code optimization for most internet browsers including IE8+, Firefox 3+, Safari 4+, Chrome 8+, Opera 10+ as well as for mobile devices internet browsers (Android and iOS). The source code complies with W3C standards.

Responsiveness of the system was improved thank to additional module with DEFLATE algorithm installed on the server that enables lossless compres- sion of all data sent to platform users. All CSS and Javascript files have been minificated. All CSS and graphics files have Expitarion Header and all files loaded by internet browser obtain Entity Tags. These improve the performance of browser’s cache. Most of the modules loaded to browser’s cache are stored and therefore there is no need to load them again when the user needs them.

Security requirements was implemented with SSL certificates and mechanisms protecting from unauthorized access and XSS as well as SQL injection attacks.

Transition Phase of WeLearning Project

In the Transition phase all major structural issues should have been worked out, and user feedback should focus mainly on fine-tuning, configuration, installation, and usability issues [KrKB03]. All of the WeLearning platform modules have periodically been presented to stakeholders and feedback was gathered. What is more testers were hired for checking if all systems elements meet acceptance tests. During this phase final documentation and user manuals were prepared and training planned. First training took place after first release was deployed. Second training regarded presentation of new modules from second release and improve- ments made to first release. The third training course was conducted in the form of workshop in computer lab where WeLearning team (10 persons) responsible for platform deployment learnt how to use all system functionalities in practice and provided feedback. In the time period when platform were being deployed all developers were constantly available on-line and under the phone.

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Conclusions

It seems that the project is on the right track. So far the project team has met all acceptance criteria with regard to budget, schedule and scope. It was done to large extent thank to using RUP in development process. Of course it will take some time to fully verify the success of the whole enterprise. In case of platform like this, Metcalfe’s law will apply. It means that the value of WeLearning plat- form will be proportional to the square of the number of active users. Important question here is if motivation mechanisms implemented via virtual currency called talents will work according to assumptions taken. But the statistics gath- ered are quite optimistic. At the moment WeLearning platform has 640 users (580 active users). There were 222 educational resources items published. Users have taken 83 competence tests (57 completed) and created 43 profiles with in- dividual development plans. Forum includes 30 categories with 110 topics and 442 posts. Further development of the solution will depend on effective moderation of life-long learning community members, smart discovering what makes them tick and transforming these insights into innovative features of WeLearning platform. It will require constant monitoring of e-learning standards, learners preferences and advances in ICT field.

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References

[BaIP12a] Baran L., Inglot-Brzęk E., Przywara B.: Pracownicy uczelni o e-learningu – Raport z wywiadów eksperckich z pracownikami uczelni. WSE, Kraków 2012, retrieved from http://www.welearning.edu.pl.

[BaIP12b] Baran L., Inglot-Brzęk E., Przywara B.: Studenci i absolwenci o e-learningu – Raport z fokusów eksperckich. WSE, Kraków 2012, retrieved from http://www.welearning.edu.pl.

[BaIP12c] Baran L., Inglot-Brzęk E., Przywara B.: Pracodawcy o e-learningu – Raport z wywiadów eksperckich z pracodawcami. WSE, Kraków 2012, retrieved from http://www.welearning.edu.pl.

[Barn07] Barnes J.: Implementing the IBM Rational Unified Process and Solutions:

A Guide to Improving Your Software Development Capability and Matur- ity. IBM Press, 2007.

[BeLZ10] Begel A., DeLine R., Zimmermann T.: Social Media for Software Engi- neering. Proceedings of the FSE/SDP Workshop on Future of Software Engineering Research, November 2010, p. 33-38, ACM.

[Dete11] Deterding S.: Meaningful Play: Getting “Gamification” Right. Google Tech Talk, 2011.

[FiCo11] Fields T., Cotton B.: Social Game Design: Monetization Methods and Me- chanics. CRC Press, 2011.

[GiOF13] Gibson D., Ostashewski N., Flintoff K., Grant S., Knight E.: Digital Badges in Education. „Education and Information Technologies” 2013, 1-8.

[Kruc03a] Kruchten P.: The Rational Unified Process: An Introduction. Addison- Wesley Professional, 2003.

[KrKB03b] Kroll P., Kruchten P., Booch G.: The Rational Unified Process Made Easy: A Practitioner’s Guide to the RUP: A Practitioner’s Guide to the RUP. Addison-Wesley Professional, 2003.

[McGo11] McGonigal J.: Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. Penguin, 2011.

[Rasm10] Rasmusson J.: The Agile Samurai: How Agile Masters Deliver Great Software. Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2010.

[ThKC13] Thongtanunam P., Kula R.G., Cruz A.E., Yoshida N., Ichikawa K., Iida H.:

Mining History of Gamification towards Finding Expertise in Question and Answering Communities: Experience and Practice with Stack Exchange.

„The Review of Socionetwork Strategies” 2013, 7(2), pp. 115-130.

[Wojc12] Wójcik J. et al.: Platforma Kształcenia Społecznościowego WeLearning.

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ZASTOSOWANIE METODYKI RUP W DZIAŁANIACH ANALITYCZNO-PROJEKTOWYCH PRZY ROZWOJU PLATFORMY NAUCZANIA SPOŁECZNOŚCIOWEGO

Streszczenie

Celem prac, których częściowe rezultaty przedstawiono w niniejszym artykule, było zaprojektowanie i zaimplementowanie platformy nauczania społecznościowego WeLearning na poziomie szkolnictwa wyższego, uwzględniającej mechanizmy grywali- zacji. Działania analityczno-projektowe zrealizowano z wykorzystaniem metodyki RUP.

W artykule wyjaśniono, dlaczego wybór metodyki RUP był właściwą decyzją podczas projektowania platformy, oraz przedstawiono szczegółowo kolejne fazy cyklu życia pro- jektu platformy, tj. fazę rozpoczęcia, opracowywania, konstrukcji oraz przekazania systemu.