An Infrastructure for Collaborative Ontology Development

Collaborative development of a shared or standardized ontology presents unique issues in workflow, version control, testing, and quality control. These challenges are similar to challenges faced in large-scale collaborative software development. We have taken this idea as the basis of a collaborative ontology development platform based on familiar software tools, including Continuous Integration platforms, version control systems, testing platforms, and review workflows. We have implemented these using open-source versions of each of these tools, and packaged them into a full-service collaborative platform for collaborative ontology development. This platform has been used in the development of FIBO, the Financial Industry Business Ontology, an ongoing collaborative effort that has been developing and maintaining a set of ontologies for over a decade. The platform is open-source and is being used in other projects beyond FIBO. We hope to continue this trend and improve the state of practice of collaborative ontology design in many more industries.

Displacement-based multi-modal formulation of Koiter's method applied to cylindrical shells

The multi-modal formulation of Koiter's asymptotic method provides a systematic and efficient procedure to evaluate the initial post-buckling behaviour and to assess the nonlinear behavior of structures. This manuscript presents a displacement-based multi-modal formulation of Koiter's method for cylindrical shells, which are structures known for their high imperfection sensitivity and for having clustered bifurcation modes that highly interact. A third-order interpolation is used for the in-plane and out-of-plane displacements by means of the Bogner-Fox-Schmit-Castro (BFSC) element, with 4 nodes and 10 degrees-of-freedom per node, aiming at an accurate representation of the second-order fields required in the initial post-buckling analysis. The single-curvature of the shell is considered in the finite element kinematics and the study includes nonlinear kinematics from Von Kármán and Sanders. The mesh is obtained by closing the circumferentially oriented coordinate at the position where the mesh completes one revolution about the shell perimeter. The proposed formulation and implementation is verified in detail by comparing results for composite shells against established literature for multi-mode asymptotic expansions. A fast convergence of the proposed formulation is observed for linear buckling, pre-buckling state and the initial post-buckling coefficients. The developed formulation enables a close relationship between formulae and the implemented code, and is implemented using state-of-the-art collaborative software. The authors made the implemented routines in a publicly available data set with the aim to popularize Koiter's method.

Collaborative Software Visualization in Co-located Environments

<p>Most software visualization systems and tools are designed from a single-user perspective and are bound to the desktop and IDEs. These design decisions do not allow users to analyse software collaboratively or to easily interact and navigate visualizations within a co-located environment at the same time. This thesis presents an exploratory study of collaborative software visualization using multi-touch tables in a co-located environment. The thesis contributes a richer understanding of how pairs of developers make use of shared visualizations on large multi-touch tables to gain insight into the design of software systems. We designed a collaborative software visualization application, called Source-Vis, that contained a suite of 13 visualization techniques adapted for multi-touch interaction. We built two large multi-touch tables (28 and 48 inches) following existing hardware designs, to explore and evaluate SourceVis. We then conducted both qualitative and quantitative user studies, culminating in a study of 44 professional software developers working in pairs. We found that pairs preferred joint group work, used a variety of coupling styles, and made many transitions between coupling and arrangement styles. For collaborative group work we recommend designing for joint group work over parallel individual work, supporting a flexible variety of coupling styles, and supporting fluid transitions between coupling and arrangement styles. We found that the preferred style for joint group work was closely coupled and arranged side by side. We found some global functionally was not easily accessible. We found some of the user interactions and visual interface elements were not designed consistently. For the design of collaborative software visualizations we recommend designing visualizations for closely coupled arrangements with rotation features, providing functionality in the appropriate locality, and providing consistent user interactions and visual interface design. We found sometimes visualization windows overlapped each other and text was hard to read in windows. We found when pairs were performing joint group work the size of the table was appropriate but not for parallel individual. We found that because the table could not differentiate between different simultaneous users that some pair interactions were limited. For the design of multi-touch tables we recommend providing a high resolution workspace, providing appropriate table space, and differentiating between simultaneous user interactions.</p>

Collaborative Software Visualization in Co-located Environments

<p>Most software visualization systems and tools are designed from a single-user perspective and are bound to the desktop and IDEs. These design decisions do not allow users to analyse software collaboratively or to easily interact and navigate visualizations within a co-located environment at the same time. This thesis presents an exploratory study of collaborative software visualization using multi-touch tables in a co-located environment. The thesis contributes a richer understanding of how pairs of developers make use of shared visualizations on large multi-touch tables to gain insight into the design of software systems. We designed a collaborative software visualization application, called Source-Vis, that contained a suite of 13 visualization techniques adapted for multi-touch interaction. We built two large multi-touch tables (28 and 48 inches) following existing hardware designs, to explore and evaluate SourceVis. We then conducted both qualitative and quantitative user studies, culminating in a study of 44 professional software developers working in pairs. We found that pairs preferred joint group work, used a variety of coupling styles, and made many transitions between coupling and arrangement styles. For collaborative group work we recommend designing for joint group work over parallel individual work, supporting a flexible variety of coupling styles, and supporting fluid transitions between coupling and arrangement styles. We found that the preferred style for joint group work was closely coupled and arranged side by side. We found some global functionally was not easily accessible. We found some of the user interactions and visual interface elements were not designed consistently. For the design of collaborative software visualizations we recommend designing visualizations for closely coupled arrangements with rotation features, providing functionality in the appropriate locality, and providing consistent user interactions and visual interface design. We found sometimes visualization windows overlapped each other and text was hard to read in windows. We found when pairs were performing joint group work the size of the table was appropriate but not for parallel individual. We found that because the table could not differentiate between different simultaneous users that some pair interactions were limited. For the design of multi-touch tables we recommend providing a high resolution workspace, providing appropriate table space, and differentiating between simultaneous user interactions.</p>

Near Co-Laborations

The contribution discusses the formation and collaboration in the VERSUS project (Versorgung und Unterstützung in Zeiten von Corona/Provisioning and support in times of Corona) as a relational epistemic practice. VERSUS formed as research project to investigate how provisioning recon-figured during the pandemic in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The researchers involved come from different yet ‘near’ scholarly backgrounds: anthropology, sociology, and political theory. Such ‘near’ interdisciplinarity poses specific challenges and frictions for a co-laborative project. In analysing our own forms of working on working together, we aim to contribute to an emergent literature that focuses on co-laboration in projects of such ‘near’ disciplines used to take their differences serious. We discuss VERSUS through the notions of a) co-laboration, working with a shared epistemic orientation (tertium) for creating knowledge for specific fields, and b) collaboration as the everyday practice of working together during the unfolding pandemic. The collaborative software Slack enabled quick and less formal interaction, yet the instant-ness of the platform created challenging situations that we then discuss as important and generative moments in the project.

AN ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK FOR COLLABORATIVE CLOUD-BASED CAD PLATFORM AFFORDANCES

Cloud computing has had an increasing influence on engineering and design. A hallmark of sites such as Github is the promise of rapid iteration and real-time collaboration. Recently, cloud collaborative software has migrated into the realm of physical product design, with computer-aided design (CAD) software platforms such as PTC's Onshape. In this research, we suppose that the effect of cloud collaborative software is multi-faceted; that this type of tool affords a number of new capabilities and behaviours for design individuals and teams. We develop a framework on how to contextualize the changes to design tasks afforded by the unique attributes of these cloud-based, collaborative design tools. We find evidence in our research of design engineers leveraging many aspects of the framework, particularly in learning and engagement with their team, and with resources available from communities of users. However, we find that real-world design engineers are not yet utilizing the full capability of synchronous cloud-platforms with respect to real-time synchronous design iteration within teams or communities.

HEURISTICS FOR COLLABORATIVE SOFTWARE DESIGN

Collaborative software (groupware) provides the means for a group of people to develop team activities. These systems provide information that helps people understand events beyond their current tasks, e.g., understanding who is participating, where they are, what they are saying, and what they are doing.