Dimitris Stavrinoudis

Early Estimation of Users' Perception of Software Quality

This paper presents a methodology for estimating users’ opinion of the quality of a software product. Users’ opinion changes with time as they progressively become more acquainted with the software product. In this paper, we study the dynamics of users’ opinion and offer a method for assessing users’ final perception, based on measurements in the early stages of product release. The paper also presents methods for collecting users’ opinion and from the derived data, shows how their initial belief state for the quality of the product is formed. It adapts aspects of Belief Revision theory in order to present a way of estimating users’ opinion, subsequently formed after their opinion revisions. This estimation is achieved by using the initial measurements and without having to conduct surveys frequently. It reports the correlation that users tend to infer among quality characteristics and represents this correlation through a determination of a set of constraints between the scores of each quality characteristic. Finally, this paper presents a fast and automated way of forming users’ new belief state for the quality of a product after examining their opinion revisions.

Synchronous collaboration in distance education: a case study on a science course

This paper describes our experience with introduction of synchronous collaborative problem solving activities in the frame of a distance learning computer science undergraduate course of the Hellenic Open University (HOU). Groups of students worked collaboratively at a distance in order to build a flowchart of an algorithm to a given problem. The technological and organization issues involved, the first findings of analysis of peer student interaction during this study, as well as some general implications for distance education are discussed.

Modelling e-commerce systems' quality with belief networks

This paper focuses on quality aspects of e-commerce systems and proposes a method for modeling such systems based on belief networks. The paper discusses the theoretical background of the proposed model, as well as practical issues arising from its application. The basic notation and concept of belief networks is briefly presented, while emphasis is placed on the models structure and its usage. The presented model can be utilized for assessing the quality of e-commerce systems, as well as for aiding in quality assurance during the design and development phase of such systems.

EXPERIMENTAL BASED TOOL CALIBRATION USED FOR ASSESSING THE QUALITY OF E-COMMERCE SYSTEMS

This paper presents a method used to evaluate the quality of e-commerce systems. The presented method uses a Belief Network in order to model the factors and criteria affecting the quality of e-commerce systems. This model can be applied not only for assessing the quality of e-commerce systems, but also for ensuring quality design before development. It also offers numerical results for the overall quality of an e-commerce system, as well as for its intermediate factors and lower-lever criteria. This paper presents the experimental results and the data analysis that aided towards the calibration of the model, i.e. assessing an e-commerce system and its individual characteristics based on the numerical results derived from the model.

IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF SELECTED TOPICS RELATED TO THE QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF E-COMMERCE SYSTEMS

This paper provides an in-depth analysis of selected important topics related to the quality assessment of e-commerce systems. It briefly introduces to the reader a quality assessment model based on Bayesian Networks and presents in detail the practical application of this model, highlighting practical issues related to the involvement of human subjects, conflict resolution, and calibration of the measurement instruments. Furthermore, the paper presents the application process of the model for the quality assessment of various e-commerce systems; it also discusses in detail how particular features (data) of the assessed e-commerce systems can be identified and, using the described automated assessment process, lead to higher abstraction information (desiderata) regarding the quality of the assessed e-commerce systems.

Combining experimental and inquiry methods in software usability evaluation: The paradigm of LvS educational software

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology combining experimental and inquiry methods used for software usability evaluation. The software product of LeViS project funded by the European Commission (Socrates/Lingua II) is used as an evaluation paradigm. The aim of the paper is twofold: to present the results of the usability evaluation using this software as an example and to suggest a number of improvements for the next version of the software tool; and to portray the advantages of combining methods from different evaluation approaches and the experiences from their application.Design/methodology/approach – The evaluation for this experiment combined different usability methods, both experimental and inquiry ones. More specifically, the methods employed were the Thinking Aloud Protocol and the User Logging, which were performed in a usability evaluation laboratory, as well as the inquiry methods of Interview and Focus Group.Findings – In this study, usability problems regarding the L...