Samantha Jiménez

Problems in the Adoption of Agile-Scrum Methodologies: A Systematic Literature Review

Agile methodologies are focused on the people and functional product delivery in short periods of time. There are methodologies that change considerably the work habits of software developers. Scrum is an agile methodology that involves an iterative, incremental, and empiric process. Besides it is designed to add value, focus, clarity and transparency to the activities and products of a project. Nowadays, most companies are interested in the adoption of agile methodologies. Although Scrum is a light process and easy to understand, its adoption sometimes is difficult. Agile methodologies are not obvious by themselves, so they are difficult to introduce in the culture of a company. In order to identify the problems presented during the adoption, a Systematic Literature Review is performed focusing in Scrum. We found several problems, these are categorized in four groups: people, process, project, and company (organization). The results represent a basis to propose a framework to support the agile adoption.

Usability Operations on Touch Mobile Devices for Users with Autism

The Autistic Spectrum Disorder is a cognitive disorder that affects the cognitive and motor skills; due that, users cannot perform digital and fine motor tasks. It is necessary to create software applications that adapt to the abilities of these users. In recent years has been an increase in the research of the use of technology to support autistic users to develop their communication skills and to improve learning. However, the applications’ usability for disable users is not assessed objectively as the existing models do not consider interaction operators for disable users. This article focuses on identifying the operations that can easily be performed by autistic users following the metrics of KML-GOMS, TLM and FLM. In addition, users of typical development were included in order to do a comparison between both types of users. The experiment was carried out using four applications designed for autistic users. Participants were subjects divided in two groups: level 1 and level 2 autistic users, and a group of users of typical development. During the experimentation, users performed a use case for each application; the time needed to perform each task was measured. Results show that the easiest operations for autistic users are K (Keystroke), D (Drag), Initial Act (I) and Tapping (T).

An Affective Learning Ontology for Educational Systems

In recent years, education is characterized by promoting independent study through computational tools, such as Intelligent Tutoring Systems. It is important these educational systems consider affective aspects because it improves the learning process. However, the literature reports that there is no an affective model to guide the design of affective educational systems. For that reason, this work introduces a novel affective learning ontology that examines student, tutor and dialogue issues. Also, this paper presents an assessment of which elements of our ontology are taken into account in education systems such as Intelligent Tutoring Systems. We believe the findings from this research will serve as a useful reference for the design of educational systems such as Intelligent Tutoring Systems.

Architecting an Intelligent Tutoring System with an Affective Dialogue Module

The use of Intelligent Tutoring Systems has become more common in autodidactic education. There is significant work about the integration of the dialogue and affective characteristics to these systems. However, this integration could complicate the Intelligent Tutoring Systems structure. For that reason it is important to take care about architectural view of these systems, in order to organize the modular structure of these systems. Moreover, the architecture is an important element from the perspective of Software Engineering because it is a logical core of any software system. Based on this, in this paper we present a system called TIPOO, which our implementation of an intelligent tutoring system. Also we present the integration of an affective dialogue module (TIPOO Chat) into TIPOO. We describe the architecture of both systems. The design and implementation of these systems are described, looking forward making the development of Intelligent Tutoring Systems an easier, faster and standardized process.

A feedback system to provide affective support to students

Learning support systems need to provide direct and affective interaction to students; it can encourage them and improve their motivation to learn. However, several systems do not include this kind of interaction between students and tutors. In those cases, the student learning interest and motivation to learn could be negatively affected, and student profits from the system could be impoverished. Only a few works have examined the influence of written affective feedback, but these studies focused on student learning outcomes, not in student motivation to learn. The objective of this work is to analyze the impact of an affective feedback system on the students’ perception of two aspects: (i) the degree to which study time is enjoyable and (ii) the motivation to learn. Results show that the affective feedback system makes more enjoyable study time and motivates students to learn, particularly to students with low academic performance. These system enhancements eventually would improve student‐learning outcomes.

User Modeling Framework for Context-Aware Recommender Systems

Context-aware recommender systems (CARS) use data about the user and the context to enhance their recommendation outcomes, such data is stored in user models. As the is no generic data model, CARS developers and researchers need to design and develop their own model, with no model to use as reference, nor any tool that facilitate the design and development work. In this work we present a user modeling framework for context-aware recommender systems whose core is a generic user model for CARS. The framework is intended to facilitate the implementation of the models by providing a pre-implemented, working ready functionality, while the model itself can be used by developers and researchers as a basis while creating more specialized models.

Knowledge Representation in Intelligent Tutoring System

This study presents a compilation of techniques for Knowledge Representation (KR) in Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS). Shows pros and cons of each approach in order to use the proper technique according to the needs. Analyses literature related to ITS and KR to find the approaches. Highlights: Fuzzy Cognitive Maps, Bayesian Network, Semantic Networks, Graphs, among other methods. Each approach contributes with elements to model knowledge. We made a comparison of each model with determined factors. Each technique of KR provides his own vision of how the world should look. Besides, it shows what information is necessary to represent and what is important to ignore. Different approaches to intelligent reasoning lead to different goals and definitions of success.

Integrating affective learning into intelligent tutoring systems

Affectivity has influence in learning face-to-face environments and improves some aspects in students, such as motivation. For that reason, it is important to integrate affectivity elements into virtual environments. We propose a conceptual model that suggests which elements of tutor, student and dialogue should be integrated and implemented into learning systems. We design an ontology guided by methontology, and apply a mathematical evaluation (OntoQA) to determine the richness of the proposed model. The mathematical evaluation states that the proposed model has relationship richness and horizontal nature. We developed a software application implementing the conceptual model in order to prove its effectivity to generate students’ motivation. The findings suggest that the implemented affective learning ontology impacts positively the motivation in students with low academic performance, in female students and in engineering students.

An Empirical Study on Usability Operations for Autistic Children

Leo Kanner defined autism as a distinct personality disorder, a great difficulty to communicate with others. Some autistic persons show cognitive and motor difficulties. Due to the problem presented in users with autism, it is necessary to create interfaces and applications that fit the capabilities of this type of user. This paper identifies operations to perform tasks in mobile applications that an autistic child can execute with less complexity based on the metrics KLM-GOMS and TLM-GOMS. Mobile applications were tested to calculate such metrics in different use cases. The results presented in this paper show how autistics users from different autism levels perform different type of tasks; the results are compared with the model proposed by GOMS. The experimentation shows the total time in seconds that it is necessary to realize every use case and be able to complete the goal assigned for each application. Our results show that an autistic user need more time to interact with the technology; this address to adjust the classification of the operations for interacting with computer-based systems and develop applications that they adapt to the autistic user.

Affectivity Level for Intelligent Tutoring System Based on Student Stereotype

Affectivity is an important part of the learning process. Several authors integrate affectivity in ITS. However, they provided the same affectivity for all students. Authors realized that students were not benefit in the same way by affectivity. This could be because these systems provided the same affectivity to all students, and every student is different and has different needs. For that reason we propose to create a student stereotype to assign an affectivity level considering gender, academic performance and personality. Based on a questionnaire survey applied to 243 students we concluded that female irregular students are the students who need more affectivity and male regular extrovert students need moderate affectivity.