Related papers: An Empirical Study of End-User Behaviour in Spread…
Most Software Engineering (SE) human-based controlled experiments rely on students as participants, raising concerns about their external validity. Specifically, the realism of results obtained from students and their applicability to the…
In this paper we consider the problem of modelling when students end their session in an online mathematics educational system. Being able to model this accurately will help us optimize the way content is presented and consumed. This is…
This paper discusses the risks and potential impacts of spreadsheet errors in scientific research data in a Neuroscience research centre in the UK. Spreadsheets usage in neuroscience, or indeed any medical discipline, is a largely…
Cybersecurity students need to develop practical skills such as using command-line tools. Hands-on exercises are the most direct way to assess these skills, but assessing students' mastery is a challenging task for instructors. We aim to…
Debugging, finding and fixing bugs in code, is a heterogeneous process that shapes novice learners' self-beliefs and motivation in computing. Our Debugging by Design intervention (DbD) provocatively puts students in control over bugs by…
Saving, or checkpointing, intermediate results during interactive data exploration can potentially boost user productivity. However, existing studies on this topic are limited, as they primarily rely on small-scale experiments with human…
Models of software systems are used throughout the software development lifecycle. Dataflow diagrams (DFDs), in particular, are well-established resources for security analysis. Many techniques, such as threat modelling, are based on DFDs…
This paper presents data analysis from a course on Software Engineering in an effort to identify metrics and techniques that would allow instructor to act proactively and identify patterns of low engagement and inefficient peer…
Errors in spreadsheet applications and models are alarmingly common (some authorities, with justification cite spreadsheets containing errors as the norm rather than the exception). Faced with this body of evidence, the auditor can be faced…
The use of spreadsheets is widespread. Be it in business, finance, engineering or other areas, spreadsheets are created for their flexibility and ease to quickly model a problem. Very often they evolve from simple prototypes to…
The development of data science expertise requires tacit, process-oriented skills that are difficult to teach directly. This study addresses the resulting challenge of empirically understanding how the problem-solving processes of experts…
This paper offers a brief review of cognitive verbs typically used in the literature to describe standard spreadsheet practices. The verbs identified are then categorised in terms of Bloom's Taxonomy of Hierarchical Levels, and then rated…
Contemporary spreadsheets are plagued by a profusion of errors, auditing difficulties, lack of uniform development methodologies, and barriers to easy comprehension of the underlying business models they represent. This paper presents a…
Our term "structure discovery" denotes the recovery of structure, such as the grouping of cells, that was intended by a spreadsheet's author but is not explicit in the spreadsheet. We are implementing structure discovery tools in the…
Developing an error-free spreadsheet has been a problem since the beginning of end-user computing. In this paper, we present a methodology that separates the modeling from the implementation. Using proven techniques from Information Systems…
To ensure the quality of a software system, developers perform an activity known as unit testing, where they write code (known as test cases) that verifies the individual software units that make up the system. Like production code, test…
Students' answers to tasks provide a valuable source of information in teaching as they result from applying cognitive processes to a learning content addressed in the task. Due to steadily increasing course sizes, analyzing student answers…
This paper describes a framework for a systematic classification of spreadsheet errors. This classification or taxonomy of errors is aimed at facilitating analysis and comprehension of the different types of spreadsheet errors. The taxonomy…
Estimating the Worst-Case Execution Time (WCET) of an application is an essential task in the context of developing real-time or safety-critical software, but it is also a complex and error-prone process. Conventional approaches require at…
This paper presents the results of a research study related to software system failures, with the goal of understanding how we might better evolve, maintain and support software systems in production. We have qualitatively analyzed thirty…