CSE has been involved in applied research projects since its inception. It has always placed a high priority on research that supports the Irish software industry and that can enhance its effectiveness and capability. Current projects include:

Innovation Management Steering Committee

CSE is an active participant in the National Standard Authority of Ireland’s Innovation Management Committee (IMSC). The IMMSC is responsible for developing reviewing and advising on standards related to quality, either at a national level or international level through the International Standards Organisation (ISO).

Innovation Value Institute (IVI pronounced “ivy”)

Intel Corporation in association with NUI Maynooth established the Innovation Value Institute in 2006 to develop a capability framework for IT in organisations. The impetus for this was the perceived limited value being attributed to the use of IT in organisations. This value can be greatly enhanced if IT contributes to achieving real business value and becoming a focal point for supporting innovation both in IT and across the organisation.

The framework is being developed through the assistance of researchers and with expertise from a number of organisations in the U.S.A. and Europe, and will be represented as processes for the many IT policy and activity areas. The framework, the IT-CMF (IT Capability Maturity Framework), when applied, will enable the maturing of the IT operation so that it results in an effective internal business operation with major contribution to the objectives of the organisation.

The Centre for Software Engineering (CSE) was a founding member of this consortium of organisations and is contributing to its aims in a number of ways, such as participation on the IT-CMF working groups and on the board of directors.

For further information on the Institute see www.ivi.nuim.ie

Quality Management Steering Committee (QMSC)

CSE is an active participant in the National Standard Authority of Ireland’s Quality Management Steering Committee (QMSC). The QMSC is responsible for developing reviewing and advising on standards related to quality, either at a national level or international level through the International Standards Organisation (ISO).

The Centre is also currently involved, through the QMSC, in developing a draft standard IS900 provisionally entitled “Foundation Standard for SME Management Systems – a Management System for the Holistic Management of a Business”. The aim of this standard is to provide a systematic approach to implementing a continual improvement approach to managing its business.

Other projects that CSE has been involved in recently include:

Component Engineering for e-business (2003)

http://ebt.cse.ie/

This project developed its hypothesis that a properly layered architecture is one of the keys to building quality e-business applications that are flexible, scalable and portable. A layered architecture is one that is at a minimum i.e. the separation of interface, business and database code.

North-South Cross-border Network (2001)

http://www.cse.ie/cse_www/nsnetwork.html

The North-South cross-border network produced seven brief case studies that summarise the experience and importance of software quality to companies in the region (six counties in the North and the five border counties in the South).

ESPINODE-Ireland (2000)

http://www.cse.ie/espinode/divert.html

ESPINODE-Ireland was one of eighteen projects in European fifteen countries that promoted a range of services in software process improvement in Ireland (North & South). The services ranged from training and company mentoring through to various dissemination activities.

SPIRE (1999)

http://www.cse.ie/spire/

CSE was lead partner in a consortium of five organisations that applied the SPICE process Framework to organisations in Ireland (North & South), France, Italy and Sweden. The SPICE standard has since been developed into an international standard, ISO 15504.

One of the project’s key deliverable was the SPIRE Handbook which has been purchased from CSE by practitioners from all over the world. For more info go to: http://www.cse.ie/spire/handbook.html

ESSI-SCOPE (1998)

http://www.cse.ie/essiscope/

CSE was lead partner in a consortium of sever partners and seven associates in ESSI-SCOPE, an EU funded project that aimed to raise awareness of quality issues in software products, and to introduce some of the work associated with product evaluation which assists in improving the quality of products.

Software product quality is now being addressed in a joint ISO/IEC working group in the SQuaRE set of standard being released in 2008 through 2010.