AUT - Stephen G. MacDonell

Professor Stephen G. MacDonell

Professor of Software Engineering, Director of the Software Engineering Research Lab (SERL)

Phone: Extn 9073

Email: smacdone@aut.ac.nz

Physical Address:

SERL, School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences (D-58),

AUT University,

Level 2, WY Building, 120 Mayoral Drive,

Auckland, 1010

Links to relevant web pages:

AUT's Software Engineering Research Lab http://serl.aut.ac.nz

Find copies of Stephen's publications (listed below) via ScholarlyCommons@AUT http://aut.researchgateway.ac.nz/

Qualifications:

PhD, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, 1993

MCom, University of Otago, New Zealand, 1990

BCom(Hons), University of Otago, New Zealand, 1988

Memberships and Affiliations:

Member, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 1991 to present

Member, IEEE Computer Society, 2003 to present

Member, New Zealand Computer Society (NZCS), 2001 to present (Associate, 1990-2001)

 

Member, Editorial Board, Information and Software Technology 

 

Biography:

Stephen MacDonell is Professor of Software Engineering and Director of the Software Engineering Research Laboratory (SERL) at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) in New Zealand. During his time at AUT Stephen has also held the roles of Head of the School of Information Technology and Associate Dean (Development). Stephen was awarded BCom(Hons) and MCom degrees from the University of Otago and a PhD from the University of Cambridge.  He undertakes research in information systems development, software metrics and measurement, project planning, estimation and management, software forensics, and the application of empirical analysis methods to software engineering data sets. He is a Member of the IEEE Computer Society and the ACM, and serves on the Editorial Board of Information and Software Technology.

Teaching Areas:

Stephen teaches mainly in the areas of information systems development, project management, software engineering and software measurement, and information technology research methods.

Research areas:

Stephen undertakes research in information systems development, software metrics and measurement, project planning, estimation and management, software forensics, and the application of empirical analysis methods to software engineering data sets. Stephen also has a strong interest in the form and nature of software engineering - is it a discipline, a science, a profession? With Andrew Gray and Dennis Frailey, Stephen has authored a chapter on software engineering management in the Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK).

Current Research Projects:

Much of Stephen’s research has focused on empirical software project management - the use of statistical, machine-learning and knowledge-based methods in the planning, estimation, monitoring and control of software processes and projects, often in conjunction with expert-judgment approaches.  The emphasis is always on supporting the people involved - how and why they work, individually and collectively, to develop, manage, deliver and use software systems.

 

Stephen's new research programme addresses the growing diversity of information ecosystems and the need to consider, model and understand such systems in new ways - they are not fixed, engineered objects that can be tightly controlled; rather, they are evolving, complex, interactive, data-rich and highly contextual.

  

He also has an interest in the area of autonomic computing research and the implications of this for software engineering. In particular, the prospects for software systems to be adaptive and self-sustaining requires new development models and methods.

 

Stephen's research on software processes and software projects has attracted significant external funding, supporting the work of numerous postdoctoral researchers and postgraduate students. 

 

Further information on Stephen's research can be found at the website of AUT's Software Engineering Research Lab (SERL): http://serl.aut.ac.nz

Publications:

Publications since 2006:

 

Journal papers:

·         Felizardo, K.R., MacDonell, S.G., Mendes, E., & Maldonado, J.C. (2012) A systematic mapping on the use of visual data mining to support the conduct of systematic literature reviews, Journal of Software 7(2), pp.450-461. doi:10.4304/jsw.7.2.450-461

·         McLeod, L., Doolin, B., & MacDonell, S.G. (2012) A perspective-based understanding of project success, Project Management Journal 43(5), pp.68-86. doi:10.1002/pmj.21290

·         Shepperd, M., & MacDonell, S.G. (2012) Evaluating prediction systems in software project estimation, Information and Software Technology 54(8), pp.820-827. doi:10.1016/j.infsof.2011.12.008

·         Clear, T., & MacDonell, S.G. (2011) Understanding technology use in global virtual teams: research methodologies and methods, Information and Software Technology 53(9), pp.994-1011. doi:10.1016/j.infsof.2011.01.011

·         Frantzeskou, G., MacDonell, S.G., Stamatatos, E., Georgiou, S., & Gritzalis, S. (2011) The significance of user-defined identifiers in Java source code authorship identification, International Journal of Computer Systems Science and Engineering 26(2), pp.139-148.

 ·         McLeod, L., & MacDonell, S.G. (2011) Factors that affect software systems development project outcomes: a survey of research, ACM Computing Surveys 43(4), pp.24-56. doi:10.1145/1978802.1978803

·         McLeod, L., MacDonell, S.G., & Doolin, B. (2011) Qualitative research on software development: a longitudinal case study methodology, Empirical Software Engineering 16(4), pp.430-459. doi:10.1007/s10664-010-9153-5

·         Connor, A.M., Limbu, D.K., MacDonell, S.G., & Pears, R. (2010) Improving web information retrieval using shared contexts, International Journal of Information Sciences and Computer Engineering 1(2), pp.26-35.

·         MacDonell, S., Shepperd, M., Kitchenham, B., & Mendes, E. (2010) How reliable are systematic reviews in empirical software engineering? IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 36(5), pp.676-687. doi:10.1109/TSE.2010.28

·         McLeod, L., MacDonell, S.G., & Doolin, B. (2009) IS development practice in New Zealand organisations, Journal of Research and Practice in Information Technology 41(1), pp.29-50.

·         Wang, Y., Song, Q., MacDonell, S., Shepperd, M., & Shen, J. (2009) Integrate the GM(1,1) and Verhulst models to predict software stage effort, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics - Part C: Applications and Reviews 39(6), pp.647-658. doi:10.1109/TSMCC.2009.2020690

·         Frantzeskou, G., MacDonell, S.G., Stamatatos, E., & Gritzalis, S. (2008) Examining the significance of high-level programming features in source code author classification, Journal of Systems and Software 81(3), pp.447-460. doi:10.1016/j.jss.2007.03.004

·         McLeod, L., MacDonell, S.G., & Doolin, B. (2007) User participation in contemporary IS development: an IS management perspective, Australasian Journal of Information Systems 15(1), pp.113-136.

·         McLeod, L., MacDonell, S.G., & Doolin, B. (2007) Standard method use in contemporary IS development: an empirical investigation, Journal of Systems and Information Technology 9(1), pp.6-29. 

 

Full conference papers:

·         Bosu, M.F., & MacDonell, S.G. (2013) Data quality in empirical software engineering: a targeted review in Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE2013). Porto de Galinhas, Brazil, ACM Press, pp.171-176. 

·         Bosu, M.F., & MacDonell, S.G. (2013) A taxonomy of data quality challenges in empirical software engineering, in Proceedings of the 22nd Australasian Software Engineering Conference (ASWEC2013). Melbourne, Australia, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.TBC.

·         Licorish, S.A., & MacDonell, S.G. (2013) Adopting softer approaches in the study of repository data: a comparative analysis, in Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE2013). Porto de Galinhas, Brazil, ACM Press, pp.240-245. 

·         Licorish, S.A., & MacDonell, S.G. (2013) Differences in Jazz project leaders’ competencies and behaviors: a preliminary empirical investigation, in Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE). San Francisco CA, USA, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.TBC.

·         Licorish, S.A., & MacDonell, S.G. (2013) How do globally distributed agile teams self-organise? Initial insights from a case study, in Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering (ENASE2013). Angers, France, SCITEPRESS, pp.TBC. 

·         Licorish, S.A., & MacDonell, S.G. (2013) The true role of active communicators: an empirical study of Jazz core developers, in Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE2013). Porto de Galinhas, Brazil, ACM Press, pp.228-239.

·         Licorish, S.A., & MacDonell, S.G. (2013) What can developers’ messages tell us? A psycholinguistic analysis of Jazz teams’ competencies and behavior patterns, in Proceedings of the 22nd Australasian Software Engineering Conference (ASWEC2013). Melbourne, Australia, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.TBC. 

·         Raza, B., MacDonell, S.G., & Clear, T. (2013) Topics and treatments in global software engineering research – a systematic snapshot, in Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering (ENASE2013). Angers, France, SCITEPRESS, pp.TBC. 

·         Clear, T., Hussain, W., & MacDonell, S.G. (2012) The many facets of distance and space: the mobility of actors in globally distributed project teams, in Proceedings of the 2012 International Conference on Global Software Engineering (ICGSE 2012). Porto Alegre, Brazil, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.144-148.

·         Kaskenpalo, P., & MacDonell, S.G. (2012) Valuing evaluation: methodologies to bridge research and practice, in Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Evidential Assessment of Software Technologies (EAST2012). Lund, Sweden, ACM Press (Invited Paper), pp.27-32.

·         Licorish, S.A., & MacDonell, S.G. (2012) What affects team behavior? Preliminary linguistic analysis of communications in the Jazz repository, in Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE). Zurich, Switzerland, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.83-89.

·         Schmidt, F., MacDonell, S.G., & Connor, A.M. (2012) An automatic architecture reconstruction and refactoring framework, in Proceedings of the 9th ACIS International Conference on Software Engineering Research, Management and Applications (SERA2011). Baltimore MD, USA, Springer (Studies in Computational Intelligence v.377), pp.95-111.

·         Tahir, A., & MacDonell, S.G. (2012) A systematic mapping study on dynamic metrics and software quality, in Proceedings of the 28th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM2012). Riva del Garda, Italy, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.326-335.

·         Buchan, J., Li, L., & MacDonell, S.G. (2011) Causal factors, benefits and challenges of test-driven development: practitioner perceptions, in Proceedings of the 18th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC2011). Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.405-413.

·         Felizardo, K.R., Riaz, M., Sulayman, M., Mendes, E., MacDonell, S.G., & Maldonado, J.C. (2011) Analysing the use of graphs to represent the results of systematic reviews in software engineering, in Proceedings of the 25th Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering (SBES 2011). São Paulo, Brazil, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.174-183.

·         Felizardo, K.R., Salleh, N., Martins, R.M., Mendes, E., MacDonell, S.G., & Maldonado, J.C. (2011) Using visual text mining to support the study selection activity in systematic literature reviews, in Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement. Banff, Canada, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.26-35.

·         MacDonell, S.G. (2011) The impact of sampling and rule set size on generated fuzzy inference system predictive accuracy: analysis of a software engineering data set, in Proceedings of the 12th Engineering Applications of Neural Networks (EANN)/7th Artificial Intelligence Applications and Innovations (AIAI) Joint Conferences. Corfu, Greece, Springer (IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, v.364), pp.360-369.

·         Clear, T., & MacDonell, S.G. (2010) Beyond ‘Temponomics’ - the many dimensions of time in globally distributed project teams, in Proceedings of the 2010 International Conference on Global Software Engineering (ICGSE 2010). Princeton NJ, USA, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.297-304.

·         MacDonell, S.G., & Shepperd, M. (2010) Data accumulation and software effort prediction, in Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement. Bolzano-Bozen, Italy, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp. in ACM DL. (Awarded Best Short Paper)

·         McLeod, L., & MacDonell, S.G. (2010) Stakeholder perceptions of software project outcomes: an industry case study, in Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement. Bolzano-Bozen, Italy, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp. in ACM DL. 

·         Petrova, K., & MacDonell, S.G. (2010) Mobile services and applications: towards a balanced adoption model, in Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Mobile Ubiquitous Computing, Systems, Services and Technologies (UBICOMM 2010). Florence, Italy, IARIA/XPS, pp.182-188.

·         Buchan, J., Ekadharmawan, C.H., & MacDonell, S.G. (2009) Insights into domain knowledge sharing in software development practice in SMEs, in Proceedings of the 16th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC2009). Penang, Malaysia, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.93-100.

·         Kirk, D., & MacDonell, S. (2009) A simulation framework to support software project (re)planning, in Proceedings of the 35th Euromicro Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA) Conference. Patras, Greece, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.285-292.

·         Kirk, D., & MacDonell, S. (2009) A systems approach to software process improvement in small organisations, in Proceedings of the 16th European Software Process Improvement and Innovation (EuroSPI) Conference. Alcala, Spain, Delta/Publizon, pp.2.21-30.

·         Kirk, D.C, MacDonell, S.G., & Tempero, E. (2009) Modelling software processes - a focus on objectives, in Proceedings of the Onward!2009 Conference. Orlando FL, USA, ACM Press, pp.941-948.

·         Licorish, S., Philpott, A., & MacDonell, S.G. (2009) A prototype tool to support extended team collaboration in agile project feature management, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Engineering Theory and Practice (SETP-09).Orlando FL, USA, ISRST, pp.105-112.

·         Licorish, S., Philpott, A., & MacDonell, S.G. (2009) Supporting agile team composition: a prototype tool for identifying personality (in)compatibilities, in Proceedings of the ICSE Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE).Vancouver BC, Canada, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.66-73.

·         Limbu, D.K., Connor, A.M., Pears, R., & MacDonell, S.G. (2009) Improving web search using contextual retrieval, in Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG). Las Vegas NV, USA, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.1329-1334.

·         Bacic, B., Kasabov, N.K., MacDonell, S.G., & Pang, S. (2008) Evolving connectionist systems for adaptive sport coaching, in Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Neural Information Processing (ICONIP'07). Kitakyushu, Japan, Springer (Lecture Notes in Computer Science v.4985), pp.416-425.

·         Deng, K., & MacDonell, S.G. (2008) Maximising data retention from the ISBSG repository, in Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE2008). Bari, Italy, British Computer Society, pp. on CD-ROM.

·         Holder, S., Buchan, J., & MacDonell, S.G. (2008) Towards a metrics suite for object-relational mappings, in Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Model-Based Software and Data Integration. Berlin, Germany, Springer (Communications in Computer and Information Science v.8), pp.43-54.

·         MacDonell, S.G., Kirk, D., & McLeod, L. (2008) Raising healthy software systems, in Proceedings of the Fourth International ERCIM Workshop on Software Evolution and Evolvability at the 23rd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering. L'Aquila, Italy, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.21-24.

·         MacDonell, S.G., & Shepperd, M.J. (2007) Comparing local and global software effort estimation models – reflections on a systematic review, in Proceedings of the 1st International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement. Madrid, Spain, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.401-409. 

·         Connor, A.M., & MacDonell, S.G. (2006) Using historical data in stochastic estimation of software project duration, in Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Conference of the National Advisory Committee on Computing Qualifications (NACCQ'06). Wellington, New Zealand, NACCQ, pp.53-59.

·         Limbu, D.K., Connor, A.M., Pears, R., & MacDonell, S.G. (2006) Contextual relevance feedback in web information retrieval, in Proceedings of the 1st International Symposium on Information Interaction in Context (IIiX). Copenhagen, Denmark, ACM Press, pp.138-143.

·         Limbu, D.K., Pears, R., Connor, A.M., & MacDonell, S.G. (2006) Contextual and concept-based interactive query expansion, in Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Conference of the National Advisory Committee on Computing Qualifications (NACCQ'06). Wellington, New Zealand, NACCQ, pp.151-155.

·         Min, K., MacDonell, S.G., & Moon, Y.-J. (2006) Heuristic and rule-based knowledge acquisition: classification of numeral strings in text, inProceedings of the 2006 Pacific Rim Knowledge Acquisition Workshop (PKAW 2006). Guilin, China, Springer (Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence v.4303), pp.40-50.  

 

 Book chapters:

·         Frantzeskou, G., MacDonell, S.G., & Stamatatos, E. (2010) Source code authorship analysis for supporting the cybercrime investigation process. In Handbook of Research on Computational Forensics, Digital Crime and Investigation: Methods and Solutions. C.-T. Li (ed.), IGI Global, pp.470-495 [ISBN 978-1-60566-836-9].

·         Kasabov, N.K., Song, Q., Benuskova, L., Gottgtroy, P., Jain, V., Verma, A., Havukkala, I., Rush, E., Pears, R., Tjahjana, A., Hu, Y., & MacDonell, S.G. (2008) Integrating local and personalised modelling with global ontology knowledge bases for biomedical and bioinformatics decision support. In Computational Intelligence in Biomedicine and Bioinformatics. T.G. Smolinski, M.G. Milanova and A.-E. Hassanien (eds.), Springer-Verlag, pp.93-116 [ISBN 978-3-540-70776-9].

·         Gottgtroy, P., Kasabov, N.K., & MacDonell, S.G. (2006) Evolving ontologies for intelligent decision support. In Fuzzy Logic and the Semantic Web. E. Sanchez (ed.), Elsevier, pp.415-439 [ISBN 0-444-51948-3].

 

Awards:

EPSRC Visiting Professor, Bournemouth University, 2005

Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Otago, 1993

Commonwealth Student Bursary, Clare College, Cambridge, 1991-1992

Prince of Wales Scholarship, Cambridge Commonwealth Trust, 1990-1992

Research Scholarship, British Telecom, 1990-1992