Tuesday, 14 July 2009
ICGSE'09 on Twitter
More about what's going on today, on the first day of the main conference, can be found on Twitter.
Hashtag: #icgse
We have several twitterers around, but they all seem to have gone quiet.
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
Accommodation at Dromroe Village
We were invited to choose between the other two student villages, Thomond and Dromroe. Gabriela Avram (the local organisation chair) and Miriam O'Riordan(the student volunteers coordinator) together with Dolores Hanly, the business development manager of Limerick Conference and Sports Park ,visited both villages yesterday and decided to host our guests in Dromroe village, which is the closest to the buildings where the conference is taking place.
This means you won't have to walk over any of our beautiful bridges to get to your apartments, but if the weather is good, you'll get the chance to do it anyhow.
In Dromroe, the buildings are named after trees (they have birds names in Thomond and flowers names in Cappavilla). Each apartment consists of six bedrooms with double beds, each of them with its own bathroom en suite, a comfortable living area, kitchen and TV.
The cost of a room is 58€ per night, and a breakfast basket is brought to the apartments every evening. If you want to share the apartment with specific colleagues, don't forget to mention their names on the booking form.
Ciaran's Café, a famous vegetarian restaurant, is located in the village; besides the excellent vegetarian dishes, they also serve freshly-squeezed vegetable and fruit juices and good coffee.
The village reception can help you get a taxi if you're planning to go into town or you need one for getting to the airport.
Check the map below for a better idea on locations and distances:
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
A different insight from our campus
Look at these fantastic baby herons, and check the wildlife gallery for more!
Hopefully you'll get the time to take a walk around the campus yourself when you'll be here, especially if you'll be staying in the Cappavilla student village and will have to cross the Living Bridge at least two times a day!
Monday, 11 May 2009
Lero Industry Event on Global Software Development
The event was hosted by Enterprise Ireland in the East Point Business Park in Dublin. It started with an introduction on Lero- The Irish Software Engineering Research Centre given by Dr. Jack Downey, followed by a line-up of 3 speakers.
The first presentation was given by the head of Lero’s Practices, Processes and Methods research area, Dr Ita Richardson. Ita’s talk focused on how global software development processes need firstly to be integrated into existing software process standards, such as Carnegie Mellon’s Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI) and the International Standards Organization’s ISO15504. Then these process standards need to be reviewed in the context of the regulated industries, such as medical devices, where organizations such the U.S. Food and Drug Administration insist on traceability throughout the development of products. However, while they insist that the standards applied to hardware and medicines be also applied to software, they have not indicated how this is to be done. Adapting the existing software process standards seems a pragmatic approach to take.
Following Ita, was Dr Gabriela Avram, whose research into the social and cultural aspects of Global Software Development has drawn her attention to the role of collaborative practices such as informal communication, socialisation and cultural mediation. She spoke about the various field sites where she has undertaken research using ethnographic methods. In order to give the audience a better understanding of the kind of problems she focused on, she shared a number of stories illustrating the role of instant messaging, Skype and social networking applications in day-to-day collaboration between distributed team members. She concluded with a number of recommendations, emphasizing the role of direct and frequent communication between sites, flexibility in organisational practices and cultural mediation.
Finally, Vikas Sahni of Softedge Systems provided the keynote address. This industry counterpoint reinforced what the academic speakers had presented by recounting how Softedge has been successful in its Global Software Developments by starting small and using an agile iterative approach. However, he stressed the importance of always looking ahead to the next iteration when planning the current one. This allows the architecture to develop in a smoother manner. Like Gabriela, Vikas supported all means of communicating, placing particular emphasis on Skype.
In all, 29 people attended the event, an even mix of managers and developers. In conclusion, Jack Downey and Ita Richardson spoke about the forthcoming ICGSE'09 conference at the University of Limerick, draw the attention to the workshops and tutorials, and gave the audience details about and the keynotes and the main themes of the papers selected for the conference .
Thursday, 23 April 2009
A collaboration platform for the GSE community
Lero- the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre- is now hosting a collaboration platform meant to bring together researchers and practitioners with an interest in the Global Software Engineering domain.
The ICGSE wiki
You are invited to add your own name to the people list, and also add links to webpages of your group, your projects, your papers/presentations/podcasts/videos, or any other resources you will find appropriate.
You can also add events related to the GSE topic.
For those of you who are not very familiar with wikis, please have a look at the MediaWiki User Help page.
We also created a Google Group for the use of the emerging community around the ICGSE conference. You can join the mailing list by visiting this page and using the "Join this group" button on the right.
We believe that both the collaboration platform and the mailing list could be useful tools for preparing the ICGSE'09 in Limerick and for keeping in touch afterwards. So please join in!
Saturday, 18 April 2009
Registration is now open!
ICGSE'09 registration is handled by IEEE. You canfill in the IEEE conference registration form online OR complete the printed copy of the registration form and email it/fax it to IEEE together with your payment details.
We kindly require you to confirm your participation in the social events, in order to get the numbers right! This can be done through the local arrangements form put together by Limerick Travel, our local partner.
You can book your accommodation through the same local arrangements form as well.
Alternatively, you can download the booking form as a Word document and email it to the address indicated on the form.
Last, but not least, please check if you need a visa for visiting Ireland. You can do so on the site of the Irish Government Department of Foreign Affairs.
In case you need to apply for a visa, we will issue you a letter of invitation to the conference upon request, but only after registering for the conference. On the registration page, you will find a form for requesting a letter of invitation.
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Accommodation at Castletroy Park Hotel





The special rate offered to the conference attendees is 95€ per night for a single and 120€ per night for a double room. These rates include breakfast.
Situated in the immediate proximity of the University of Limerick campus, the Castletroy Park Hotel offers excellent accommodation and leisure ammenities.