Software Engineering Rewards for
Brainstorming Online (SEREBRO)
D.F. Grove, N. Jorgenson, S. Sen, R. Gamble
University of Tulsa
800 S. Tucker Drive, Tulsa OK, USA
{dean-grove, noah-jorgenson, sandip, gamble@utulsa.edu}
Abstract. Our multi-faceted tool called SEREBRO (Software Engineering
Rewards for Brainstorming Online) is an embodiment of a novel framework for
understanding how creativity in software development can be enhanced through
technology and reinforcement. SEREBRO is a creativity support tool, available
as a Web application that provides idea management within a social networking
environment to capture, connect, and reward user contributions to team-based,
software engineering problem solving tasks. To form an idea network, topics
are created that typically correspond to artifacts needed to achieve specific
milestones in the software development process. Team members then perform
the activities of brainstorming (initiating) ideas, spinning ideas from current
ones by agreeing or disagreeing, pruning threads that are non-productive, and
finalizing emerging concepts for the next milestone. Each idea type is
represented by a corresponding icon and color in the idea network: brainstorm
nodes are blue circles, agree nodes are upright, green triangles, disagree nodes
are upside down, orange triangles, and finalized nodes are yellow pentagons
that have tags associated with contributing ideas. SEREBRO can display
threads as a series of posts or in a graphical view of the entire tree for easy
navigation. Team members also use SEREBRO for scheduling meetings and
announcing progress. Special idea nodes can be used to represent meeting
minutes. The meeting mode associates a clock with each idea type and allows
multiple users to be credited. Rewards are propagated from leaf nodes to
parents to correspond to idea support. They are supplemented when a node is
tagged by finalization. These rewards are represented as badges. Reputation
scores are accumulated by the direct scoring of ideas by team members. A
user’s post publicly displays both reward types. The current version, SEREBRO
2.0, is supplemented with software project management components that
enhance both the idea network and reward scheme. These include uploading
files for sharing, version control for changes to the product implementations, a
Wiki to document product artifacts, a calendar tool, and a Gantt chart. The
website with a video of SEREBRO 1.0, data collections, and link to SEREBRO
2.0 to view various idea nets, the wiki, uploaded documents, and any resulting
prototype development by the teams, as well as publications, including
submissions, can be found at http://www.seat.utulsa.edu/serebro.php. Guest
access to SEREBRO is available by email request to gamble@utulsa.edu.
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