A framework for software reuse in a distributed collaborative environment

Abstract

The current software development infrastructure does not support effective collaboration. The virtual team concept has not been fully utilized because dispersed teams experience barriers from limited technology. Each new cycle frequently begin with limited experience and knowledge from previous cycles, incurring high monetary and time costs. In addition, the development infrastructure isolates phases from each other, restraining inter-team contact between functional groups. To avoid the costs of limited collaboration and fully realize the benefits of increased cooperation in an engineering project, past knowledge and experience must be reapplied. This thesis examines reusability in the software development process and the products generated in one development cycle. Reuse in supporting both temporally separated and geographically distributed collaboration in a development environment is discussed. ieCollab, a specific case distributed multi-year collaboration, ieCollab, strongly supports integrating reuse processes in the development cycle. This thesis clearly shows software reuse is collaboration.