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The Future of Gamified Software Engineering Environments

Authors:
(1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica;
(2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad;
(3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad;
(4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica;
(5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3.2 Gamification model 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4.1 System architecture and design 4.2 Integration 4.3 Other functionalities 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.6 Advanced functionalities 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5.2 Design 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.5 Intervention 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study Discussion Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References 6 Discussion The software architecture for gamification we present in this paper provides a valuable tool for incorporating gamification in SE workplaces composed of many tools that support different software process areas. As we explained in the previous section, the goal of the case study was to validate if our proposal is suitable for that purpose, that is, if it is able to support a wide range of tools, if the game elements it provides are able to support the gamification mechanics usually applied in software engineering, and if the gamification of a software organization’s workplace can be done at a reasonable cost. As we have seen in the presentation of the case study, the company in which we conducted it makes use of well-known off-the-shelf tools, such as Redmine, TestLink, and JUnit, and also custom developed tools. The integration of these tools into the gamification engine was not only possible but easy in all cases. Moreover, SWComp decided to develop a single interface for its employees to see the results of their actions in the gamification environment (a web called the player’s portal), but these results could have also been integrated into work tools. For example, a development IDE, such as Eclipse, could have been integrated with our gamification engine, but that same IDE could also show gamification results live to the developers, since our engine not only gathers data about the tasks being completed, but it also responds with the results of evaluating those tasks and allows any tool to access all the information it manages. The gamification elements provided by the gamification engine cover most of the general-purpose gamification elements. That is, it allows the company to implement a direct reward system in the form of points and badges. But this reward system is combined with the engine’s social network to implement other gamification mechanics, such as levels and leaderboards. These gamification elements also allow us to incorporate other game mechanics, such as quests in which players can challenge other players, and even themselves. In addition, it serves as a basis for a continuous feedback system, since the player’s portalshows SWComp employees real-time information on how the company is evaluating the performance they obtained in each completed task. In addition, the gamification engine provides advanced gamification mechanics, such as the virtual assistant. The effort (and therefore the cost) of gamifying a work environment should not be forgotten due to its importance for real organizations. As we have seen in the results of the case study we conducted, the effort was really small, especially if we compare that effort with the effort of developing a custom-gamified tool for just one of the process areas we considered. Although not initially posed as a researchquestion of the case study, other important result can be extracted from the case study we have presented. The design of behaviors, achievements, and gamification rules provided by the framework makes the gamified work environment of SWComp very flexible. Since all the gamification logic is captured by the gamification rules, any change to the game mechanics would only require a modification of those rules through the designer’s web interface, without needing to touch a line of code either on the CASE tools or in the gamification framework. We think thisis a very valuable characteristic of oursolution. In addition to the core gamification aspects provided by the framework, the additional analysis functionalities it provides can be very useful. The social network analysis gives us an insight on how the players relate with each other, the weight of their relationships, and the existence of clearly defined communities. The sentiment analysis module allows us to detect problems in the motivation and happiness of the players from the messages they introduce in the system, or simply negative sentiments towards the gamified environment we have designed. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. Authors: (1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Authors: Authors: (1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 2 Related Work 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3.2 Gamification model 3.2 Gamification model 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4.1 System architecture and design 4.1 System architecture and design 4.2 Integration 4.2 Integration 4.3 Other functionalities 4.3 Other functionalities 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.6 Advanced functionalities 4.6 Advanced functionalities 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5.2 Design 5.2 Design 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.5 Intervention 5.5 Intervention 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study Discussion Discussion Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References 6 Discussion The software architecture for gamification we present in this paper provides a valuable tool for incorporating gamification in SE workplaces composed of many tools that support different software process areas. As we explained in the previous section, the goal of the case study was to validate if our proposal is suitable for that purpose, that is, if it is able to support a wide range of tools, if the game elements it provides are able to support the gamification mechanics usually applied in software engineering, and if the gamification of a software organization’s workplace can be done at a reasonable cost. As we have seen in the presentation of the case study, the company in which we conducted it makes use of well-known off-the-shelf tools, such as Redmine, TestLink, and JUnit, and also custom developed tools. The integration of these tools into the gamification engine was not only possible but easy in all cases. Moreover, SWComp decided to develop a single interface for its employees to see the results of their actions in the gamification environment (a web called the player’s portal), but these results could have also been integrated into work tools. For example, a development IDE, such as Eclipse, could have been integrated with our gamification engine, but that same IDE could also show gamification results live to the developers, since our engine not only gathers data about the tasks being completed, but it also responds with the results of evaluating those tasks and allows any tool to access all the information it manages. The gamification elements provided by the gamification engine cover most of the general-purpose gamification elements. That is, it allows the company to implement a direct reward system in the form of points and badges. But this reward system is combined with the engine’s social network to implement other gamification mechanics, such as levels and leaderboards. These gamification elements also allow us to incorporate other game mechanics, such as quests in which players can challenge other players, and even themselves. In addition, it serves as a basis for a continuous feedback system, since the player’s portalshows SWComp employees real-time information on how the company is evaluating the performance they obtained in each completed task. In addition, the gamification engine provides advanced gamification mechanics, such as the virtual assistant. The effort (and therefore the cost) of gamifying a work environment should not be forgotten due to its importance for real organizations. As we have seen in the results of the case study we conducted, the effort was really small, especially if we compare that effort with the effort of developing a custom-gamified tool for just one of the process areas we considered. Although not initially posed as a researchquestion of the case study, other important result can be extracted from the case study we have presented. The design of behaviors, achievements, and gamification rules provided by the framework makes the gamified work environment of SWComp very flexible. Since all the gamification logic is captured by the gamification rules, any change to the game mechanics would only require a modification of those rules through the designer’s web interface, without needing to touch a line of code either on the CASE tools or in the gamification framework. We think thisis a very valuable characteristic of oursolution. In addition to the core gamification aspects provided by the framework, the additional analysis functionalities it provides can be very useful. The social network analysis gives us an insight on how the players relate with each other, the weight of their relationships, and the existence of clearly defined communities. The sentiment analysis module allows us to detect problems in the motivation and happiness of the players from the messages they introduce in the system, or simply negative sentiments towards the gamified environment we have designed. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

A Case Study on Gamifying Software Engineering Workplaces

Authors:
(1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica;
(2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad;
(3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad;
(4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica;
(5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3.2 Gamification model 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4.1 System architecture and design 4.2 Integration 4.3 Other functionalities 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.6 Advanced functionalities 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5.2 Design 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.5 Intervention 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study Discussion Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study In this section, we analyze the results and conclusions we can extract from the case study, following the secondary research questions of the case study. 5.6.1 Tool integration Although the case study focused on the case of one single company, the tool suite we considered presented a representative example of what we can find in most software development organizations. This suite mixes custom developments with COTS tools, and it presented a case as particular as the gamification of JUnit. The conclusion we extract from the execution of the case study is that the REST API provided by the engine is feasible for integrating the variety of tools that can be used in a real company. As regards the engine, its REST API does not force them to use any particular technology. With respect to the SE tools, most of them also provide some API that allows us to access their information. Even if they did not provide such an API, we could develop a mediator that would obtain their information by directly accessing their databases. So far, we have focused on the integration of gamified tools with the gamification engine for the purpose of data gathering in the engine, mainly because SWComp made the decision of showing all gamification data to employee in a central player’s site. However, gamification data could also flow in the opposite direction, that is, the tools could get data from the engine (such as results, rewards, etc.) to show them directly to the players. For example, this would have been interesting in the project management tool, or in the development IDE. 5.6.2 Support of gamification Regarding the second research question, from this case study we conclude that the gamification abstraction on which the engine is based would support the gamification mechanisms of most companies. Actually, in the case of SC, the behaviors and rules defined did not even require all the features provided by the engine. 5.6.3 Integration effort The integration of the SE tools into the gamified environment proceeded following the design and development of the engine we have just presented. The integration took 141.5 work hours. Figure 11 shows the distribution of this effort in the three areas considered in the case study. Project management was the first one to be developed, and therefore needed a greater effort because it includes the integration component of SC-Manage. Once that component was developed, the effort for integrating the other areas was significantly smaller. The effort required by the testing area (which includes JUnit, Redmine, and TestLink) is greater than that required by the requirements management area, because of the integration of SC-Manage with the testing tools. From these results, and although we cannot estimate the effort of gamifying those tools separately, we can conclude that the effort required to integrate the ecosystemof SE toolsinto the gamified environment was low. We could also point out that, once these tools have been integrated with the gamification engine, it would be easy to add new tools to the gamified environment, since the integration component of SC-Manage is already developed and complete. 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study In order to address potential threats to the validity of the case study, we considered the following: ● Construct validity: Before starting the execution of the business case, training sessions were held with employees of SC in charge of the design and development of the gamified environment, to avoid misunderstandings about the goals or scope of the project, or about the functioning of the gamification engine. ● Internal validity: To avoid other factors affecting the results of the case study, the training sessions included general knowledge about gamification; the authors of this work participated in the execution of the case study, providing support both in gamification design and in the use and configuration of the gamification engine. ● External validity: Although the results might be different in other companies, we have chosen an organization with a typical and varied tool suite that could prove how the gamification engine can support most tools present in software development companies. ● Reliability: The use of the gamification engine depends on its technical design and features, so its application in other settings should not be affected by the particular researcher applying it. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. Authors: (1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Authors: Authors: (1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 2 Related Work 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3.2 Gamification model 3.2 Gamification model 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4.1 System architecture and design 4.1 System architecture and design 4.2 Integration 4.2 Integration 4.3 Other functionalities 4.3 Other functionalities 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.6 Advanced functionalities 4.6 Advanced functionalities 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5.2 Design 5.2 Design 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.5 Intervention 5.5 Intervention 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study Discussion Discussion Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study In this section, we analyze the results and conclusions we can extract from the case study, following the secondary research questions of the case study. 5.6.1 Tool integration 5.6.1 Tool integration Although the case study focused on the case of one single company, the tool suite we considered presented a representative example of what we can find in most software development organizations. This suite mixes custom developments with COTS tools, and it presented a case as particular as the gamification of JUnit. The conclusion we extract from the execution of the case study is that the REST API provided by the engine is feasible for integrating the variety of tools that can be used in a real company. As regards the engine, its REST API does not force them to use any particular technology. With respect to the SE tools, most of them also provide some API that allows us to access their information. Even if they did not provide such an API, we could develop a mediator that would obtain their information by directly accessing their databases. So far, we have focused on the integration of gamified tools with the gamification engine for the purpose of data gathering in the engine, mainly because SWComp made the decision of showing all gamification data to employee in a central player’s site. However, gamification data could also flow in the opposite direction, that is, the tools could get data from the engine (such as results, rewards, etc.) to show them directly to the players. For example, this would have been interesting in the project management tool, or in the development IDE. 5.6.2 Support of gamification 5.6.2 Support of gamification Regarding the second research question, from this case study we conclude that the gamification abstraction on which the engine is based would support the gamification mechanisms of most companies. Actually, in the case of SC, the behaviors and rules defined did not even require all the features provided by the engine. 5.6.3 Integration effort 5.6.3 Integration effort The integration of the SE tools into the gamified environment proceeded following the design and development of the engine we have just presented. The integration took 141.5 work hours. Figure 11 shows the distribution of this effort in the three areas considered in the case study. Project management was the first one to be developed, and therefore needed a greater effort because it includes the integration component of SC-Manage. Once that component was developed, the effort for integrating the other areas was significantly smaller. The effort required by the testing area (which includes JUnit, Redmine, and TestLink) is greater than that required by the requirements management area, because of the integration of SC-Manage with the testing tools. From these results, and although we cannot estimate the effort of gamifying those tools separately, we can conclude that the effort required to integrate the ecosystemof SE toolsinto the gamified environment was low. We could also point out that, once these tools have been integrated with the gamification engine, it would be easy to add new tools to the gamified environment, since the integration component of SC-Manage is already developed and complete. 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study In order to address potential threats to the validity of the case study, we considered the following: ● Construct validity: Before starting the execution of the business case, training sessions were held with employees of SC in charge of the design and development of the gamified environment, to avoid misunderstandings about the goals or scope of the project, or about the functioning of the gamification engine. ● Internal validity: To avoid other factors affecting the results of the case study, the training sessions included general knowledge about gamification; the authors of this work participated in the execution of the case study, providing support both in gamification design and in the use and configuration of the gamification engine. ● External validity: Although the results might be different in other companies, we have chosen an organization with a typical and varied tool suite that could prove how the gamification engine can support most tools present in software development companies. ● Reliability: The use of the gamification engine depends on its technical design and features, so its application in other settings should not be affected by the particular researcher applying it. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

How a Gamification Engine Integrates Multiple Software Tools

Authors:
(1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica;
(2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad;
(3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad;
(4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica;
(5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3.2 Gamification model 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4.1 System architecture and design 4.2 Integration 4.3 Other functionalities 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.6 Advanced functionalities 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5.2 Design 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.5 Intervention 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study Discussion Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References 5.5 Intervention This subsection summarizes the main aspects of the execution of each phase of the business case. 5.5.1 Scope and solution definition As we explained in the background to the case study, the tool suite of SC is composed of many tools, as shown in Table 7. The most important one is SC-Manage, which supports project management and requirements management, and which is a custom development of SC. However, SC also uses Redmine for issue management, TestLink for test plans, and JUnit testing. In this project, the goal of SV was not gamify just one single tool, but to include all of them in the same gamified environment. This meant that all the tools we have mentioned were taken into account within the scope of the case study. Table 7 shows the list of behaviors considered in the design of the gamified environment, along with the particular tool where the employees carry out those behaviors. All of the behaviors included in the list were simple behaviors, except for “Report task effort”, “Complete a task”, and “Run unit tests”, which were considered task behaviors. In the first two behaviors, the use of the attributes is directly related to the task. In the effort report, only the “Real effort” attribute is used, with the value of the reported work hours. For “Complete a task”, all the attributes of the behavior have been used, as in the examples we have presented in the description of the engine. In the case of “Run unit tests”, the attribute “Grade” was used to indicate the percentage of unit tests that were run without errors. The rule shown in Table 2 as an example was actually taken from the case study, that is, it is a real gamification rule used by SWComp. We do not show the details of all the rules since they do not add much to the description of the case study one single tool, but to include all of them in the same gamified environment. This meant that all the tools we have mentioned were taken into account within the scope of the case study. Table 7 shows the list of behaviors considered in the design of the gamified environment, along with the particular tool where the employees carry out those behaviors. All of the behaviors included in the list were simple behaviors, except for “Report task effort”, “Complete a task”, and “Run unit tests”, which were considered task behaviors. In the first two behaviors, the use of the attributes is directly related to the task. In the effort report, only the “Real effort” attribute is used, with the value of the reported work hours. For “Complete a task”, all the attributes of the behavior have been used, as in the examples we have presented in the description of the engine. In the case of “Run unit tests”, the attribute “Grade” was used to indicate the percentage of unit tests that were run without errors. The rule shown in Table 2 as an example was actually taken from the case study, that is, it is a real gamification rule used by SWComp. We do not show the details of all the rules since they do not add much to the description of the case study. 5.5.2 Analysis and design of the gamified environment One of the challenging aspects of the case study was the integration of the different tools of the company with the gamification engine, since it includes custom developments, along with COTS tools ,such as TestLink, Redmine, and JUnit. Of these last three tools, JUnit presents an even more special case, since TestLink and Redmine are tools that run continuously, while JUnit is run on demand. Figure 10 shows a diagram with the architecture of the gamified environment. There are two central elements in it: SC-Manage and the gamification engine. Since SC-Manage is a custom development, it was easy to modify this software to communicate directly with the engine. An integration component was developed, and used to carry out the communication of those behaviors related to project management and requirements management. As regards TestLink and Redmine, there were two design choices. Because they are both open source tools, they could be modified to communicate directly with the engine. However, they also provide APIs that allow the information they manage to be reached. In the case study the second choice was preferred. As we can see in the diagram, SC-Manage integrates the information managed by TestLink and Redmine, and communicates it to the gamification engine when it detects that some of the behaviors considered have happened. The case of JUnit was trickier since, as we have mentioned, this tool is run on demand, and does not store the results of its executions in a database. In order to integrate this tool with the engine, a wrapper was developed on JUnit. This wrapper runs the unit tests, gets the results, and communicates them to the engine. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. Authors: (1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Authors: Authors: (1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 2 Related Work 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3.2 Gamification model 3.2 Gamification model 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4.1 System architecture and design 4.1 System architecture and design 4.2 Integration 4.2 Integration 4.3 Other functionalities 4.3 Other functionalities 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.6 Advanced functionalities 4.6 Advanced functionalities 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5.2 Design 5.2 Design 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.5 Intervention 5.5 Intervention 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study Discussion Discussion Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References 5.5 Intervention This subsection summarizes the main aspects of the execution of each phase of the business case. 5.5.1 Scope and solution definition 5.5.1 Scope and solution definition As we explained in the background to the case study, the tool suite of SC is composed of many tools, as shown in Table 7. The most important one is SC-Manage, which supports project management and requirements management, and which is a custom development of SC. However, SC also uses Redmine for issue management, TestLink for test plans, and JUnit testing. In this project, the goal of SV was not gamify just one single tool, but to include all of them in the same gamified environment. This meant that all the tools we have mentioned were taken into account within the scope of the case study. Table 7 shows the list of behaviors considered in the design of the gamified environment, along with the particular tool where the employees carry out those behaviors. All of the behaviors included in the list were simple behaviors, except for “Report task effort”, “Complete a task”, and “Run unit tests”, which were considered task behaviors. In the first two behaviors, the use of the attributes is directly related to the task. In the effort report, only the “Real effort” attribute is used, with the value of the reported work hours. For “Complete a task”, all the attributes of the behavior have been used, as in the examples we have presented in the description of the engine. In the case of “Run unit tests”, the attribute “Grade” was used to indicate the percentage of unit tests that were run without errors. The rule shown in Table 2 as an example was actually taken from the case study, that is, it is a real gamification rule used by SWComp. We do not show the details of all the rules since they do not add much to the description of the case study one single tool, but to include all of them in the same gamified environment. This meant that all the tools we have mentioned were taken into account within the scope of the case study. Table 7 shows the list of behaviors considered in the design of the gamified environment, along with the particular tool where the employees carry out those behaviors. All of the behaviors included in the list were simple behaviors, except for “Report task effort”, “Complete a task”, and “Run unit tests”, which were considered task behaviors. In the first two behaviors, the use of the attributes is directly related to the task. In the effort report, only the “Real effort” attribute is used, with the value of the reported work hours. For “Complete a task”, all the attributes of the behavior have been used, as in the examples we have presented in the description of the engine. In the case of “Run unit tests”, the attribute “Grade” was used to indicate the percentage of unit tests that were run without errors. The rule shown in Table 2 as an example was actually taken from the case study, that is, it is a real gamification rule used by SWComp. We do not show the details of all the rules since they do not add much to the description of the case study. 5.5.2 Analysis and design of the gamified environment 5.5.2 Analysis and design of the gamified environment One of the challenging aspects of the case study was the integration of the different tools of the company with the gamification engine, since it includes custom developments, along with COTS tools ,such as TestLink, Redmine, and JUnit. Of these last three tools, JUnit presents an even more special case, since TestLink and Redmine are tools that run continuously, while JUnit is run on demand. Figure 10 shows a diagram with the architecture of the gamified environment. There are two central elements in it: SC-Manage and the gamification engine. Since SC-Manage is a custom development, it was easy to modify this software to communicate directly with the engine. An integration component was developed, and used to carry out the communication of those behaviors related to project management and requirements management. As regards TestLink and Redmine, there were two design choices. Because they are both open source tools, they could be modified to communicate directly with the engine. However, they also provide APIs that allow the information they manage to be reached. In the case study the second choice was preferred. As we can see in the diagram, SC-Manage integrates the information managed by TestLink and Redmine, and communicates it to the gamification engine when it detects that some of the behaviors considered have happened. The case of JUnit was trickier since, as we have mentioned, this tool is run on demand, and does not store the results of its executions in a database. In order to integrate this tool with the engine, a wrapper was developed on JUnit. This wrapper runs the unit tests, gets the results, and communicates them to the engine. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

How SC Turned Project Management Tools into a Fun, Engaging System

Authors:
(1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica;
(2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad;
(3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad;
(4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica;
(5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3.2 Gamification model 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4.1 System architecture and design 4.2 Integration 4.3 Other functionalities 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.6 Advanced functionalities 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5.2 Design 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.5 Intervention 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study Discussion Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company In this section, we present a case study on the application of our proposal in a real company. We have used the case study method, following the template for case studies presented in Ref. [29], and the guidelines proposed in Ref. [30]. We present the background, design, subjects and analysis units, field procedure and data collection, intervention, and an analysis of the results obtained in the case study. 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite The case study took place in a small software development company. We will refer to this company as SC throughout the paper. SC focuses mainly on software development, and it currently offers products sold as off-the-shelf packages, as well as custom development services for its customers. The firm currently employees 25 people, 18 of them devoted to software development. Its areas of expertise include software for business management, education, digital contents, electronic commerce, and geographic information systems. SC has certified quality management systems for software development, under ISO 15504/ISO 12207 (SPICE)[31, 32], and information security management, under ISO 27001[33]. It also has experience on software product certification under ISO 25 000[34]. The software engineering environment of SC comprises many tools. SC has, importantly, developed a custom tool for project and requirements management, which we will call SC-Manage. This tool allows project managers to register the project plans and requirement books, to assign tasks to people, and to perform project monitoring. The tool is fed with the effort reports registered by the team members. It therefore has complete information about the project management and the requirements of the project. SC also uses complementary tools, such as Redmine for issue management, TestLink for test plans,JUnit for unit testing, and SVN/GIT for version control. 5.2 Design According to the approach presented by Ref. [35], the design type of the case study is single case — holistic, since we have focused on the single case of SC. The object of the case study is the gamification engine we have presented in Section 4. The main research question of the case study was: is the gamification engine a suitable tool for creating integrated and multi-tool gamified software engineering environments? Table 6 presents the Main Research Questions (MRQ) and Secondary Research Questions (SRQ) of the case study. Our main research question directly addresses the motivation of this work, presented in the introduction of the paper. That is, with this case study we want to validate if our gamification engine would allow us to implement a gamified work environment in real software companies. Therefore, we want to validate that (1) it must be able to integrate and accommodate a wide range of CASE tools, either off-the-shelf or custom developed, without needing to replace them (SRQ 1); (2) the set of behaviors, achievements, and rules provided by the gamification engine must meet the needs of the designer of the gamified environment; and (3) the effort required to integrate the organization’s CASE tools in our framework must be reasonable, that is, it should be by far smaller than that the effort required to replace the organization ’stools or to develop a custom gamification software. As it is described in the rest of this section: (1) the case study was conducted in a real company that works with both well-known off-the-shelf (such as TestLink, Redmine, and JUnit) and custom tools (such as the one used in project management); (2) the implemented gamified environment integrates all these tools and makes use of a wide range of game mechanics similar to those already used in previous works on gamification in SE; and (3) the effort required to implement this environment can be considered really small if compared to the effort required to replace any of the company’s tools or to develop a gamification software from scratch. 5.3 Subjects and analysis units The company SC has already been presented in Section 5.1. Along with other companies, SC participated in a broader research project focused on the application of gamification in software engineering environments. The analysis unit of the case study is the gamification engine, including the integration API and the player’s site. 5.4 Field procedure and data collection The execution of the case study comprised the activities of scope and solution definition, analysis and design of the gamified environment, and development of the gamified platform. The authors of this work took part in the execution of the case study, providing support in the design of the gamified environment, the use of the gamification engine, and the integration of the SE tools. Data related to the design and development of the gamified environment were kept in the form of documents. Data were also obtained from direct interviews with the team members. Finally, data about development efforts also came from the records of the project management tools of SC. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. Authors: (1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Authors: Authors: (1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 2 Related Work 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3.2 Gamification model 3.2 Gamification model 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4.1 System architecture and design 4.1 System architecture and design 4.2 Integration 4.2 Integration 4.3 Other functionalities 4.3 Other functionalities 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.6 Advanced functionalities 4.6 Advanced functionalities 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5.2 Design 5.2 Design 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.5 Intervention 5.5 Intervention 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study Discussion Discussion Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company In this section, we present a case study on the application of our proposal in a real company. We have used the case study method, following the template for case studies presented in Ref. [29], and the guidelines proposed in Ref. [30]. We present the background, design, subjects and analysis units, field procedure and data collection, intervention, and an analysis of the results obtained in the case study. 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite The case study took place in a small software development company. We will refer to this company as SC throughout the paper. SC focuses mainly on software development, and it currently offers products sold as off-the-shelf packages, as well as custom development services for its customers. The firm currently employees 25 people, 18 of them devoted to software development. Its areas of expertise include software for business management, education, digital contents, electronic commerce, and geographic information systems. SC has certified quality management systems for software development, under ISO 15504/ISO 12207 (SPICE)[31, 32], and information security management, under ISO 27001[33]. It also has experience on software product certification under ISO 25 000[34]. The software engineering environment of SC comprises many tools. SC has, importantly, developed a custom tool for project and requirements management, which we will call SC-Manage. This tool allows project managers to register the project plans and requirement books, to assign tasks to people, and to perform project monitoring. The tool is fed with the effort reports registered by the team members. It therefore has complete information about the project management and the requirements of the project. SC also uses complementary tools, such as Redmine for issue management, TestLink for test plans,JUnit for unit testing, and SVN/GIT for version control. 5.2 Design According to the approach presented by Ref. [35], the design type of the case study is single case — holistic, since we have focused on the single case of SC. The object of the case study is the gamification engine we have presented in Section 4. The main research question of the case study was: is the gamification engine a suitable tool for creating integrated and multi-tool gamified software engineering environments? Table 6 presents the Main Research Questions (MRQ) and Secondary Research Questions (SRQ) of the case study. Our main research question directly addresses the motivation of this work, presented in the introduction of the paper. That is, with this case study we want to validate if our gamification engine would allow us to implement a gamified work environment in real software companies. Therefore, we want to validate that (1) it must be able to integrate and accommodate a wide range of CASE tools, either off-the-shelf or custom developed, without needing to replace them (SRQ 1); (2) the set of behaviors, achievements, and rules provided by the gamification engine must meet the needs of the designer of the gamified environment; and (3) the effort required to integrate the organization’s CASE tools in our framework must be reasonable, that is, it should be by far smaller than that the effort required to replace the organization ’stools or to develop a custom gamification software. As it is described in the rest of this section: (1) the case study was conducted in a real company that works with both well-known off-the-shelf (such as TestLink, Redmine, and JUnit) and custom tools (such as the one used in project management); (2) the implemented gamified environment integrates all these tools and makes use of a wide range of game mechanics similar to those already used in previous works on gamification in SE; and (3) the effort required to implement this environment can be considered really small if compared to the effort required to replace any of the company’s tools or to develop a gamification software from scratch. 5.3 Subjects and analysis units The company SC has already been presented in Section 5.1. Along with other companies, SC participated in a broader research project focused on the application of gamification in software engineering environments. The analysis unit of the case study is the gamification engine, including the integration API and the player’s site. 5.4 Field procedure and data collection The execution of the case study comprised the activities of scope and solution definition, analysis and design of the gamified environment, and development of the gamified platform. The authors of this work took part in the execution of the case study, providing support in the design of the gamified environment, the use of the gamification engine, and the integration of the SE tools. Data related to the design and development of the gamified environment were kept in the form of documents. Data were also obtained from direct interviews with the team members. Finally, data about development efforts also came from the records of the project management tools of SC. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

Software Environment Gamification in the Wild

Authors:
(1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica;
(2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad;
(3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad;
(4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica;
(5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3.2 Gamification model 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4.1 System architecture and design 4.2 Integration 4.3 Other functionalities 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.6 Advanced functionalities 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5.2 Design 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.5 Intervention 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study Discussion Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References 4.6 Advanced functionalities In this section, we describe other advanced functionalities of the engine, such as the support for customization and a virtual assistant that can provide help to the users using natural language; we also give a description of functionalities for sentiment analysis and interaction network analysis. 4.6.1 Customization This module supports the inclusion of personalization rules in the system. The administrator can define variables with an associated condition. That condition is an arithmetic-logic predicate that can use the attributes of the user’s profile. In this way, when evaluated for a particular user, each variable will return a true/false value. This would allow us to show some parts of the environment to one group of users, and not to others. The expression elements we can currently include in the definition of customization rules are listed in Table 4. Example: Using the customization variables presented, we could define the following customization rules (shown in Table 5): the first rule would tell us to search for, and suggest friends for, those people who have not reached Level 5, and who have fewer than 20 friends. In the second case, the rule would tell us to show a system tour for rookies, that is, for users that have not reached even Level 2. 4.6.2 Virtual assistant We have included a virtual assistant in the engine, based on natural language generation technologies. Its purpose is to provide help about the work environment, not with static pages, but with generated dialogues, which is closer to what happens in real videogames. This assistant has been implemented as a chatbot using Alice (i.e., Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity)[22], a natural language chatterbot that generates dialogues by applying heuristic pattern-matching rules to the texts introduced by people. The dialogues the virtual assistant can process are expressed in AIML (i.e., Artificial Intelligence Mark-up Language)[23] files, based on categories, patterns, and templates. Wedo not provide more details on how to write the AIML files, since this would be outside the scope of this paper. Leaving the internal details of dialogue writing aside, this functionality allows us to provide the players with an interface with the system in natural language. This virtual assistant can give, for example, information about the different tools and processes the organization applies in the SE environment, as well as about how to progress in the gamified environment. 4.6.3 Interaction network analysis When used in an organization with many people working together with different gamified tools, the gamification engine will receive and generate a lot of information about the behavior of the users, the results they achieve with their work, and how they interact and collaborate. This is especially important in software projects, which has motivated us to incorporate additional components into the engine, aiming to provide the administrator with tools to analyze information that would be difficult to obtain without the use of the engine. An interaction graph can be derived from the set of interaction behaviors received by the engine. The set of users of the gamified environment is the set of nodes of the graph, and the set of interaction behaviors is the set of edges. Notice that the edges are labeled, since the administrator can define different types of interaction behavior. For example, we could create an interaction behavior Collaborate, with the semantics registering that two users have collaborated in the completion of a task; that is, they have worked together to carry it out. In addition, we could create a second type of interaction behavior Helps to represent that a user has helped another user in his/her work (by providing information or knowledge, for example). This interaction graph is a valuable information asset to see the behavior of all the members of an organization and how they interact. The engine thus does not only provide a way of gamifying a workplace, but also a system with which to gather and analyze relevant information on the organization’s dynamics. This graph may allow us to identify flows of information in the company, relevant users that act as hubs (that is, they are central to the connection of many people), and even to detect communities inferred from interaction information. Figure 9 shows a screenshot of the community detection module. In this example we can see that two communities have been identified (the nodes of each community are shown in purple and green, respectively). This module provides different algorithms for the detection of communities, namely Edmonds-Karp[24], Girvan-Newman[25], Tarjan[26], and Louvain[27]. The example seen in Fig. 9 has been created from a sample of the interaction graph obtained in the application case study we present in the next section. 4.6.4 Sentiment analysis The social network included in the engine will contain a lot of information as messages exchanged between the users. This happens with messaging or chatting, or with the gamification engine, as is the case of a chat with the virtual assistant. Between users, this information will usually reflect more personal communications, with a different register from those texts written by the users in work tools, such as Redmine, for example. These social network texts can therefore show a more biased content, and so be subjected to sentiment analysis. The goal of a sentiment analysis classifier is to take a given text and classify the polarity of that text automatically into positive, negative, or neutral[28]. The engine includes a sentiment analysis module that allows the texts written by the users to be analyzed; it can then tell us their polarity. This module has been implemented using a machine learning approach[28] with Support Vector Machines (SVM), which is a supervised machine learning method. The training set (a collection of texts that have already been classified by a human) for this classifier includes an ad-hoc dataset created for the project from the database of work tools of a real company. It could, nonetheless, be easily enriched with data from other companies. The classifier currently reports text polarity with a precision of around 80%, which is consistent with the current results of the state of the art in this field. This component allows us to analyze every text introduced by the user, and to detect situations in which a user clearly shows a negative trend in his/her latest messages. These data complement the user profiles with information that goes beyond their personal data, and beyond the log of their actions at work. The output of this component is stored in the database of the gamification engine as a list of classified texts for each author. In addition, as we said earlier, the output of the sentiment analysis component can be used in the personalization component as well. This would allow us to detect users with a negative tendency, show them personalized contents, or suggest that they talk to their friends (who are also kept in the gamification engine). The operations for sentiment analysis are also accessible from the gamified tools through the integration API. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. Authors: (1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Authors: Authors: (1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 2 Related Work 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3.2 Gamification model 3.2 Gamification model 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4.1 System architecture and design 4.1 System architecture and design 4.2 Integration 4.2 Integration 4.3 Other functionalities 4.3 Other functionalities 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.6 Advanced functionalities 4.6 Advanced functionalities 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5.2 Design 5.2 Design 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.5 Intervention 5.5 Intervention 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study Discussion Discussion Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References 4.6 Advanced functionalities In this section, we describe other advanced functionalities of the engine, such as the support for customization and a virtual assistant that can provide help to the users using natural language; we also give a description of functionalities for sentiment analysis and interaction network analysis. 4.6.1 Customization 4.6.1 Customization This module supports the inclusion of personalization rules in the system. The administrator can define variables with an associated condition. That condition is an arithmetic-logic predicate that can use the attributes of the user’s profile. In this way, when evaluated for a particular user, each variable will return a true/false value. This would allow us to show some parts of the environment to one group of users, and not to others. The expression elements we can currently include in the definition of customization rules are listed in Table 4. Example : Using the customization variables presented, we could define the following customization rules (shown in Table 5): the first rule would tell us to search for, and suggest friends for, those people who have not Example reached Level 5, and who have fewer than 20 friends. In the second case, the rule would tell us to show a system tour for rookies, that is, for users that have not reached even Level 2. 4.6.2 Virtual assistant 4.6.2 Virtual assistant We have included a virtual assistant in the engine, based on natural language generation technologies. Its purpose is to provide help about the work environment, not with static pages, but with generated dialogues, which is closer to what happens in real videogames. This assistant has been implemented as a chatbot using Alice (i.e., Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity)[22], a natural language chatterbot that generates dialogues by applying heuristic pattern-matching rules to the texts introduced by people. The dialogues the virtual assistant can process are expressed in AIML (i.e., Artificial Intelligence Mark-up Language)[23] files, based on categories, patterns, and templates. Wedo not provide more details on how to write the AIML files, since this would be outside the scope of this paper. Leaving the internal details of dialogue writing aside, this functionality allows us to provide the players with an interface with the system in natural language. This virtual assistant can give, for example, information about the different tools and processes the organization applies in the SE environment, as well as about how to progress in the gamified environment. 4.6.3 Interaction network analysis 4.6.3 Interaction network analysis When used in an organization with many people working together with different gamified tools, the gamification engine will receive and generate a lot of information about the behavior of the users, the results they achieve with their work, and how they interact and collaborate. This is especially important in software projects, which has motivated us to incorporate additional components into the engine, aiming to provide the administrator with tools to analyze information that would be difficult to obtain without the use of the engine. An interaction graph can be derived from the set of interaction behaviors received by the engine. The set of users of the gamified environment is the set of nodes of the graph, and the set of interaction behaviors is the set of edges. Notice that the edges are labeled, since the administrator can define different types of interaction behavior. For example, we could create an interaction behavior Collaborate, with the semantics registering that two users have collaborated in the completion of a task; that is, they have worked together to carry it out. In addition, we could create a second type of interaction behavior Helps to represent that a user has helped another user in his/her work (by providing information or knowledge, for example). This interaction graph is a valuable information asset to see the behavior of all the members of an organization and how they interact. The engine thus does not only provide a way of gamifying a workplace, but also a system with which to gather and analyze relevant information on the organization’s dynamics. This graph may allow us to identify flows of information in the company, relevant users that act as hubs (that is, they are central to the connection of many people), and even to detect communities inferred from interaction information. Figure 9 shows a screenshot of the community detection module. In this example we can see that two communities have been identified (the nodes of each community are shown in purple and green, respectively). This module provides different algorithms for the detection of communities, namely Edmonds-Karp[24], Girvan-Newman[25], Tarjan[26], and Louvain[27]. The example seen in Fig. 9 has been created from a sample of the interaction graph obtained in the application case study we present in the next section. 4.6.4 Sentiment analysis 4.6.4 Sentiment analysis The social network included in the engine will contain a lot of information as messages exchanged between the users. This happens with messaging or chatting, or with the gamification engine, as is the case of a chat with the virtual assistant. Between users, this information will usually reflect more personal communications, with a different register from those texts written by the users in work tools, such as Redmine, for example. These social network texts can therefore show a more biased content, and so be subjected to sentiment analysis. The goal of a sentiment analysis classifier is to take a given text and classify the polarity of that text automatically into positive, negative, or neutral[28]. The engine includes a sentiment analysis module that allows the texts written by the users to be analyzed; it can then tell us their polarity. This module has been implemented using a machine learning approach[28] with Support Vector Machines (SVM), which is a supervised machine learning method. The training set (a collection of texts that have already been classified by a human) for this classifier includes an ad-hoc dataset created for the project from the database of work tools of a real company. It could, nonetheless, be easily enriched with data from other companies. The classifier currently reports text polarity with a precision of around 80%, which is consistent with the current results of the state of the art in this field. This component allows us to analyze every text introduced by the user, and to detect situations in which a user clearly shows a negative trend in his/her latest messages. These data complement the user profiles with information that goes beyond their personal data, and beyond the log of their actions at work. The output of this component is stored in the database of the gamification engine as a list of classified texts for each author. In addition, as we said earlier, the output of the sentiment analysis component can be used in the personalization component as well. This would allow us to detect users with a negative tendency, show them personalized contents, or suggest that they talk to their friends (who are also kept in the gamification engine). The operations for sentiment analysis are also accessible from the gamified tools through the integration API. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

How Gamified Work Environments Use Technology to Support Employees

Authors:
(1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica;
(2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad;
(3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad;
(4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica;
(5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3.2 Gamification model 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4.1 System architecture and design 4.2 Integration 4.3 Other functionalities 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.6 Advanced functionalities 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5.2 Design 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.5 Intervention 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study Discussion Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements A popular question in gamification is what game mechanics we can apply in gamified environments in order to foster motivation and engagement in the users. In our previous systematic mapping about gamification in software engineering[8], the game mechanics and elements which have been considered previously were identified. Table 3 shows that list of game mechanics, and how they are supported in our gamification engine. As we can see in Table 3, only one, namely “betting”, is not currently supported. 4.5 Player’s site activities in the gamified environment. Figure 8 displays a screenshot of the home page of the player’s site in a real setting of the engine (real logos have been removed from the head of the page). This application allows the players to see all the information about their activity in the gamified environment. The home page shows them their profile information, the experience points they have accumulated, the level, the percentage of points obtained until the next level is reached, a chart for experience points, a list of the badges obtained, and two rankings, one of them considering all the players, and the other one taking into account only the players immediately above and below the player. The site also allows the players to access other information, such as a map with their locations, the projects they are involved in, social networks (“Friends” option in the menu), messages, notifications, challenges, and access to the virtual assistant. The players can thus access all the information of the gamified environment in a single place. Of course, this does not prevent us from showing information about rewards in the gamified tools. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. Authors: (1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Authors: Authors: (1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 2 Related Work 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3.2 Gamification model 3.2 Gamification model 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4.1 System architecture and design 4.1 System architecture and design 4.2 Integration 4.2 Integration 4.3 Other functionalities 4.3 Other functionalities 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.6 Advanced functionalities 4.6 Advanced functionalities 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5.2 Design 5.2 Design 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.5 Intervention 5.5 Intervention 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study Discussion Discussion Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements A popular question in gamification is what game mechanics we can apply in gamified environments in order to foster motivation and engagement in the users. In our previous systematic mapping about gamification in software engineering[8], the game mechanics and elements which have been considered previously were identified. Table 3 shows that list of game mechanics, and how they are supported in our gamification engine. As we can see in Table 3, only one, namely “betting”, is not currently supported. 4.5 Player’s site activities in the gamified environment. Figure 8 displays a screenshot of the home page of the player’s site in a real setting of the engine (real logos have been removed from the head of the page). This application allows the players to see all the information about their activity in the gamified environment. The home page shows them their profile information, the experience points they have accumulated, the level, the percentage of points obtained until the next level is reached, a chart for experience points, a list of the badges obtained, and two rankings, one of them considering all the players, and the other one taking into account only the players immediately above and below the player. The site also allows the players to access other information, such as a map with their locations, the projects they are involved in, social networks (“Friends” option in the menu), messages, notifications, challenges, and access to the virtual assistant. The players can thus access all the information of the gamified environment in a single place. Of course, this does not prevent us from showing information about rewards in the gamified tools. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

How a Gamification Engine Integrates Game Mechanics and Player Features in Software Environments

Authors:
(1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica;
(2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad;
(3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad;
(4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica;
(5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3.2 Gamification model 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4.1 System architecture and design 4.2 Integration 4.3 Other functionalities 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.6 Advanced functionalities 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5.2 Design 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.5 Intervention 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study Discussion Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments In addition to proposing the generic software architecture and gamification model presented in the previous section, we have also implemented a gamification engine based on them. This implementation has allowed us to carry out a case study on the gamification of the work environment of a real software organization using our proposal. In addition, we have incorporated to our gamification engine functionalities that can be of interest for a real organization, and that go beyond the gamification architecture and model we have presented. These functionalities include a social network for the players, messaging, system notifications, challenges between players, and a virtual assistant based on dialog generation technologies. It also contributes tools for the analysis of the activities carried out by the users; in particular, there is a tool for analyzing the interaction of players, and community detection based on the interactions of the users in the workplace, along with a sentiment analysis module. This module enables detection of positive and negative polarities in the texts introduced by the players. In this section we present the details of the implementation of the gamification engine, how it supports the software architecture and gamification model presented in the previous section, and the additional advanced functionalities we have added. 4.1 System architecture and design The gamification engine has been designed following a three-layer architecture (see Fig. 7). The first layer is devoted to data persistence, and has been implemented as a relational database in PostgreSQL. The engine model contains the data access layer and the business logic we have described, comprising the management of users, behaviors, achievements, and gamification rules. A third layer provides two different interfaces. ● The administrator of the gamified environment accesses the configuration of the engine though a web application that provides an interface from which the administrator can manage everything: users, tool credentials, behaviors, achievements, game rules, etc. ● REST API provides a complete interface for all the tools of the gamified environment. This interface provides those tools with a large set of operations that allows them to access all the information in the gamified environment, and not just the communication of behaviors. For example, the player’s site does not have its own database, since it accesses all the information stored in the engine through the API. The engine has been developed in the Java EE platform, using technologies such as Hibernate, Spring, Spring MVC, and AngularJS. 4.2 Integration The REST API provides an interface for the rest of the tools in the gamified environment. By implementing this interface as a REST web service, we ensure that the platform or technology will not be an impediment for integrating any tool into the engine. In addition, since many tools that could be integrated into the engine have been developed in Java, we have created a client library for the REST API; this simplifies its use. The gamified tools cannot communicate freely with the engine. If a tool has to communicate behaviors, it must be registered in the engine with a tool ID and a password that will be used in every transaction. So far, we have focused on the data sent by the working tools to the gamification engine for the purpose of registering the player’s actions and evaluating them according to the gamification rules. However, data flow in the opposite direction is also possible, since the REST API allows all gamified tools to access all the data related to players, their actions, rewards and, in general, all gamification information (even the rules of the game). In this way, the gamified tools could also show the results of the gamification live to the players. For example, a programmer could see the result of a just completed development task in the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) he/she is using. 4.3 Other functionalities The engine completes the basic gamification model we have described with other functionalities present in classic games that are also used in gamified applications. ● Social networks: Most collaborative games allow players to communicate with their friends, or to even have an explicit social network. The engine supports this concept by providing a social network among the players, who can explicitly create friendship relationships. This allows us to, for example, show different rankings to the users, as rankings comparing their results with that of the rest of the players, or as a ranking comparing the results obtained by one user with those of their friends. Although the gamification engine currently provides its own social network, the data about the player’s relationships could be obtained from an external social network if the company is already using one. ● Messaging: This is a feature present in most collaborative games, allowing the players to communicate with their peers instantly. ● Profile information and rankings: One of the important game elements used in gamification is continuous feedback on the actions of a user; that is, the users can immediately see the results of their actions in the games. The engine covers this need in two ways. First, the achievements assigned to each received behavior are returned to the application that communicated the behavior, so they can be immediately shown to the user. Secondly, the engine provides all the tools with the whole set of information making up the user profile (personal data, level, and achievements obtained to date), also giving rankings that allow users to compare their performance in the gamified environment with the performance of the rest of the users (all users, or only their friends). ● Quests: Quests allow users to challenge other users to achieve a certain goal in a given period. That goal can be expressed as a certain number of points or badges of a given type. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. Authors: (1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Authors: Authors: (1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 2 Related Work 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3.2 Gamification model 3.2 Gamification model 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4.1 System architecture and design 4.1 System architecture and design 4.2 Integration 4.2 Integration 4.3 Other functionalities 4.3 Other functionalities 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.6 Advanced functionalities 4.6 Advanced functionalities 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5.2 Design 5.2 Design 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.5 Intervention 5.5 Intervention 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study Discussion Discussion Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments In addition to proposing the generic software architecture and gamification model presented in the previous section, we have also implemented a gamification engine based on them. This implementation has allowed us to carry out a case study on the gamification of the work environment of a real software organization using our proposal. In addition, we have incorporated to our gamification engine functionalities that can be of interest for a real organization, and that go beyond the gamification architecture and model we have presented. These functionalities include a social network for the players, messaging, system notifications, challenges between players, and a virtual assistant based on dialog generation technologies. It also contributes tools for the analysis of the activities carried out by the users; in particular, there is a tool for analyzing the interaction of players, and community detection based on the interactions of the users in the workplace, along with a sentiment analysis module. This module enables detection of positive and negative polarities in the texts introduced by the players. In this section we present the details of the implementation of the gamification engine, how it supports the software architecture and gamification model presented in the previous section, and the additional advanced functionalities we have added. 4.1 System architecture and design The gamification engine has been designed following a three-layer architecture (see Fig. 7). The first layer is devoted to data persistence, and has been implemented as a relational database in PostgreSQL. The engine model contains the data access layer and the business logic we have described, comprising the management of users, behaviors, achievements, and gamification rules. A third layer provides two different interfaces. ● The administrator of the gamified environment accesses the configuration of the engine though a web application that provides an interface from which the administrator can manage everything: users, tool credentials, behaviors, achievements, game rules, etc. ● REST API provides a complete interface for all the tools of the gamified environment. This interface provides those tools with a large set of operations that allows them to access all the information in the gamified environment, and not just the communication of behaviors. For example, the player’s site does not have its own database, since it accesses all the information stored in the engine through the API. The engine has been developed in the Java EE platform, using technologies such as Hibernate, Spring, Spring MVC, and AngularJS. 4.2 Integration 4.2 Integration The REST API provides an interface for the rest of the tools in the gamified environment. By implementing this interface as a REST web service, we ensure that the platform or technology will not be an impediment for integrating any tool into the engine. In addition, since many tools that could be integrated into the engine have been developed in Java, we have created a client library for the REST API; this simplifies its use. The gamified tools cannot communicate freely with the engine. If a tool has to communicate behaviors, it must be registered in the engine with a tool ID and a password that will be used in every transaction. So far, we have focused on the data sent by the working tools to the gamification engine for the purpose of registering the player’s actions and evaluating them according to the gamification rules. However, data flow in the opposite direction is also possible, since the REST API allows all gamified tools to access all the data related to players, their actions, rewards and, in general, all gamification information (even the rules of the game). In this way, the gamified tools could also show the results of the gamification live to the players. For example, a programmer could see the result of a just completed development task in the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) he/she is using. 4.3 Other functionalities The engine completes the basic gamification model we have described with other functionalities present in classic games that are also used in gamified applications. ● Social networks: Most collaborative games allow players to communicate with their friends, or to even have an explicit social network. The engine supports this concept by providing a social network among the players, who can explicitly create friendship relationships. ● Social networks: This allows us to, for example, show different rankings to the users, as rankings comparing their results with that of the rest of the players, or as a ranking comparing the results obtained by one user with those of their friends. Although the gamification engine currently provides its own social network, the data about the player’s relationships could be obtained from an external social network if the company is already using one. ● Messaging: This is a feature present in most collaborative games, allowing the players to communicate with their peers instantly. ● Messaging: ● Profile information and rankings: One of the important game elements used in gamification is continuous feedback on the actions of a user; that is, the users can immediately see the results of their actions in the games. The engine covers this need in two ways. First, the achievements assigned to each received behavior are returned to the application that communicated the behavior, so they can be immediately shown to the user. Secondly, the engine provides all the tools with the whole set of information making up the user profile (personal data, level, and achievements obtained to date), also giving rankings that allow users to compare their performance in the gamified environment with the performance of the rest of the users (all users, or only their friends). ● Profile information and rankings: ● Quests: Quests allow users to challenge other users to achieve a certain goal in a given period. That goal can be expressed as a certain number of points or badges of a given type. ● Quests: This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

What Does a Gamification Engine Do for Software Development Teams?

What Gamification Means for Software Projects

Authors:
(1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica;
(2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad;
(3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad;
(4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica;
(5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3.2 Gamification model 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4.1 System architecture and design 4.2 Integration 4.3 Other functionalities 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.6 Advanced functionalities 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5.2 Design 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.5 Intervention 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study Discussion Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments In this section, we present our software architecture for the gamification of SE environments. The proposal has two parts. First, we present the software architecture and its main components: the gamification engine and the software mechanisms to integrate the gamification engine with the organization’s Computer-Assisted Software Engineering (CASE) tools. Second, we present the gamification model that has guided the design and implementation of the gamification engine. This gamification model defines the gamification concepts, elements, and techniques supported by the gamification engine, such as (1) behaviors (that represent people’s actions in the work environment), (2) achievements (that represent rewards such as points, badges, or resources), and (3) the rules that establish the relationship between behaviors and their corresponding achievements. 3.1 Software architecture The purpose of the architecture is to make the task of gamifying the complete tool suite of a company easier. In order to do this, the business logic related to gamification is moved from the CASE tools to a gamification engine that centralizes and integrates it for all the tools. The basic idea of the architecture is the following: the gamified tools (SE tools covering any software lifecycle activity, such as development, requirements management, project management, or testing, for example) only have to communicate the actions (behaviors) carried out by their users to a central gamification engine. When those behaviors are received in the gamification engine, they are evaluated according to a set of gamification rules defined by the designer of the gamified environment. If a behavior is evaluated as successful according to those rules, the engine will generate the corresponding achievements for the user responsible for that behavior. Figure 1 shows a high-level view of the architecture. As we can see in the diagram, the gamification engine is the central element of the architecture, since it receives all the behaviors carried out by the software engineers and evaluates them. The engine provides an integration REST API that allows any other tools to communicate with it. This integration API includes a large list of operations that allow those tools to access all the information from the gamified environment, including those operations for communicating the player’s behaviors. Another important part of the architecture is the player’s site, which allows players to visualize all the information of the gamified environment, including the user’s actions and achievements, and also other gamification elements, such as rankings or progress charts. The main advantage of this architecture is that many tools can be included in the same gamified environment. For example, we could gamify tools, such as Jira (https://atlassian.com/software/jira), Eclipse (https://eclipse.org), Redmine (http://www.redmine. org/), or TestLink (http://testlink.org/), the rewards obtained by the players as a consequence of their actions in one of these tools would be added onto the rewards obtained from their actions in any of the other tools. If these tools were gamified separately, it would be difficult to integrate all the rewards obtained by each player. In addition, the logic of gamification would have to be repeated in all of them. However, our gamification engine provides the designer of the gamified environment with generic types of gamification rules that are tool-independent, and which can therefore fit all of them. This design choice simplifies greatly the introduction of gamification in the tools used by the software engineers. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. Authors: (1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Authors: Authors: (1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (4) Alejandro Cortinas, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (5) Ana Cerdeira-Pena, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 2 Related Work 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments and 3.1 Software architecture 3.2 Gamification model 3.2 Gamification model 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4 Gamification Engine for SE Environments 4.1 System architecture and design 4.1 System architecture and design 4.2 Integration 4.2 Integration 4.3 Other functionalities 4.3 Other functionalities 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.4 Support of game mechanics and elements and 4.5 Player’s site 4.6 Advanced functionalities 4.6 Advanced functionalities 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5 Case Study: Application of the Gamification Engine in a Real Company and 5.1 Description of the organization and its tool suite 5.2 Design 5.2 Design 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.3 Subjects and analysis units and 5.4 Field procedure and data collection 5.5 Intervention 5.5 Intervention 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.6 Analysis of results from the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study 5.7 Validity threats and limitations of the case study Discussion Discussion Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References Conclusion and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References 3 A Software Architecture for the Gamification of SE Environments In this section, we present our software architecture for the gamification of SE environments. The proposal has two parts. First, we present the software architecture and its main components: the gamification engine and the software mechanisms to integrate the gamification engine with the organization’s Computer-Assisted Software Engineering (CASE) tools. Second, we present the gamification model that has guided the design and implementation of the gamification engine. This gamification model defines the gamification concepts, elements, and techniques supported by the gamification engine, such as (1) behaviors (that represent people’s actions in the work environment), (2) achievements (that represent rewards such as points, badges, or resources), and (3) the rules that establish the relationship between behaviors and their corresponding achievements. 3.1 Software architecture The purpose of the architecture is to make the task of gamifying the complete tool suite of a company easier. In order to do this, the business logic related to gamification is moved from the CASE tools to a gamification engine that centralizes and integrates it for all the tools. The basic idea of the architecture is the following: the gamified tools (SE tools covering any software lifecycle activity, such as development, requirements management, project management, or testing, for example) only have to communicate the actions (behaviors) carried out by their users to a central gamification engine. When those behaviors are received in the gamification engine, they are evaluated according to a set of gamification rules defined by the designer of the gamified environment. If a behavior is evaluated as successful according to those rules, the engine will generate the corresponding achievements for the user responsible for that behavior. Figure 1 shows a high-level view of the architecture. As we can see in the diagram, the gamification engine is the central element of the architecture, since it receives all the behaviors carried out by the software engineers and evaluates them. The engine provides an integration REST API that allows any other tools to communicate with it. This integration API includes a large list of operations that allow those tools to access all the information from the gamified environment, including those operations for communicating the player’s behaviors. Another important part of the architecture is the player’s site, which allows players to visualize all the information of the gamified environment, including the user’s actions and achievements, and also other gamification elements, such as rankings or progress charts. The main advantage of this architecture is that many tools can be included in the same gamified environment. For example, we could gamify tools, such as Jira (https://atlassian.com/software/jira), Eclipse (https://eclipse.org), Redmine (http://www.redmine. org/), or TestLink (http://testlink.org/), the rewards obtained by the players as a consequence of their actions in one of these tools would be added onto the rewards obtained from their actions in any of the other tools. If these tools were gamified separately, it would be difficult to integrate all the rewards obtained by each player. In addition, the logic of gamification would have to be repeated in all of them. However, our gamification engine provides the designer of the gamified environment with generic types of gamification rules that are tool-independent, and which can therefore fit all of them. This design choice simplifies greatly the introduction of gamification in the tools used by the software engineers. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

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