Minutes of 5th RENOIR Executive Board
Friday 9 January 1998,
University College London 

Present:

 

1       Minutes

The minutes of the 4th Executive Board (25 September 97) were approved. The Board wished to show its gratitude to Dr Stephen Morris for his efforts in co-ordinating the project during its life at the City University.
 

2        Director's Report

2.1 Transfer to UCL

The Director reported that RENOIR has now been fully transferred to its new home at University College London, with Dr G Galal substituting Dr Morris as co-ordinator.

2.2 Proactivity of the Network

The Director reported that he felt that the Network has been so far very reactive, but not sufficiently proactive. He also reported that the profile of the Network is quite high, with an increasingly diverse group from both the academia and industry participating in or benefiting from RENOIR sponsored events, such as the BCS-organised RE Day held in London on 30th September 1997 (it was noted here that the next RE Day will be a Europe-wide one, planned for September 1998). The RE Day proved to be a very successful and exciting event with around 200 attendants from the UK industry. Additionally, RENOIR is involved with the facilitation or the sponsorship of a number of community events, such as the recent IWSSD Programme Committee meeting. Nevertheless, not enough of the Members are reaching out to the industry, or to organisations that have requirements engineering problems. He also noted that the Network has a significant amount of underspent funding. The Director suggested that it would be good to see that surplus being utilised in recruiting individuals who become dedicated to carrying the industrial liaison aspect of the programme forward.
 

2.3 Comission's Perspective

Mr David Cornwell (CEC) explained at this point that the Commission’s knowledge of the major successes of the Network is particularly important for garnering further EC support for the
discipline in the future. Therefore, major achievements need to be carefully reported. At this point, it was suggested and agreed that ashort summary of the Network’s achievement is produced.                                                              
Action ACWF

3       Communications

Wolfgang Emmerich reported that the RENOIR web site and the mailing lists have now been completely transferred the UCL, with an automatic transfer message set up at the old City web site. Also, all updates to membership information have been made. It was also reported that an “Events of Interest” page is now in place to make the RENOIR web pages more informative to Members.

t was noted that a mechanism for directly mailing the individuals based at Members’ sites, rather than through the contact persons was desired. This is to help distribute calls for participation etc. quickly to interested researchers. It was agreed that a suitable technical solution will be pursued.
Action WE

3.3 It was agreed that small-scale Member meetings will be advertised to
the rest of the Network, and the local co-ordinator asked if (and how
many) other RENOIR members may attend as observers.
Action GHG

 

4       Membership

It was agreed that the creation of an Affiliate membership category was unnecessary, as the EC rules permit the incorporation of members from outside the EU, provided that the Commission’s approval was obtained.

Three new applications for membership were received, and the formal documentation for JRC-ISIS (referred to in the previous Board meeting minutes as ISPRA) were also received. The Board has decided to accept the documents of the latter. The membership applications were discussed
and the following were admitted to the membership of the Network:

5       Funding

G. Galal reported that since the last meeting, the Director has approved 26 bids, totalling 18,756 ECU in value. 13 of these bids related to the recent PhD mini workshop.

The Board discussed two bids for funding that exceeded 1200 ECU each. The following was decided:

Action GHG/JRC/ACWF

At this point Mr David Cornwell (CEC) reminded the Board that the Network is not allowed to fund activities that aim at producing full project proposals, as this would constitute an unfair advantage for
Network members over other institutions. He also indicated that although funding to conduct research in Requirements Engineering is not allowed, funding for research about Requirements Engineering, such as tool and method surveys, questionnaires etc. is allowed.

The Budget for the second year of the project (ending 31st May 1998) was submitted to the Board. The Board requested that the category of “Other” should be spelt out in more detail in the future.
Action GHG

The Director noted that two more appointments at the Research Assistant level were planned, and invited members of the Board to pass nominations of suitable candidates on to him.
 

6. Progress of the Executive and Committee initiatives

6.1 Road Map

The Director reported that little progress has been made since the last board on the Road Map initiative, largely because it needs a dedicated person to do it. Therefore, a researcher will be hired to assist in this task. He also indicated that talks about this initiative with Prof. Kevin Ryan (Res. Coord.) and Mr Paul Gough (Industrial Liaison). The Director indicated that there was a need to talk to other directors of similar networks in other areas. The Director also reported that Road Mapping -as developed by Motorola- is a sophisticated technique for technology planning, and that applying the technique as originally developed engenders a number of difficult predictions about the nature
of Requirements Engineering. The Board agreed that a first version of the Road Map needs to be put on the web, and that a discussion group of some form should be started on the web to enhance the input to the activity.
Action ACWF

As a source of further support, it was suggested that a tool for document management in a group (BSCW - Basic Support for Co-operative Work) be used in the activities leading up to the Road Map. It was agreed that the administration team will investigate and report on this.
 Action ACWF/WE/GHG

6.2 Road Show

A dedicated researcher will be hired to progress this initiative. The Director stressed that the nature of the Road Show is a training event that RENOIR takes out to the industry.
Action ACWF

6.3 Research Training

Prof. Michael Goedicke reported that the PhD mini-workshop in Dortmund has been a success, with 20 participants from various EU countries. The experts who attended the workshop included Professors Dan Berry, Kevin Ryan,  Eric Dubois and Drs Klaus Pohl,Bashar Nuseibeh and  Mr David Till. The workshop reader will be later added to the web. There will be another mini-workshop, probably during the fourth quarter of 1998.

The Research Training Database is ready to run and should be running in the next few days.

The Summer School is intended to run during September 1998, the venue is yet to be decided.
Action MG

6.4 Industrial Liaison

It was felt that contacts with the industry should discuss RE technology transfer and training agendas. It is intended that the industrial nodes of the Network are gathered in a meeting, and that such a meeting should be owned by the industrial, rather than the academic side. It is also intended that a schedule of visits for industrial partners is acted upon by the prospective appointee to the programme.

The Board recognised that there are two types of industrial contacts that can be initiated: one intended for the mass of industry, the other for the companies which are more sophisticated in the area of requirements engineering, such as Alcatel, Nokia, Ericsson, and GTE. GTE will be consulted on the content in its capacity as a RENOIR member.

The idea of a day on the “The Real Problem in Requirements Engineering” was proposed. It was agreed that a proposal will be made and the industrial nodes of the network will be asked if they are interested.
Action GHG

Prof. Dan Berry summarised a presentation on RENOIR that he prepared for the purposes of the Road Show. The presentation is meant to be available for RENOIR members to use in their liaison with the industry. He explained how the slides may be selected to give 20, 30, 40 or 60 minutes presentations. Members of the Board were asked to go through these slides to debug them and report to him accordingly. It was decided that until the presentation is reviewed, it should be put in a private
area of the Web. It was proposed that a BSCW conference could be set up with a link to this set of presentation slides. Prof. Berry was warmly thanked for volunteering to produce this presentation.
 

7. Infrastructure

A report from the Infrastructure Committee on its work on potential for using internet-based video conferencing within the RENOIR network was presented to the Board. The report contained the results of the first task of the feasibility study being undertaken by the committee. The first task of the feasibility study is concerned with the analysis of the current situation of RENOIR nodes via a questionnaire, which had a response rate of 51%. It was decided that an experiment to link two nodes together should be started, and that Politecnico di Milano is delegated to incur extra labour costs deemed necessary for this task on behalf of RENOIR.

At this point it was suggested and agreed that the team looked at a way of economically advertising changes to web pages to the network Members.
Action WE
 

8. Administrative matters

The co-ordinator reported that he is to request all expense claimants to use a standard claims form (available from the web), the design of which is to be reviewed periodically to simplify the claiming procedures.

It was agreed that the Network co-ordinator looks into the simplification of expense claiming procedures, possibly through the introduction of a per-diem rate to cover local transport and sustenance expenses.
Action GHG
 

9. Future meetings

It was agreed that the sixth board meeting should be held towards the end of or during April 1998, with candidate periods being 20th March to 4th April 1998, or 20-25th April 1998. These dates coincide with other RE community events. The administrative team is to finalise the date and inform the Board accordingly. [Meeting date decided to be 20th April 1998, after the IWSSD and at the beginning of ICSE]

It was also decided that the seventh meeting should take place during June 1998 to coincide with other RE community events. The administrative team is to finalise the date and inform the Board of the precise date of this meeting.
Action GHG
 

10. Any other business

There was no other business.

 

Last up-date: 30 July 1998