This document presents the results of a questionnaire which was filled in by the students of the EPL-429 course at the University of Cyprus. The students attended the course titled 'Context-aware Pervasive Systems' which included lab assignments during which the students were guided to develop context-aware applications using the methodology and the middleware presented in classroom.
A subset of the students have also used an MDD-based approach for creating context plug-ins that they had previously developed manually (i.e., without the modeling tools).
Parts A and B were answered by all 12 students. Parts C and D were only answered by the 4 students who received hands-on experience with the MDD-based approach. For sections A and B, the results of these 4 students are listed inside parentheses (i.e., 'Yes 10 (3)' means that 10 students in total answered 'Yes', 3 of whom also used the MDD approach). This separation is important as the feedback from these students was evidently more credible regarding the comparison of the manual development approach versus the MDD-based approach.
| Preparation |
| Question | Answers |
| High | Medium | Low |
| B.1 - Quality of lecture material |
3 (2) |
9 (2) |
0 (0) |
| B.2 - Quality of related tutorials |
9 (4) |
3 (0) |
0 (0) |
| B.3 - Quality of additional preparation material (e.g. books, web-sites, etc) |
5 (1) |
5 (2) |
2 (1) |
| B.4 - Difficulty to understand the following concepts |
| - Identify the relevant context types |
0 (0) |
5 (2) |
7 (2) |
| - Design the architecture of the plug-in |
2 (0) |
7 (2) |
3 (2) |
| - Define the MANIFEST file |
0 (0) |
7 (1) |
5 (3) |
| - Define the service descriptor (XML) file |
1 (0) |
8 (2) |
3 (2) |
| - Define the context model |
4 (0) |
7 (3) |
1 (1) |
| - Define the code of the plug-in |
0 (0) |
8 (3) |
4 (1) |
| - Package the plug-in in an OSGi bundle |
3 (0) |
5 (1) |
4 (3) |
| B.5 - Most difficult concepts (concept + reason) |
- Context Model (2),
- Plug-in code (1)
|
| B.6 - Time for preparation (hours) |
Avg=22.8 (5.5), Med=20 (10), Min=1 (1), Max=48 (10) |
| B.7 - How much time was spent for implementation (hours)? |
19.6 (16.0) |
| B.8 - Have you succeeded to realize the plug-in? |
Yes |
No |
|
| 12 (4) |
0 (0) |
|
| B.9 - How much time was required to understand the API (hours)? |
3.5 (2.3) |
| B.10 - How complex was the implementation? |
High |
Medium |
Low |
| 1 (0) |
9 (2) |
2 (2) |
| B.11 - Which steps have been the most difficult? |
- Understand and use the MUSIC API,
- Define the plug-in code,
- Install & run plug-in,
- Manifest,
- Context model,
- Plug-in implementation,
- Package & deploy
|
| B.12 - How much help was required from the lecturer? |
Much |
Some |
Little |
| 5 (2) |
4 (0) |
3 (2) |
| B.13 - For which steps was help required from the lecturer (step)? |
- Identify the relevant context types,
- Design the context model (3),
- Include needed libraries in plug-in,
- Design Manifest (2),
- Service descriptor,
- Package plug-in,
- Context model,
- Plug-in code
|
| Question | Answers |
| Preparation |
| High | Medium | Low |
| C.1 - Quality of lecture material |
6 (4) |
6 (0) |
0 (0) |
| C.2 - Quality of related tutorials |
8 (4) |
4 (0) |
0 (0) |
| C.3 - Difficulty to understand the required concepts |
1 (0) |
7 (2) |
3 (2) |
| C.4 - Additional preparation material (books, web, etc) |
Web |
| C.5 - Time for preparation |
(3.75) |
| Implementation |
| C.6 - How many hours were spent for implementation? 1 |
(1) |
| C.7 - Have you succeeded to realize the Context Plug-in? |
Yes |
Partially |
No |
| (4) |
(0) |
(0) |
| C.8 - How much time was required to understand the modeling concepts (hours)? |
(1.25) |
| C.9 - How complex was the implementation? |
High |
Medium |
Low |
| (0) |
(4) |
(0) |
| C.10 - Which steps have been the most difficult? |
- Understand the concepts,
- Design the model (steep learning curve)
|
| C.11 - How much help was required from the lecturer? |
Much |
Some |
None |
| (4) |
(0) |
(0) |
| C.12 - For which steps was help required from the lecturer? |
All |