Asya Stoyanova-Doycheva University of Plovdiv Bulgaria eLSEBuilder and RFAgent – eLearning Supporting Tools in Software Engineering 1

eLSEBuilder The eLSEBuilder Application is a framework that allows the creation of dynamic and impressive presentations of business process flow, software process flow and process interoperation simulation eLSEBuilder consists of three main modules - eLSEBuilder, eLSERuntimeEngine, and eLSEWebApplication 2

eLSEBuilder Modules eLSEBuilder Web TemplateseLSERuntime Engine eLSE Framework HTML Pages JScript P-Code eLSEWeb Application Presentation Site 3

eLSEBuilder Client/Server Application Uses MS SQL Server 2000 as database Main Functions: creating the presentations generating a Presentation Site 4

eLSERuntimeEngine eLSERuntime Engine is a JavaScript based engine used to interpret a generated Presentation Site in the HTML browser (current version supports only Internet Explorer 5.0). This, in fact, is not a tool, but a library of functions, written in JavaScript programming language, used to create the ‘dynamic run’ magic. It ‘runs’ the presentation in the eLSEWebApplication. 5

eLSEWeb Application Demonstrates the presentation Has a Control Toolbox - start, stop, step-by-step, etc. 6

Refactoring Learning Environment 7 Refactoring Learning Environment (rLE) is intended to analyze and assess the code, written by students in real time, as well as to recommend to them changes in code structure, if needed, in order to improve its quality. The analysis and assessment are made by an intelligent assistant – Refactoring Agent (RA) in compliance with the rules for refactoring for the programming language Java.

rLE Architecture 8 Front-end subsystem (FES) – the environment, which is used by the students for the development, compilation and testing of the source code; Back-end subsystem (BES) – the Refactoring Agent (RA), which is an intelligent agent that assists the students during the code development. Refactoring Agent sensors effectors Local Control Refactoring Rules Base R Analy zer FES (IDE)BES (JADE)

Agent Functionality 9 The main task of the RA consists in checking the code, which is being developed by the students in FES and displaying in an appropriate manner instructions for improving its quality, in case this is necessary. Depending on the refactoring method, which should be applied, the agent could react in three different ways: Automatic Refactoring; Refactoring Proposal; Refactoring Questionarie.

Implementation 10 As a development environment we chose Eclipse It is open source It supports a powerful mechanism for interaction with external components in the form of plugins. This could be considered as a significant advantage of this particular environment which simplifies the integration of the Refactoring Agent (RA) in the development environment. The sensors and effectors of the agent are realized in JADE and they use existing plugins in Eclipse. For realization of the Ranalyzer we used existing plugins in Eclipse (JDT). The agent itself is implemented by means of the JADE environment.

11

12