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Sustainability is a problem that is increasingly worrying organisations around the world, which has led them to adopt sustainable practices in their processes. From the point of view of one of the areas that have had the greatest impact in recent times in organisations, the area of information technology (IT), different sustainable practices have arisen in isolation, known as Green IT practices. So, a framework that organises and establishes these practices (until now isolated) is necessary in order to implement, assess, and improve the Green IT in organisations in an efficient, gradual, and integrated way. In this study, the authors propose a maturity model based on capability maturity model integration (CMMI), through which it is intended to help organisations gradually implement and improve through different levels of maturity, the governance and management of Green IT. The validations of this proposal carried out through experts and practical cases demonstrate the usefulness of this proposal when implementing, assessing, and improving the Green IT in organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• IT sustainability and, in particular, the Green IT philosophy have become slogans for executive, corporate, and service management. • The ISO 14000 family of standards can give a great contribution for Green IT, since the best practices that it proposes are very useful to consolidate the practices and techniques of Green IT. • The proposed adaption of the ISO 14000 family of standards to IT allows organizations of all types to manage the implementation of Green IT. Sustainability is a reality and a necessity for everyone in all areas. The changes that are taking place with respect to environmental sensitivity force organizations to adopt a new approach to this problem. This has led organizations such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to develop standards that help all types of organizations achieve sustainable development, such as the ISO 14000 family of standards. However, the ISO 14000 family of standards is too generic and does not address specific areas that are highly relevant for organizations in the search for sustainability, as is the case of the area of Information Technology (IT). From the area of IT, sustainability and, in particular, the Green IT philosophy have become slogans for executive, corporate, and service management. Implementing Green IT initiatives has become a priority for the environmental awareness of organizations that want to stay ahead of the curve. That is why, in this study, the application/inclusion of the ISO 14000 family of standards to IT is carried out. The results obtained and the validation of this proposal by experts show an adequate and consistent proposal, which covers all areas related to IT. All this demonstrates the applicability of the ISO 14000 family of standards to IT through the Green IT and completes a developed framework that is useful in practice when implementing the governance and management of Green IT. Likewise, thanks to this proposal, organizations finally have a standardized guide when implementing Green IT, as well as when seeking for international and recognized certifications in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizations around the world are increasingly concerned about the environment, adopting sustainable practices in their business processes. In the field of Information Technologies (IT) several Green IT practices have been proposed, but in isolation, so a framework is needed if the Green IT is to be implemented and improved in an efficient and integrated way. In this paper, we propose a maturity model (based on ISO/IEC 15504) to help organizations implement the governance and management of Green IT gradually, as well as to improve their maturity level in this area. The validation of this proposal by experts and a case study seems to indicate that the proposal can be useful for implementing and improving the Green IT processes in organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Experiments have been conducted in many domains of software engineering (SE). Objective: This paper presents a metamodel, the Codex metamodel, containing standard concepts found in any coding experiment. We classify coding experiments as any SE experiment where participants have to carry out coding activities (construct, test, debug, and forth). Method: The paper presents results of an exploratory study that proposes a metamodel for the domain of coding experiments. Besides, we present how our metamodel specifies a real coding experiment. Results: Our metamodel for coding experiments was modeled with few elements, and it can precisely describe all coding activities. Conclusions: Our metamodel facilitates the development of a tool to support executing a coding experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the cloud computing for education (CCE) literature, and analyzes if the research is developing scientifically with adequate empirical validation. All aspects of empirical investigations covered in the literature are shown as weak, hence, the necessary scientific development of CCE requires extending its scope of interest, and involving scholars synergistically to create and maintain a “common research agenda.” Background: A need to develop research on CCE has been recognized, and considerable efforts made to create an accurate understanding of the development of its scope of interest, in terms of supporting pedagogical developments and processes for better quality of studies. Research Questions: This paper has three main aims: 1) to evaluate the scope of interest in the literature for CCE with specific reference to pedagogy and educational processes; 2) to analyze the characteristics of papers, specifically empirical studies, from the various points of view of the daily improvement activities of teachers and learners at all levels of education; and 3) to identify eventual research gaps to consider and stimulate new topics or further investigations. Methodology: This systematic mapping study review followed a rigorous, replicable process to collect and analyze representative studies of CCE. Findings: Differences are found across geographic areas in applying CCE infrastructure and technologies in educational institutions; few studies address CCE’s impact on pedagogic processes. The scope of interest in CCE is only partially covered; with empirical research being very shallow. Suggestions are made for more effective research on concerning the production and use of content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Green IT has become a vital asset for organizations in their pursuit of sustainability, but they are still disoriented when implementing improvements in this area. • It is essential to perform improvement plans for Green IT processes on a regular basis in order to adapt them to constant changes in the business and refine them to obtain more effective and efficient results. • The ISO/IEC TR 33014 standard can be applied as a useful guide for Green IT process improvement, obtaining more reliable results in this regard. Sustainability has become an important engine of change for both society and organizations. The latter have realized that sustainability goes far beyond preserving the environment and the implementation and improvement of sustainable practices is helping them to be increasingly effective and efficient in their processes and operations. One of the business areas that is evolving the most and taking on the most relevance regarding sustainability is Information Technology (IT). The well-known as Green IT not only defends the idea of sustainable IT, but also of using IT to help other areas to be sustainable. However, organizations are still disoriented regarding Green IT, since they do not have the frameworks and/or standards to properly implement and improve Green IT in their processes and operations. That is why this study addresses the problem of improving Green IT processes by applying the ISO/IEC TR 33014 standard to this area, based on a case study in a Colombian organization. The results and findings obtained through this application demonstrate the usefulness and importance of conducting improvement plans for Green IT processes when best practices are implemented in this regard. Likewise, following standards such as the ISO/IEC TR 33014 for the improvement of processes help to obtain more reliable results, as well as more effective and efficient practices and processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ISO has recently published Part 7 of the ISO/IEC 15504 standard, with the aim of determining the extent to which an organization consistently implements processes that contribute to achievement of its business goals. This new Part 7 of ISO/IEC 15504 has addressed issues related to the assessment of organizational maturity, as the CMMI-DEV model also does. Recently, growing interest has been shown towards the need to harmonize different improvement models or standards, thereby presenting an integrated vision about them. All this being so and in an effort to offer information on how the maturity levels described in these two models are related, we have carried out the harmonization of these two models. It is based, firstly, on a mapping between processes of ISO 12207:08 and process areas of CMMI-DEV, and in second place, on a matching between processes of ISO 12207:08 and ISO 15504-5. For this work, we have taken into account the latest versions of the models, and defined a suitable process to carry out the mapping in a systematic way. We established differences and similarities between the maturity levels (and their processes) described in these models, our goal being to support organizations which are interested in tackling organizational maturity. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various topics published within the issue, including one by Karl Cox, Mahmood Niazi, and June Verner on engineering practices, another by Valerie Maxville, Jocelyn Armarego, and Chiou Peng Lam on software selection, and another by Lerina Aversano, Luigi Cerulo, and Massimiliano Di Penta on open source projects.

Several models and methodologies have been defined in order to support organisational process improvement. The implementation and institutionalisation of these approaches allow organisations to improve, mature, acquire and institutionalise best practices and management systems from multiple approaches. However, there are two issues, which have to be kept in mind. On one hand, it is possible to find several similarities amongst improvement, management and governance approaches. Experts and practitioners can thereby save, improve and optimize the organisational efforts using the best parts of existing models as building blocks; they can thus be prepared to deconstruct models, aiming for their designs to meet multiple needs. On the other hand, nonetheless, there are other factors which may influence, for example, compliance, or those aspects related to structural differences such as terminology, size, process, element structure, content, granularity, and complexity, which make difficult to work in multi-model environments. This being the case, the people involved need a map or guideline telling them how to carry out the harmonisation of models and standards that have to be implemented inside their organisations. In the quest to help support the work of harmonization of multiple models, this paper presents a framework that defines elements needed for the harmonization of multiple reference models to occur, as well as its application to three case studies. The results obtained show that the framework proposed has allowed the harmonization of several models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Harmonization plays an important role in organizations that are seeking to resolve manifold needs at their different hierarchical levels through multiple models such as CMMI, ISO 90003, ITIL, SWEBOK, COBIT, amongst others. A great diversity of models involves a wide heterogeneity not only about structure of their process entities and quality systems, but also with regards to terminology. This article presents an ontology which: provides the main concepts related to harmonization of multiple models; is supported by a web tool and; has been applied for the harmonization of COBIT 4.1, Basel II, VAL IT, RISK IT, ISO 27002 and ITIL. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]