Development Of IBM Research Articles

Connecting Workplace Learning and Academic Credentials via Digital Badges

AbstractThis chapter explores the evolution of technology industry credentials in a rapidly changing digital skills landscape. The authors explore two interrelated case studies: the benefits of IBM's development of its own educational programs into digital badges, and the partnership between IBM and Northeastern University that articulates these industry credentials for academic degree credit.

A unifying approach to performance analysis in the Java environment

In general, performance analysis tools deal with large volumes of highly complex data of varying types and at varying levels of granularity. The result is that it is common for there to be many different tools and components that implement performance data collection, recording, and reporting in an analysis environment. This variety complicates communication within a group and makes cross-group communication about specific performance findings even more difficult. The analysis of the performance of JavaTM virtual machines and Java applications introduces additional complexity. We describe an approach that unifies the recording and reporting components of performance analysis into a single data model and standard set of reports. We have employed this model with significant success in the analysis of IBM's Developer Kits for the Java virtual machine.

'Prestige luster' and 'snow-balling effects': IBM's development of computer time-sharing

In the middle 1960s IBM responded to pressure from its most prestigious customers to hasten the development and availability of computer time-sharing systems. When MIT and Bell Laboratories chose General Electric computers for their new time-sharing system, IBM management feared that the prestige luster of these customers would lead other customers to demand the same capabilities and that there would be a snow-balling effect as more customers rejected IBM computers. IBM worked on a time-sharing product and brought it to market by the end of the decade despite greater-than-expected costs. Meanwhile MIT, Bell Laboratories, and GE worked together on a new time-sharing system known as Multics. By examining IBM's role in and response to the development of time-sharing, the article illustrates the nontechnological criteria that even high-technology companies use to decide what products to develop and market. >

Network management software usability test design and implementation

The approach used at one of IBM's development sites for usability testing is somewhat different from methods used elsewhere. The approach was developed specifically for testing of software communications products as one aspect of the System Usability Process. The test design and implementation are described.