Title: Collaborative Research Visit to Essen

Location: University of Essen

Dates: 24^th to 31^st October 1998

Name: Stephen Armitage (steve.armitage@oxford.qss.co.uk)

Stephen Armitage is a Teaching Company Associate, working on a method of managing project compliance to standards. This project is a collaborative research effort between Quality Systems & Software (QSS) and University College, London (UCL) and is funded by the Teaching Company Directorate.

The primary aim of the visit was to present the work done in the area of managing compliance to standards and demonstrate the Compliance Manager prototype tool which has been developed in DOORS. The secondary aim of the visit was to discuss further work required on the prototype tool and the possibility of a collaborative effort between the University of Essen, UCL and QSS.

The majority of the visit was spent with Alexander Schomberg, discussing the application, architecture and design of the current prototype system. I met a number of times with Prof. Michael Geodike to discuss the area of work we have been investigating and the scope of work that is outstanding.

1. The University of Essen now have 4 DOORS licenses that can be used for academic purposes. A 5^th license for a laptop will be generated when the laptop becomes available.
2. It is proposed that Alexander Schomberg spend a period of between 2 to 3 months working on this project at UCL, where he will be able to get a high level of support from both UCL and QSS.
3. QSS will gain the expansion of one of their innovation tools, exploiting the academic research available from the University of Essen and UCL.