Phase 3 of the SPICE Trials is open to the general software engineering community (i.e., any organisation or individual can participate).
Participants can include: assessors, sponsors of assessments, organisations wishing to improve their software processes, organisations involved in software acquisition, model providers, tool providers, and method providers.
A comprehensive Marketing Presentation for the Trials has been prepared, and can be downloaded in Adobe Acrobat format. The intended audience for this presentation are the potential Trials participants (sponsors, assessors, technical and professional associations, users, sw acquirers) and educational enterprises.
If you are interested in participating and would like to receive more information about the SPICE Project, you should complete an Expression of Interest form.
If you have decided to commit to sponsoring a trial, you may register as a Trial Sponsor. Only registered sponsors can record details of participating organisational units and trials.
If you intend to participate in the Trials as a competent assessor, you should register as a Trials Assessor. Assessors may submit data from registered trials to the project.
Subsequently, you will be directed to sources of current information on conducting assessments (e.g., information about courses, assessors, tools available, methods available, and extensions to the Reference Model that are available). In each region of the world there are “Trials Co-ordinators”. These co-ordinators will provide you with further local information (e.g., the availability of ISO/IEC TR 15504 and other information in a local language).
For each assessment, a new ID and password are issued. These are
used to enter the ratings information in an on-line web-based form, and
to answer the questionnaires. The Trials Co-ordinators will provide
help in completing the form and questionnaires if necessary.
Subsequently, you will receive a customised benchmarking report, and
will receive the Trials report and regular trials results updates.
Of course, participants can provide data from more than one assessment. For second or third assessments, a new ID and password are issued, and the new data is entered.
There is also a mechanism that has been provided by the trials team
for participants to provide free-form comments and feedback based on their
experiences. These comments are then summarised by the Trials team
and will be provided as formal input into the standardisation process.
There will be no fees associated with participation in the SPICE Trials
.
A model form of non-disclosure agreement that may be used by sponsors or assessors is provided as a service to participants; use of this agreement is not required by the project, and no guarantees of its suitability for its purpose in any specific context are made.
All data collected from the SPICE Trials are maintained in a secure database at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. Only a very small number of individuals working in non-commercial research organisations have access to the International Trials Database for data analysis purposes. Strict rules are applied to ensure that the data is not misused; all approved individuals provide undertakings on non-disclosure to Griffith University.
The SPICE Project Data Management Policy sets out the conditions established within the project to ensure confidentiality.
Participants agree that in any public disclosures of their Trials experience, they will clearly and accurately portray the context, expectations and limitations of the SPICE Trials activity. Any disclosures should consider making clear that participation in the Trials was voluntary, that assessors provided assurance that their assessment was conducted in a conformant manner, that the SPICE Project was not involved in any exchange of funds, that the objectives of the Trials were to obtain feedback on the integrity and usefulness of 15504-conformant assessments and of the 15504 document set, and that no stated or implied benefits would necessarily accrue by conducting a 15504-conformant assessment. If assessors and organisations are prepared to divulge data the SPICE Project may acknowledge them by name in reports and other publicity materials with their permission.
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