Brief history

Early days at INESC/IST (1993-1998)

QUASAR roots can be traced back to the creation by Fernando Brito e Abreu of the MOOD (Metrics for Object Oriented Design) Team at the Information Systems Group at INESC, where he was engaged on his PhD research work. INESC ( Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering) is a not for profit institution, mainly owned by Instituto Superior Técnico of the Lisbon Technical University and Portugal Telecom , dedicated to advanced research and development in the domains of electronics, telecommunications and information technologies. Fernando was then a lecturer at the Department of Mathematics of the Economics and Management Institute of the Lisbon Technical University (ISEG/UTL) and started researching how Econometric models could be used on software engineering project management and software quality assessment and improvement, based upon his previous experience as entrepreneur in a software startup (EcoSoft), where he managed the technical department. He found that previous technical literature was focused on the procedural paradigm, thus opening an important niche for the then emerging object-oriented (OO) paradigm. Since the starting point for any Econometric model are their explanatory variables, Fernando first proposal was a set of metrics (the so-called MOOD set) that guaranteed both a good coverage of OO design features such as inheritance, polymorphism, information hiding and coupling, along with a formal definition on a percentage scale that allowed language and size independence, thus fostering comparability. Several undergraduate students from IST/UTL, like Miguel Goulão, Rita Esteves, Luis Ochoa and Pedro Catelas worked with Fernando at INESC on this MOOD Team. Miguel joined him as an assistant lecturer at ISEG/UTL to become later his first PhD student and now his fellow researcher. Miguel Goulão can thus fairly be considered a co-founder of the QUASAR research group.

Around 1995, Rogério Carapuça, the leader of the Information Systems Group, left INESC to embrace the leadership of what would become the largest Portuguese software house, Novabase. Pedro Sousa then headed the creation of the Software Engineering Group at INESC, where the MOOD Team became moored. During this period, we pioneered the introduction of Experimental Software Engineering (ESE) practices in the Portuguese software industry (e.g. Portugal Telecom , Portuguese Navy ).

QUASAR settles at Nova (1999-2001)

By suggestion of his PhD co-supervisor, Pedro Guerreiro (the other was José Tribolet from IST/UTL), Fernando applied for and won a position as assistant professor at the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the New University of Lisbon (FCT/UNL). Miguel Goulão followed the same way shortly after. Our research group then adopted the designation QUASAR , an acronym for QU antitative A pproaches in Software Engineering And R eengineering. The QUASAR group then became attached to the Research Center for Informatics and Information Technologies ( CITI), a research institute partially funded by the Portuguese National Science Foundation and hosted at the Department of Informatics (DI/FCT/UNL). Meanwhile, Fernando concluded his PhD at IST/UTL and started to supervise an increasing number of graduate students.

Bridging research to teaching and adding critical mass (2002-2008)

We started at FCT/UNL the first systematic effort to teach a fully dedicated Software Quality course for MSc students. This course had a praiseful evaluation due to its distinctive nature in the Portuguese academic scenario, by the Portuguese Engineers Association ( Ordem dos Engenheiros ), at the time the national accrediting body of engineering courses. Later, we launched, first at EMOOSE (European MSc program where FCT/UNL was affiliated) and then at FCT/UNL, a course on Experimental Software Engineering for PhD students. The contact with the work developed within the ESERNET (Experimental Software Engineering Research Network), that we joined in 2003, was crucial for this academic endeavor. During this period we developed several R&D, as well as knowledge transfer, activities (e.g. with NAV) in the context of several FCT/MCTES projects (e.g. STACOS, SOFTAS).

Miguel progressed steadily in his PhD research. Another PhD student, Aline Baroni (from Brazil), joined the team during a few years. QUASAR then went through a sustained growth, measurable by the number of collaborators and publications (see the “what we do ” section). Several new research threads were launched by then, namely due to the work of several promising MSc students (see the “who we are ” section). A notable landmark in the end of this period was the conclusion of Miguel Goulão’s PhD work, which increased the capability of hosting more graduate students in QUASAR.

The VALSE project (2009-2011)

As a result of an internal restructuring of CITI in 2008, Fernando proposed and leaded in this period the VALSE project-team ( VALidation of Software Engineering methods, techniques and tools). VALSE missionwas : " To develop new methods, techniques and tools for supporting the application of quantitative and qualitative validation techniques to areas related to Software Engineering, such as software architecture, software evolution, refactoring, technology assessment, process modeling and IT services management ",The VALSE Team included four other PhDs (Miguel Goulão, Miguel Pessoa Monteiro, Vasco Amaral and Pedro Guerreiro) and hosted around 20 students in postgraduate studies ( MSc and PhD ). Some projects with industry (e.g. SINFIC ) were conducted during this period and were instrumental both in the validation and funding of our research activities.

QUASAR spreads to ISCTE-IUL (2011-…)

In 2010 Fernando won a position as associate professor at the University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL), one of the four public universities in Lisbon area. While keeping his affiliation as a researcher to CITI at FCT/UNL, he started a local chapter of the QUASAR group at ISCTE-IUL and reinforced our pyramid-like research strategy, where MSc theses act as building blocks in more ambitious research projects, aligned with ongoing PhD works. Several joint publications encompassing QUASAR graduate students from both universities have already resulted from this synergy that we plan to strengthen. Meanwhile, following his participation in the VALSE project, Miguel Pessoa Monteiro, assistant professor at DI/FCT/UNL, formally joined the QUASAR group, thus increasing again our potential for tutoring a larger number of graduate students.

The year of 2013 promises to be an important landmark for QUASAR, since three new PhDs (Anacleto Correia, Luís Ferreira da Silva and Sérgio Bryton) are expected to defend their theses at FCT/UNL.