I am a PhD candidate in SEGAL at the University of Victoria. I hold a Bachelor of Computer Science (Business option) from the University of Waterloo, Ontario and a Master of Mathematics, also from the University of Waterloo, under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Berry. I spent 12+ years working in the software engineering industry in various countries prior to joining SEGAL in August 2018.
My research is focused on solving practical industry-specific software engineering problems, with an emphasis on requirements engineering. I have also performed research using sentiment analysis tools and machine learning to help predict customer support ticket escalations. Currently, I am researching the complex relationship between continuous software engineering and non-functional requirements, an intriguing and intricate socio-technical software engineering problem. In particular, I am attempting to uncover and model how continuous software engineering affects the shared understanding of non-functional requirements in industrial applications. My goal is to produce a set of best practices and challenges as defacto standards to help industrial organizations practicing continuous software engineering build and maintain a solid shared understanding of non-functional requirements across their entire organization.
My other interests include theoretical and practical software engineering principles, including optimizations, code efficiency, algorithms, data structures, and simply writing cool code. As such, I also focus my efforts on helping train and educate the computer scientists of tomorrow to succeed in the software engineering realm in the real world. In addition, I still am a practising software engineer working on solving tangible problems through the development of software.
Laura Okpara, Colin Werner, Adam Murray, and Daniela Damian, A Case Study of Building Shared Understanding of Non-Functional Requirements in a Remote Software Organization, in 2022 IEEE 30th International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE), pp. 1-13. IEEE, 2022.
Ze Shi Li, Colin Werner, Neil Ernst, and Daniela Damian, Towards Privacy Compliance: A Design Science Study in a Small Organization, in Information and Software Technology 146 (2022): 106868.
Ze Shi Li and Colin Werner, Ongoing Challenges and Solutions of Managing Data Privacy for Smart Cities, in Smart Cities in Asia: Regulations, Problems, and Development, pp. 23-32. Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore, 2022.
Colin Werner, Towards A Theory of Shared Understanding of Non-Functional Requirements in Continuous Software Engineering, in 2021 IEEE 29th International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE) (pp. 498-503). (IEEE)
Colin Werner, Ze Shi Li, Derek Lowlind, Omar Elazhary, Neil Ernst, and Daniela Damian, Continuously Managing NFRs: Opportunities and Challenges in Practice, in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 48, no. 7 (2021): 2629-2642, doi: 10.1109/TSE.2021.3066330. (preprint)
Omar Elazhary, Colin Werner, Ze Shi Li, Derek Lowlind, Neil Ernst, and Margaret-Anne Storey, Uncovering the Benefits and Challenges of Continuous Integration Practices, in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 48, no. 7 (2021): 2570-2583, doi: 10.1109/TSE.2021.3064953. (preprint)
Colin Werner, Ze Shi Li, Neil Ernst, and Daniela Damian, The Lack of Shared Understanding of Non-Functional Requirements in Continuous Software Engineering: Accidental or Essential?, in 2020 IEEE 28th International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE), Zurich, Switzerland, 2020, pp. 90-101, doi: 10.1109/RE48521.2020.00021. (preprint)
Ze Shi Li, Colin Werner, and Neil Ernst, Continuous Requirements: An Example Using GDPR, in 2019 IEEE 27th International Requirements Engineering Conference Workshops (REW), Jeju, Korea (South), 2019, pp. 144-149, doi: 10.1109/REW.2019.00031. (preprint)
Colin Werner, Ze Shi Li, and Neil Ernst, What Can the Sentiment of a Software Requirements Specification Document Tell Us?, in 2019 IEEE 27th International Requirements Engineering Conference Workshops (REW), Jeju, Korea (South), 2019, pp. 106-107, doi: 10.1109/REW.2019.00022. (preprint)
Colin Werner, Ze Shi Li, and Daniela Damian, Can A Machine Learn Through Customer Sentiment? A Cost-Aware Approach To Predict Support Ticket Escalations, in in IEEE Software, vol. 36, no. 5, pp. 38-45, Sept.-Oct. 2019. DOI.
Colin Werner, Gabriel Tapuc, Lloyd Montgomery, Diksha Sharma, Sanja Dodos, and Daniela E. Damian. How angry are your customers? Sentiment analysis of support tickets that escalate. in 2018 1st International Workshop on Affective Computing for Requirements Engineering (AffectRE), Banff, AB, 2018, pp. 1-8. DOI. (preprint)
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Colin Werner
My Research Projects
