An evaluation framework to drive future evolution of a research prototype

The open source component artefact repository (OSCAR) requires evaluation to confirm its suitability as a development environment for distributed software engineers. The evaluation takes note of several factors including usability of OSCAR as a stand-alone system, scalability and maintainability of the system and novel features not provided by existing artefact management systems. Additionally, the evaluation design attempts to address some of the omissions (due to time constraints) from the industrial partner evaluations. This evaluation is intended to be a prelude to the evaluation of the awareness support being added to OSCAR; thus establishing a baseline to which the effects of awareness support may be compared.