D11.1 - Project Quality Plan by Smart Society Project

SmartSociety Hybrid and Diversity-Aware Collective Adaptive Systems When People Meet Machines to Build a Smarter Society Grant Agreement No. 600854

Deliverable D1.1 Work package WP11

Project Quality Plan

Dissemination level (Confidentiality)1:

Delivery date in Annex I:

2013/01/31

Actual delivery date:

2013/01/31

Status2:

Total number of pages:

Keywords:

Quality Plan

PU: Public; RE: Restricted to Group; PP: Restricted to Programme; CO: Consortium Confidential as specified in the Grant Agreement 2 F: Final; D: Draft; RD: Revised Draft

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Deliverable D11.1

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Deliverable D11.1

Disclaimer This document contains material, which is the copyright of SmartSociety Consortium parties, and no copying or distributing, in any form or by any means, is allowed without the prior written agreement of the owner of the property rights. The commercial use of any information contained in this document may require a license from the proprietor of that information. Neither the SmartSociety Consortium as a whole, nor a certain party of the SmartSociety Consortium warrant that the information contained in this document is suitable for use, nor that the use of the information is free from risk, and accepts no liability for loss or damage suffered by any person using this information. This document reflects only the authors’ view. The European Community is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained herein.

Full project title:

SmartSociety - Hybrid and Diversity-Aware Collective Adaptive Systems: When People Meet Machines to Build a Smarter Society

Project Acronym:

SmartSociety

Grant Agreement Number:

600854

Number and title of work package:

WP11, Project Management and Consortium Coordination

Document title:

Project Quality Plan

Work-package leader:

Vincenzo Maltese, UNITN

Deliverable owner:

Vincenzo Maltese, UNITN

Quality Assessor:

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Deliverable D11.1

List of contributors Partner Acronym

Contributor

UNITN

Vincenzo Maltese

UNITN

Ilina Petkanovska

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Deliverable D11.1

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Executive summary This document is the Project Quality Plan (PQP) prepared under Work Package 11 (Management). The purpose of this PQP is to provide a common framework for effective communication, documentation, deviation identification and correction throughout the Project, and a summary of the Project plan and schedule, as outlined in the Description of Work (DoW) and in the Consortium Agreement (CA) with information about the actual names of the owners and reviewers. The intended audience of this document is the whole project team. The PQP provides guidance on contractual, technical, administrative, financial, communication and knowledge management issues inside the Project. Moreover, it provides an outline of a quality assurance process, which should guarantee confidence in the quality of the work, by showing how the Project will be carried out, measured, monitored, accounted for and safeguarded during its implementation.

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Deliverable D11.1

Table of Contents Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................................. 6 1 Purpose of the Project Quality Plan ........................................................................................................ 7 2 Overview of the Project ............................................................................................................................ 7 2.1 Project Partners ................................................................................................................................. 7 2.2 Deliverables ....................................................................................................................................... 8 2.3 Project Organization and responsibilities ..................................................................................... 10 2.3.1 The Project Coordinator .......................................................................................................... 10 2.3.2 The Project Manager ................................................................................................................ 11 2.3.3 The Executive Committee ........................................................................................................ 11 2.3.4 The Work Package Leaders and the Technical Committee ................................................... 11 2.3.5 General Assembly ..................................................................................................................... 12 2.3.6 International Advisory Committee ......................................................................................... 12 3 Quality of the Project Deliverables ........................................................................................................ 13 3.1 Standard output ............................................................................................................................... 13 3.2 Standard Document Delivery ......................................................................................................... 14 3.3 Internal review process .................................................................................................................. 14 4 Risks management.................................................................................................................................. 15 5 Internal and External Communication.................................................................................................. 16

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Deliverable D11.1

Purpose of the Project Quality Plan

This document is the Project Quality Plan (PQP) prepared under Work Package 11 (Management). The purpose of this PQP is to provide a common framework for effective communication, documentation, deviation identification and correction throughout the Project, and a summary of the Project plan and schedule, as outlined in the Description of Work (DoW) and in the Consortium Agreement (CA) with information about the actual names of the owners and reviewers. The intended audience of this document is the whole project team. The PQP provides guidance on contractual, technical, administrative, financial, communication and knowledge management issues inside the Project. Moreover, it provides an outline of a quality assurance process, which should guarantee confidence in the quality of the work, by showing how the Project will be carried out, measured, monitored, accounted for and safeguarded during its implementation. In particular the PQP:    

Establishes the documentation, reporting and communication procedures which will be followed by all partners of the Consortium; Ensures production of high-quality Deliverables on time, in accordance with the DoW, and identification of risks, or deviations from the work plan at an early stage; Stipulates the requirements for the content, format, review processes, and identification of clear acceptance criteria for each deliverable; Informs on quality assurance and quality control activities that are to be applied to the Project activities and deliverables

Overview of the Project

2.1 Project Partners The Consortium chosen to implement the Project is composed of ten Partners (Beneficiaries) that play an active role in the planning and implementation of the Project. They are listed in Table 1. Table 1. List of beneficiaries No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Name

Short Name

Country

UNIVERSITY OF TRENTO (COORDINATOR) UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH U-HOPPER SRL DEUTSCHES FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM FUER KUENSTLICHE INTELLIGENZ GMBH THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD BEN-GURION UNIVERSITY OF THE NEGEV IMAGINARY SRL KARLSTADS UNIVERSITET TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET WIEN UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON

UNITN UEDIN UH DFKI

Italy United Kingdom Italy Germany

UOXF

United Kingdom

BGU IMA KU TUW SOUTH

Israel Italy Sweden Austria United Kingdom

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Deliverable D11.1

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2.2 Deliverables In Table 2 we provide the list of deliverables with associated owners and reviewers. Table 2. List of deliverables with associated owner and reviewer No.

Title

D1.1

Interdisciplinary foundations of smart societies (a) Interdisciplinary foundations of smart societies (b) Final Assessment and governance framework for smart societies Provenance, Trust and Reputation: early results and progress report Provenance, Trust, Reputation & Big Data Computational models and validation

D1.2 D1.3 D2.1 D2.2 D2.3 D2.4 D3.1 D3.2 D3.3 D3.4 D4.1 D4.2 D4.3 D4.4 D5.1 D5.2

D5.3 D5.4 D5.5 D6.1 D6.2 D6.3

Final models and validation Models for human/machine symbiosis: early results and progress report Models for human/machine symbiosis: final results Theories, methods and technologies for human/machine symbiosis Final methods and technologies for human/machine symbiosis Peers and micro-tasks profiling: early results and progress report Peer search in smart societies First version of the peer search in smart societies Final version of the peer search in smart societies Empirical experimentation: early results and progress report Existing incentive and reasoning mechanisms trialled in simple scenarios and evaluation: final results Specification of advanced incentive design and decision-assisting algorithms for CAS Incentives and decision methods: Implementation and assessment Advanced Incentive design and decision making: specification, implementation, validation Static social orchestration: methods and specification Static social orchestration: implementation and evaluation Learning social structure and dynamics & implementation of data collection and analysis components

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Delivery month 12

Owner (institution)

Reviewer (institution)

UOXF

UEDIN

UOXF

UEDIN

UOXF

UEDIN

SOUTH

UEDIN

36 12

SOUTH DFKI

KU BGU

DFKI

BGU

DFKI

BGU

DFKI

BGU

UNITN

TUW

24 30

UNITN UH

TUW TUW

UNITN

TUW

BGU

UOXF

BGU

UOXF

BGU

UOXF

BGU

UOXF

BGU

UOXF

UEDIN

DFKI

UEDIN

DFKI

UEDIN

DFKI

http://www.smart-society-project.eu/

Deliverable D11.1 D6.4 D7.1 D7.2 D7.3 D8.1 D8.2 D8.3 D8.4 D9.1 D9.2 D9.3 D9.4 D10.1 D10.2 D10.3 D10.4 D10.5 D10.6 D11.1 D11.2

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Adaptive open social orchestration: methods and integrated prototypes Virtualization Techniques and Prototypes Programming Models and Languages Integrated Programming Framework Platform Requirements Analysis and System Design Platform prototype: early results and progress report Second platform prototype and validation Final platform prototype and validation Scenarios and User Requirements Elicitation Design of Serious Game-based Simulation Platform Prototype version 1, testing scenarios and initial evaluation Final prototype and evaluation results Collaboration And dissemination activities: report and planning (a) Collaboration And dissemination activities: report and planning (b) Collaboration And dissemination activities: report and planning (c) Collaboration And dissemination activities: report and planning (d) Exploitation and Sustainability report and planning (a) Exploitation and Sustainability report and planning (b) Project Quality Plan

UEDIN

DFKI

TUW

UEDIN

TUW

SOUTH

UNITN

UOXF

UNITN

IMA

UNITN

IMA

UNITN

UEDIN

IMA

UNITN

IMA

UEDIN

IMA

UEDIN

IMA

UNITN

Assessment of Project Results and Impacts

UNITN

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Deliverable D11.1

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2.3 Project Organization and responsibilities The SmartSociety Project is structured into 9 Technical Work Packages plus a Management Work Package (WP11) and one devoted to Dissemination and Exploitation activities (WP10), as described in detail in the DoW. The organisational structure is outlined below, while the description of the main bodies and people appointed are in the rest of the section.

Figure 1. Project Management Structure

2.3.1 The Project Coordinator The Project Coordinator (PC) together with the Project Manager (PM) will be operationally responsible for the Project work plan, day-to-day organisational co-ordination and will act as the intermediary between the Consortium and the European Commission. The PC and the PM will ensure that the Project is carried out using the highest standards and procedures of work in terms of management, software, research, and quality of deliverables, according to the standards of a project at European level and in line with the quality plan. The PC will be the main contact point for the European Commission project officer. The tasks of the PC will be backed by the Project Management Office and the Financial Management Office, which performs part of the operational and administrative tasks of project coordination. They will be formed by a team of employees from UNITN, which are experienced in the type of tasks to be expected. The role of Project Coordinator will be filled by Fausto Giunchiglia (UNITN).

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2.3.2 The Project Manager The Project Manager (PM) will manage the research, development and innovation aspects of the Project in close collaboration with the PC. The PM will supervise, control and ensure the research and technological accomplishments during the Project execution according to the Project plan’s schedule and milestones. In addition, the PM will adopt appropriate monitoring, assessment and quality control mechanisms for all deliverables foreseen for SmartSociety. This will provide valuable support in order to avoid deviations from the previously defined work plan as well as ensuring the expected quality of interim and final project results. The role of Project Manager will be filled by Vincenzo Maltese (UNITN). 2.3.3 The Executive Committee The Executive Committee (EXC) will be responsible for directing the day-by-day activities of the project, ensuring an agile and responsive coordination of project progress and activities. It will further make recommendations to the General Assembly on major issues, including:          

Manage the integration and consistency of the Project components (or the research efforts); Monitor, review and self-assess project progress and outputs; Ensure that the Project maintains technical (and research) objectives; Review the Project and activities schedule; Review and accept key project deliverables before submission to the European Commission; Resolve technical and administrative issues unresolved by other means within the Project; Budget transfers; Actions against defaulting partners; Selecting new contractors to enter Contract and Consortium Agreement; Termination of the Contract.

The Executive Committee consists of Fausto Giunchiglia (UNITN), Stuart Anderson (UEDIN) and Paul Lukowicz (DFKI). 2.3.4 The Work Package Leaders and the Technical Committee Work Package (WP) Leaders together will be in charge of the technical implementation of the Project. The WP leaders, together with the PC and the PM form the Technical Committee (TC) that directly reports to the EXC regarding:   

Changes in the overall project work plan; Termination of Work Package Deliverables, Milestones and Tasks; Project decisions related to dissemination and training.

WP Leaders will be responsible for organising and managing the work within the individual work packages, including detailed planning of tasks and activities, the technical solution, the persons responsible for specific activities and the control of results from the activities. In addition, they will provide deliverables against milestones and other reporting required. This separation is not rigid in order to foster cooperation and cross-fertilisation as required for integration purposes as well as to enable the Project’s learning-by-doing training strategy. WP leaders are designated on the basis of their technical, managerial and relevant competences and specific expertise, which will ensure optimum co-ordination of his/her activities within the Project life cycle. They also take responsibility for presenting to the PM the progress and successful completion of the technical work within the scope of the Project.

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Deliverable D11.1

The following WP Leaders have been appointed by the Consortium:           

WP1: Marina Jirotka (UOXF) WP2: Luc Moreau (SOUTH) WP3: Paul Lukowicz (DFKI) WP4: Alethia Hume, UNITN WP5: Ya’akov Gal (BGU) WP6: Michael Rovatsos (UEDIN) WP7: Hong-Linh Truong (TUW) WP8: Iacopo Carreras (UH) WP9: Marco Pompa (IMA) WP10: Stuart Anderson (UEDIN) WP11: Vincenzo Maltese (UNITN)

2.3.5 General Assembly The General Assembly (GA) is the ultimate decision-making body of the Consortium that consists of one representative of each Party (hereinafter General Assembly Member). Each GA member is deemed to be duly authorized to deliberate, negotiate and decide on all matters listed in the Consortium Agreement. Based on recommendations from the EXC, the GA takes decisions that concern the contract with the European Commission and the interests of Consortium partners, including:     

Contract and Consortium Agreement amendments; Budget reallocation: Actions against defaulting parties: Termination of the contract; Nomination of International Advisory Committee members (upon a proposal from the PC).

The following are appointed members of the General Assembly:          

Fausto Giunchiglia (UNITN) Stuart Anderson (UEDIN) Daniele Miorandi (UH) Paul Lukowicz (DFKI) Marina Jirotka (UOXF) Ya’akov Gal (BGU) Lucia Pannese (IMA) Simone Fischer-Hübner (KU) Schahram Dustdar (TUW) Luc Moreau (SOUTH)

2.3.6 International Advisory Committee The SmartSociety Project includes an International Advisory Committee, where leading scientists from all over the world, as well as industry representatives, will serve. The International Advisory Committee is expected to provide strategic advice to the EXC on the overall scientific and application directions of the project, as well as to support the Consortium in the networking activities with the scientific community at large and with other relevant initiatives active outside Europe. The International Advisory Committee will be appointed by the GA upon a proposal by the PC within 6 months from the start of the project.

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Deliverable D11.1

Quality of the Project Deliverables

Quality assurance of deliverables of the SmartSociety Project will be implemented using the principles of peer review. All deliverables will be reviewed by at least one member of the Consortium that was not involved in the creation of the deliverable. More than one reviewer may be employed on request based on indications given by the TC. The PM leads the internal review process on behalf of the EXC. Each deliverable has to comply with the quality standards described in the following. 3.1 Standard output The nature of a deliverable can be:    

R = Report P = Prototype D = Demonstrator O = Other

Reports will have to comply with a unified layout. Deliverables of different nature will have to be accompanied by a small report following such layout. A common template will help beneficiaries, the European Commission and external reviewers to easily recognise a SmartSociety document, as well as identify key information of the document at first glance. In order to satisfy this requirement we have defined: 1. A report deliverable template with a cover page 2. A fixed file name structure It is crucial that the cover page provides all the essential information at a first glance, before an indepth reading. In particular, the nomenclature of digital copies will observe the following simple structure: name of the Project / title of the document / version For example: SmartSociety / SmartSociety D1.1 / v2 The template, both in Word and Latex format, has been made available to Consortium partners through the Project Collaborative Platform, and it includes:      

a cover page mentioning the deliverable title and number a disclaimer with copyright information list of contributors (both in terms of editors and authors of the main ideas exploited) an executive summary of maximum 1 page structure of the table of contents structure of the appendixes

For project deliverables, the following name syntax has been chosen: SmartSociety Dx.y.pdf where Dx.y is the official deliverable numbering as reported in the Document of Work (DoW) and pdf is the extension of the PDF file to be produced from the Word or Latex source.

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Deliverable D11.1

3.2 Standard Document Delivery All official documents must be transmitted among the interested parties and delivered to the PM through the Project Collaborative Platform available at http://smartsociety.disi.unitn.it/redmine/. Public deliverables will be also made available through the official Project website (http://smartsociety-project.eu/). It has been agreed that intermediate versions will be instead exchanged through a shared folded (e.g. Dropbox) moderated by the PM. Software and code produced will be maintained through a code repository that will be managed by the leader of WP10 on behalf of the PM. Delivery of a report deliverable to the PM should encompass both the source (Word or Latex) and a PDF version, and an email notification should be sent out to the PM by the deliverable’s owner. Deliverables should be concise, coherent and sharp with a maximum length of 25 pages plus references and plus annexes (if needed) providing additional details. Each deliverable shall have an executive summary of approximately 1 page, explaining clearly its objectives, achievements and relevance to the project as a whole. 3.3 Internal review process It focuses on the procedures required to evaluate each SmartSociety deliverable, further update it if necessary and guarantee a high quality delivery, ready to be submitted to the Consortium as well as to the European Commission. The process has been designed in order to minimize the overhead on Consortium partners, while providing the PC and the PM with sufficient control to ensure quality and consistency of the Project’s outcomes. The main steps required are shown in Figure 1.

INTERNAL REVIEW WITHIN 5 INTERNAL REVIEW WITHIN 5 DAYS DAYS Figure 2. Deliverable review process. PHASE I (-60 days) Two months before the official submission date, the responsible of the deliverable (as from the DoW) sends the table of contents (ToC) plus the expected list of contributors to the internal reviewer and to the PM. The internal reviewer must provide feedback within 5 working days. PHASE II (-50 days) Fifty days before the submission date, the responsible of the deliverable consolidates the ToC and coordinates the work towards the completion of the deliverable. PHASE III (-30 days) One month before the official submission date, the responsible of the deliverable sends the complete deliverable to the internal reviewer. The internal reviewer must provide feedback within 5 working days and fill the internal deliverable template (Annex 2). Page 14 of (16) http://www.smart-society-project.eu/

Deliverable D11.1

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PHASE IV (-7 days) One week before the official submission date, the responsible of the deliverable sends the revised and final deliverable to the internal reviewer and to the PM. The internal reviewer and the PM must provide feedback within 5 working days. In case of conflicts between the contributors and the internal reviewer, the PM and the EXC may intervene to find a solution. PHASE V (no later than the submission date) Finally the deliverable is uploaded by the PM into the Collaborative Platform and made available to the European Commission. It is responsibility of the WP leaders to ensure that internal reviewers for the deliverables of corresponding WP are timely identified and notified. Internal reviewers are identified across partners as from the following table, unless the institution coincides with the owner of the deliverable (as reported in Section 2.2). In the latter case a different reviewer will be selected within the Consortium. INTERNAL REVIEWERS WP1 WP2 WP3 UEDIN KU BGU

WP4 TUW

WP5 UOXF

WP6 DFKI

WP7 UH

WP8 SOUTH

WP9 UNITN

WP10 IMA

It is responsibility of all partners to provide their contribution written in good English. The internal reviewer and the PM are not assumed to correct typos and grammatical flaws. If the quality of the presentation is not considered adequate, the internal reviewer must send the deliverable back to the editor straight away. The usage of spell checkers is well recommended.

Risks management

Identified risks to a successful execution of the SmartSociety project include both generic and project specific risks. The partners have a solid expertise in cooperative research projects and have standard responses to address practically any generic issue that may arise. The list of identified risks is reported in the DoW and will be refined and updated during the whole project lifetime. The WP leaders will have to report on possible risks affecting their WP on a regular basis, with their input for the internal Quarterly Management Report that are short progress reports to be produced by WP leaders every 3 months. The purpose is to timely report about the work done within each WP. It will have to include the following sections: a. b.

c. d.

Project objectives for each reporting period: an overview of the project objectives for the reporting period, as included in Annex I of the Grant Agreement; Work progress and achievements during the period: to be filled by each WP leader on behalf of all the members of the WP. This in particular means that the WP leader takes the responsibility to collect detailed information about the work done by all the partners involved in the WP. Il will include: i. Progress summary: a summary of progress towards objectives with details for each task; ii. Highlights: short description of the most significant results; iii. Deviations: (if applicable) reasons for deviations from Annex I, their impact on other tasks as well as on available resources and planning and reasons for failing to achieve critical objectives and/or not being on schedule. Deliverables and milestones tables (for the reporting period, if any) Risk Statement Form (Annex 1): it corresponds to the assessment of the risks prefilled in the DoW with the possibility to identify new risks not previously identified. The procedure and the action of risk mitigation will be reflected in a Risk Statement Form (annexed to the Project Quality Plan), that will be filled by each WP leader in close collaboration with all partners involved in the specific WP, every 3 months of the project and will be integrated in the reporting of project management to the European Commission (the annual progress report).

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Deliverable D11.1

The Executive Committee and the Project Management Office will:    

continuously monitor the identified risks as from Annex 1 adapt and extend them to new ones proposed by the WP Leaders identify additional potential risks that have not been identified by the WP Leaders propose and discuss possible mitigation plans

For risks that have occurred, corrective actions will be taken without delay (i.e. adaptation of the project plan, re-definition of technical and scientific goals of particular work packages, when required application of the procedures foreseen in the Consortium Agreement and/or approval by the European Commission).

Internal and External Communication

Internal communication should take place using the SmartSociety mailing lists, to be set and managed by the Project Management Office. Emails directed within the Consortium should always mention SmartSociety in the subject (e.g. “[SmartSociety] Quality Plan”). Dissemination activities are governed by the procedures detailed in Art. 8.4 of the Consortium Agreement. In particular, in order to ensure coherent and effective communication, all external communications shall be coordinated at the Project level. Press releases issued at the regional/national level fall within the responsibility of each partner, which should coordinate with the Consortium members on beforehand. Partners are recommended to ensure that press releases acknowledge the Consortium’s members and provide, whenever possible, links to the official Project website. As specified in the DoW, the leader of WP10 is responsible for coordinating dissemination activities at European level.

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http://www.smart-society-project.eu/