COSMIC (the Common Software Measurement International Consortium) is incorporated in Canada as a Corporation and operates under Canadian company law. Its management includes some of the world’s leading software measurement experts.
COSMIC’s aim is to ‘to develop, test, bring to market and facilitate acceptance of new software sizing methods to support estimation and performance measurement’. The domain of applicability of the COSMIC method is business (‘MIS’) application software, real-time and infrastructure software and hybrids of these.
In due course, COSMIC may turn its attention to other software measurement challenges where there is an important need of the software engineering community.
COSMIC receives no funding at the international level, and intends that all its output should be available in the public domain. The supply of consulting and training services, and of software tools to support COSMIC is left to the commercial market.
As an organisation, COSMIC is led jointly by:
Professor Alain Abran, École de Technologie Supérieure, Montréal, Canada
Charles Symons, Software Measurement Services, UK
COSMIC has two main bodies, the International Advisory Council (IAC), and the Measurement Practices Committee (MPC).
Currently, the leadership of COSMIC and membership of the IAC and the MPC is by personal invitation. COSMIC expects that eventually, as the organization matures, a more democratic method of electing leadership and membership of the two bodies will be introduced.
The tasks of members of the International Advisory Council are as follows:
· To be a point of contact for people who want information and advice about COSMIC in their respective countries.
· To serve as a ‘sounding board’ for ideas on the future direction of COSMIC activities
· To help promote the COSMIC method within their country by, for example, organising a national COSMIC Special Interest Group, translating COSMIC material into the national language(s), etc
A particular country may also be assigned responsibility for a specific topic that needs investigating on behalf of the COSMIC by the IAC.
COSMIC encourages the formation of Special Interest Groups on COSMIC at the national level. COSMIC SIG’s exist already for
· Italy, as part of Gruppo Utenti Function Point Italia (Italian Software Metrics Association) – www.gufpi.org
· Japan, as part of the Japanese Function Point User Group
· The Netherlands, as part of the Dutch Software Metrics Association
Anyone interested in joining or forming a national SIG should contact their national representative on the COSMIC IAC.
The current members of the COSMIC IAC work in academia, consulting and industry. Their names and contact e-mail addresses are listed below.
|
Country |
Member |
Contact e-mail |
|
Australia |
Pam Morris |
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Belgium |
Naji Habra |
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Canada |
Jean-Marc Desharnais Serge Oligny |
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Finland |
Pekka Forselius Hannu Toivonen |
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France |
Bernard Londeix |
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Germany |
Guenter Buehren Reiner Dumke |
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India |
K.R. ('Jay') Jayakumar |
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Ireland |
Marie O’Neill |
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Italy |
Roberto Meli Luca Santillo |
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Japan |
Moritsugu Araki Shin-ichi Nagano |
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Netherlands |
Ton Dekkers Jolijn Onvlee |
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Poland |
Ewa Magiera |
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Spain |
Juan Cuadrado-Gallego |
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Turkey |
Cigdem Gencel | Cigdem Gencel |
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UK |
Peter Fagg, Tony Rollo |
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Vietnam |
Vinh Tuong Ho |
The tasks of the COSMIC Measurement Practices Committee are as follows.
· To collect, store, track, analyse and eventually resolve methodological issues related to the COSMIC method
· To feed the editing process of the official documents of the COSMIC method
· To maintain conformance of these documents with the ISO/IEC 19761:2003 international standard definition of COSMIC
· To provide leadership for the maintenance of ISO/IEC 19761:2003
The MPC is chaired by Charles Symons (ad interim)
The current MPC members are as follows:
|
Country |
Representative |
Contact |
|
Australia |
Pam Morris |
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Canada |
Alain Abran Jean-Marc Desharnais Serge Oligny |
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Finland |
Pekka Forselius Hannu Toivonen |
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Ireland |
Marie O’Neill |
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Italy |
Roberto Meli Luca Santillo |
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Japan |
Shin-ichi Nagano |
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Netherlands |
Frank Vogelezang Arlan Lesterhuis |
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Poland |
Ewa Magiera |
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| Spain | Juan Cuadrado-Gellego | Jaun Cuadrado-Gallego |
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UK |
Peter Fagg Grant Rule Tony Rollo |
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Vietnam |
Vinh Tuoung Ho |