Context. Since its proclamation in 2012, microservices-based architecture has gained widespread popularity due to its advantages, such as improved availability, fault tolerance, and horizontal scalability, as well as greater software development agility. Motivation. Yet, refactoring a monolith to microservices by smaller businesses and expecting that the migration will bring benefits similar to those reported by top global companies,...

Motivation. Despite the widespread use of video lectures in online and blended learning environments, there is still debate whether the presence of an instructor in the video helps or hinders learning. According to social agency theory, seeing the instructor makes learners believe that s/he is personally teaching them, which leads to deeper cognitive processing and, in turn, better learning outcomes. Conversely, according to cognitive...

In today’s fast-paced world of rapid technological change, software development teams need to constantly revise their work practices. Not surprisingly, regular reflection on how to become more effective is perceived as one of the most important principles of Agile Software Development. Nevertheless, running an effective and enjoyable retrospective meeting is still a challenge in real environments. As reported by several studies,...