“Do we really know what we are building?” – GTM presents at RE´19 research to raise awareness of the potential effects of software systems on sustainability

                                                                                     Image: Davide Restivo from Aarau, Switzerland [CC BY-SA 2.0]

Dr. Leticia Duboc from the GTM and her co-authors presented their paper on the The 27th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE'19) and two papers on the co-located workshop RE4SuSy, in Jeju Island (Korea), from the 23^rd to 27^th September 2019. The paper was among the runner ups for the Best Paper award.

The RE’19 paper encourages software engineers to step up and take responsibility for the technology they introduce in the society. It presents a framework for raising awareness of the potential effects of software systems on sustainability. 

The reference of the first paper, presented at the RE´19 is:

• Leticia Duboc, Stefanie Betz, Birgit Penzenstadler, Sedef Akinli Kocak, Ruzanna Chitchyan, Ola Leifler, Jari Porras, Norbert Seyff and Colin Venters. “Do we really know what we are building? Raising awareness of potential Sustainability Effects of Software Systems in Requirements Engineering.” Proceedings of the 27th Requirements Engineering Conference (RE 2019). 23-27 September 2019. Jeju Island, South Korea.

with abstract:

Integrating novel software systems in our society, economy, and environment can have far-reaching effects.  As a result, software systems should be designed in such a way as to maintain or improve the sustainability of the socio-technical system of their destination. However, a paradigm shift is required to raise awareness of software professionals on the potential sustainability effects of software systems.

While Requirements Engineering is considered the key to driving this change, requirements engineers lack the knowledge, experience and methodological support for doing so. This paper presents a question-based framework for raising awareness of the potential effects of software systems on sustainability, as the first step towards enabling the required paradigm shift. A feasibility study of the framework was carried out with two groups of computer science students. The results of the study indicate that the framework helps enable discussions about potential effects that software systems could have on sustainability.

The references of the papers presente at the RE4SuSy are:

• Leticia Duboc, Raquel Mendonça, Jessica Salvador, Aline Paes. “A Vision Towards a Method for Identifying and Mitigating Unsustainable Practices in Organisations”. CEUR Proceedings for the 8th International Workshop on Requirements Engineering for Sustainable Systems. 27^th of September 2019. Jeju Island, South Korea.
• Birgit Penzenstadler, Leticia Duboc, Regina Hebig, Andy Dearden, Benjamin Kanagwa, Michel Chaudron, Engineer Bainomugisha, Eric Umuhoza, Dorothy Okello. “Raising Awareness for Potential Sustainability Effects in Uganda”. CEUR Proceedings for the 8th International Workshop on Requirements Engineering for Sustainable Systems. 27^th of September 2019. Jeju Island, South Korea.

The first paper presents a vision for a method to identify and mitigate unsustainable practices in business organisations, while the second describes the educational evaluation of the Sustainability Awareness Framework in a country in Sub-Saharan Africa.