=Paper=
{{Paper
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|storemode=property
|title=The Social Dimension of Sustainability in Requirements Engineering
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-995/paper4.pdf
|volume=Vol-995
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/re/JohannM13
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==The Social Dimension of Sustainability in Requirements Engineering==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-995/paper4.pdf
Position Paper: The Social Dimension of Sustainability in Requirements
Engineering
Timo Johann Walid Maalej
Department of Informatics, MOBIS Department of Informatics, MOBIS
University of Hamburg University of Hamburg
Hamburg, Germany Hamburg, Germany
johann@informatik.uni-hamburg.de maalej@informatik.uni-hamburg.de
Abstract— Nowadays mobile phones and smartphones are
common not only in mega cities in developed countries but also
in rural areas in emerging and developing countries.
Technological progress will enable more and more people from
different socio-cultural backgrounds and with different needs
to use software services with up-to-date technical devices. End
users are increasingly expecting to use software services in
their “own way”. They expect to customize the functionality,
contribute to the content, and share information with others.
The requirements of users differ drastically depending on the
socio-cultural context. This is why we must raise the following
questions: What is the impact of a society or an economy on
software and vice versa? Do we need new approaches in
requirements engineering to deal with the social dimension of
Figure 1: Wordle of the last RE4SuSy Workshop1
sustainability? In this paper we aim to bringing forth a
discussion about social sustainable software. We think that the inclusion of users and their
communities in the engineering processes has a high
Keywords-component; sustainability; requirements potential to support sustainable software engineering [6] [7].
engineering; social sustainable software, sustainable informatics The aim of this paper is to initiate a discussion about social
sustainability in requirements engineering towards providing
I. THE LACK OF SOCIAL ASPECTS IN REQUIREMENTS a foundation for holistic sustainable software systems.
ENGINEERING Requirements engineering for sustainable systems must
Definitions of sustainability are mainly based on three take into account all sustainability aspects, although these
pillars, the economical, ecological, and social: the so-called might seem contradicting. When searching for social or
triple bottom line [1]. Software systems have an influence on sustainable software we will find opposing views, ideas, and
each one of the three pillars [2] [3] [4]: definitions. Sustainable software is often understood as
They changed economical processes and play a central software that is easy to maintain or reuse, without any
role in our globalized economical system. reference to ecological or social aspects, e.g. in [8].
Tomlinson et al. define “Sustainable software engineering
It has been shown that they can have positive or
aims to create reliable, long-lasting software that meets the
negative impacts on the environment.
needs of users while reducing environmental impacts” [9]. In
The way we communicate and socialize today is based
our opinion, this definition of sustainable software is
on software systems.
incomplete and can be misleading. Naumann et al. [3] gave a
We claim that Sustainable Informatics research must take
definition that covers all aspects of sustainability in software.
into account all aspects of sustainability, in particular the
They define Sustainable Software as software “whose direct
social aspect, which has been neglected so far.
and indirect negative impacts on economy, society, human
Looking at recent publications in the field of Social
beings, and environment that result from development,
Informatics, we found that social aspects are only mentioned
deployment, and usage of the software are minimal and/or
in passing, while the clear focus has been placed on
which has a positive effect on sustainable development.”
environmental aspects. The Sustainable Informatics
This definition distinguishes between two types of
community is developing processes, models, methods, and
tools, mainly to minimize resource and energy consumption. sustainable software:
Figure 1 depicts the most frequent terms of the proceedings 1. Software with positive impact on sustainable
of the last RE4SuSy workshop in order of their occurrence development.
[5]. The ‘biggest’, i.e., most frequently used term is 2. Software that minimizes its own negative impact on
“energy”. Terms such as "social”, “user”, “community”, and sustainable development.
“human factors” do not occur at all.
1
Taken from http://www4.in.tum.de/~penzenst/re4susy/2013/
Copyright © 2013 for the individual papers by the papers' authors. Copying permitted only for private and academic purposes.
This volume is published and copyrighted by its editors.
The second type of sustainable software should receive accessible to others. However, this will be an important
particular attention in requirements engineering, since we feature during natural disasters, when conditions drastically
believe it applies to every software system. Sustainability change within a short period of time.
should become a relevant concern for requirement
engineering as a basic non-functional requirement. B. Reliability and Resilience
Naumann et al. definition also shows that optimizing the Another question about the characteristics of social
impact of software is not enough. Impacts of development sustainable software is: How do software systems react to
and deployment must also be associated with the software collapsing infrastructures? Tomlinson et al. showed that
sustainability. Consequently the focus of future research in “understanding how to design ICT and sociotechnical
the field of social sustainable software should cover the users systems […] enable social wellbeing in times of collapse
as well as the developers, their communities, and the could benefit many” [12]. They proposed the research field
interactions between them. Collapse Informatics.
A collapse can occur globally or locally. A collapse is a
II. EXAMPLES OF SOCIAL IMPACTS OF SOFTWARE “rapid, significant loss of sociopolitical complexity which in
Social aspects of software involve many fields of interest itself constitutes an event whose impacts exceed the
that are directly or indirectly linked to social sustainability. responsive capacities of [those] affected” [13]. A collapse
In this section, we discuss a few examples of social can be triggered among others by natural disasters.
sustainability in software. These examples can be used to Important software systems should be designed in a way
discuss the characteristics for developing a uniform quality that they are still available even in an unreliable
model for social sustainable software. infrastructure. Natural disasters create a great need for
communication. Companies like Inveneo 2 specialize in
A. Data Access and Transparency quickly building broadband infrastructures, which were used
Freedom of information is a fundamental human right. 65 e.g. after the earthquake in Haiti in 2010. With this
countries around the world have passed freedom of infrastructure emergency and rescue forces, victims, family
information laws and anchored them in their constitutions. members, and friends were able to quickly connect to each
This positive development will facilitate participation in other, share, and access important information, through the
democratic processes. For example, in the field of E- participation of a huge, globally connected community.
Government, access to governmental data is often provided Participants quickly organized themselves to support
via software systems. Currently there are two basic problems emergency teams on-site. People from all over the world
in this field. First, the means to access these data are contributed to the Crisis Mapping [14]. They traced roads
heterogeneous and often embedded in complex processes. and damaged buildings and entered camps of displaced
Second, the access to data is unequal to access to people into OpenStreetMap. They gathered data from
information. manifold sources and combined them with the help of
The Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the OpenStreetMaps. This case shows that we “should also
European Community (INSPIRE) provides a good consider the design context to be a world radically altered by
illustration to these problems. INSPIRE is “an EU initiative environmental damage. Solutions that fit into today’s
to establish an infrastructure for spatial information in lifestyles risk irrelevance” [15]. This case also provides
Europe that will help to make spatial or geographical evidence that requirements not only change depending on the
information more accessible and interoperable for a wide socio-cultural context, but also that the socio-cultural context
range of purposes supporting sustainable development” [10]. itself can change. Requirements engineering needs to be
A portal has being developed to grant access to the data adjusted to these possible changes.
[11]. The data contain, e.g., measures of water quality, air C. Civic Participation and Software Socialness
pollution, demographics, and historical water levels. These
are stored in various formats such as PDF, CSV, or XML. Civic participation is another aspect of involving social
Only few Europeans know about this project. Users with no groups, where the influence of software is continuously
expertise in IT or geographical information systems will growing. In recent years social media, like Facebook or
encounter difficulties in finding specific information among Twitter have been used by the youth of different countries to
this huge amount of data. A simple question like “Can I go form a protest in order to change the political system.
swimming in the lake close to my hometown?” cannot be Software can play an important role for enabling democratic
answered easily. This becomes even worse for questions processes.
like: “Where is the next source of clean drinking water?” Facebook, Twitter, Wikis, or Blogs are utilized for civic
Applying a system like this in rural areas in developing participation in political decision processes. Other software
countries, where people rarely own computers, the systems such LiquidFeedback [16] explicitly focus on
requirements change drastically. When users only have political opinion formation. Every user can make a proper
mobile phones, they expect direct, location-based proposal, which can be supported, discussed and extended by
information about the surroundings. An excel file with others. This process provides a way to create a democratic
complete historical data about the water quality of a river image that is not distorted by hierarchies, discrepancy in
will not help much. In the current version of the system,
users cannot easily add data and make it immediately 2
http://www.inveneo.org/
knowledge or other constraints. The German Pirate Party, provides market information, mainly from commodities
with elected members in several German regional markets. Although this example does not sound innovative at
parliaments, successfully uses this software. Other parties are first, it shows how information has been made accessible in
currently running trials. specific social environments. Users can sign up via SMS or
Also companies have an immense interest in user E-Mail to receive prices of the world markets by SMS. This
feedback to improve or even invent products and services. simple ‘innovation’ granted thousands of farmers in rural
The SYNAXON AG is, e.g., a large company that uses areas in Africa access to important information. This made
LiquidFeedback for internal decision making and customer farmers no longer dependent on resellers. They can make
involvement. Vice versa, users have an interest in better decisions about selling their goods for the offered
communicating their opinions. In requirements engineering prices. A survey conducted by the French National Institute
we must take up this trend and find ways to build adequate for Agricultural Research (INRA) found that maize,
systematic feedback methods [8]. This will help to gather groundnut, and cassava farmers, recorded a 10% increase in
requirements of a heterogeneous group of users and to meet revenues after receiving and utilizing the Esoko [19].
the needs of people that will otherwise be out of scope.
An other essential approach that will support sustainable E. Privacy, Safety and Security
software is its socialness. Maalej and Pagano define the Privacy is a major concern in the information age. It is
socialness of software systems “as the degree of involvement part of a worldwide public discussion. Opinions diverge
of its users and their communities in the software lifecycle” widely and the topic has become crucial for governments,
[6]. The involvement of users in the software life cycle can companies, lawyers, and software engineers. Especially
be an important step towards social sustainable software. when it comes to surveillance by authorities, the issue
This can be archived by Social Software Engineering. Social becomes highly problematic. In many countries police and
software engineering is “the application of processes, intelligence use surveillance and monitoring software for
methods, and tools to enable community-driven creation, crime protection. Most countries adopted strict laws for the
management, deployment, and use of software in online use of said software. For example, in Europe a court order is
environments” [17]. Sustainable informatics can benefit from required prior to the utilization of monitoring software.
the ongoing research in the fields of social software Private companies with commissions of governments
engineering. A recently presented social software develop monitoring software. In the past, this software has
engineering process called SNAIL is an example for a also fallen into the hands of repressive regimes. An example
mature solution in this field. SNAIL “thoroughly and is the surveillance software FinFisher. The tool was
continuously involves users by establishing interaction developed and marketed by a German and British subsidiary
channels and integrating user communities” [6]. The of the Gamma Group. During the Egyptian Revolution of
challenge is to find ways to involve users from different 2011, dissidents discovered a contract with Gamma
backgrounds. Further analyses of the heterogeneous ways International for €287,000 for a license to run FinFisher [20].
users are able and willing to communicate their requirements Last year, FinFisher was found on the computer of human
and feedback is necessary. Furthermore we have to study rights activists in Bahrain. Citizen Lab, based at the
approaches to conflate the feedback and make it accessible in University of Toronto, confirmed that the Trojan was
a standardized way. installed on the laptops of several journalists and activists.
Gamma Group denies that they sold the software to these
D. Accessibility regimes. In February 2013 a consortium of different NGO
Accessibility, especially for handicapped users is an (Privacy International, European Centre for Constitutional
important concern. Many countries have laws that guarantee and Human Rights, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights,
direct accessibility for everybody. In software engineering Bahrain Watch, and Reporters without Borders) officially
there are no uniform rules for whether and how accessibility filed a complaint with the OECD [21]. Even if this example
is implemented. The majority of modern operating systems primarily seems to be a political issue, it also demonstrates
are equipped with integrated accessibility options like screen the importance of the socio-cultural context, when it comes
readers, display zooms or specialized color settings. The to requirements of software systems.
W3C encourages web developers to build barrier-free
websites and gives out the Web Content Accessibility III. RESEARCH AGENDA
Guidelines [18]. These are limited to the physical conditions There is a need to discuss whether requirements
of individuals. It is however important to bear in mind that engineering for sustainable systems is different from
accessibility requirements differ depending on the social traditional requirements engineering. For this discussion we
environment, and the social environments are responsible for should first identify the fundamental characteristics of social
access conditions. sustainable software.
One major problem is the digital gap between developed Requirements engineers and analysts are still missing the
countries and emerging and developing countries. In some overall scope of social sustainable software. Social aspects
rural areas, people have very limited access to are already scattered across many fields of interest that are
communication services. Internet is often slow or not directly or indirectly linked to social sustainability. We think
available at all. Devices are usually old. An example for the that there is a lack of the social aspect of sustainability in the
inclusion of specific requirements is Esoko, a software that
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