Characterising sustainability requirements: A new species, red herring, or just an odd fish?

Colin C. Venters; Norbert Seyff; Christoph Becker; Stefanie Betz; Ruzanna Chitchyan; Leticia Duboc; Dan Mcintyre; Birgit Penzenstadler

doi:10.1109/ICSE-SEIS.2017.2

Characterising sustainability requirements: A new species, red herring, or just an odd fish?

Colin C. Venters, Norbert Seyff, Christoph Becker, Stefanie Betz, Ruzanna Chitchyan, Leticia Duboc, Dan Mcintyre, Birgit Penzenstadler

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

44 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Requirements articulating the needs of stakeholders are critical to successful system development and key to influencing their long-term effects. As the concept of sustainability has entered the discourse of a number of software-related computing fields, so has the term ‘sustainability requirement’. However, it is unclear whether sustainability requirements are and should be different from how we already understand software requirements. This paper presents the results of a corpus-assisted discourse analysis study that explored the concept of sustainability requirements in order to understand how the term is being used in software and requirements engineering and related fields. The results of this study reveal that the term ‘sustainability requirement’ is generally used ambiguously and reveals significant segmentation across different fields. Our detailed analysis of selected influential papers highlights the segmented use of the term and suggests key focus questions that need to be addressed to establish a shared operative understanding of the term.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	2017 IEEE/ACM 39th International Conference on Software Engineering
Subtitle of host publication	Software Engineering in Society Track (ICSE-SEIS), Buenos Aires, 2017
Editors	Randall Bilof
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages	3-12
Number of pages	10
ISBN (Electronic)	9781538626733
ISBN (Print)	9781538626740
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE-SEIS.2017.2
Publication status	Published - 29 Jun 2017
Event	39th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society - Buenos Aires, Argentina Duration: 20 May 2017 → 28 May 2017 Conference number: 39 https://dblp.org/db/conf/icse/icse2017seis (Link to Conference Details )

Conference

Conference	39th International Conference on Software Engineering
Abbreviated title	ICSE-SEIS
Country/Territory	Argentina
City	Buenos Aires
Period	20/05/17 → 28/05/17
Internet address	https://dblp.org/db/conf/icse/icse2017seis (Link to Conference Details )

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1109/ICSE-SEIS.2017.2Licence: Unspecified

http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/31367/Licence: Unspecified

Cite this

Venters, C. C., Seyff, N., Becker, C., Betz, S., Chitchyan, R., Duboc, L., Mcintyre, D., & Penzenstadler, B. (2017). Characterising sustainability requirements: A new species, red herring, or just an odd fish? In R. Bilof (Ed.), 2017 IEEE/ACM 39th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society Track (ICSE-SEIS), Buenos Aires, 2017 (pp. 3-12). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE-SEIS.2017.2

Venters, Colin C. ; Seyff, Norbert ; Becker, Christoph et al. / Characterising sustainability requirements : A new species, red herring, or just an odd fish?. 2017 IEEE/ACM 39th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society Track (ICSE-SEIS), Buenos Aires, 2017. editor / Randall Bilof. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2017. pp. 3-12

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title = "Characterising sustainability requirements: A new species, red herring, or just an odd fish?",

abstract = "Requirements articulating the needs of stakeholders are critical to successful system development and key to influencing their long-term effects. As the concept of sustainability has entered the discourse of a number of software-related computing fields, so has the term {\textquoteleft}sustainability requirement{\textquoteright}. However, it is unclear whether sustainability requirements are and should be different from how we already understand software requirements. This paper presents the results of a corpus-assisted discourse analysis study that explored the concept of sustainability requirements in order to understand how the term is being used in software and requirements engineering and related fields. The results of this study reveal that the term {\textquoteleft}sustainability requirement{\textquoteright} is generally used ambiguously and reveals significant segmentation across different fields. Our detailed analysis of selected influential papers highlights the segmented use of the term and suggests key focus questions that need to be addressed to establish a shared operative understanding of the term.",

keywords = "Corpus linguistics, Discourse analysis, Requirements, Requirements engineering, Software sustainability, Sustainability, Sustainability requirements",

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Venters, CC, Seyff, N, Becker, C, Betz, S, Chitchyan, R, Duboc, L, Mcintyre, D & Penzenstadler, B 2017, Characterising sustainability requirements: A new species, red herring, or just an odd fish? in R Bilof (ed.), 2017 IEEE/ACM 39th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society Track (ICSE-SEIS), Buenos Aires, 2017. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., pp. 3-12, 39th International Conference on Software Engineering, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 20/05/17. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE-SEIS.2017.2

Characterising sustainability requirements: A new species, red herring, or just an odd fish? / Venters, Colin C.; Seyff, Norbert; Becker, Christoph et al.
2017 IEEE/ACM 39th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society Track (ICSE-SEIS), Buenos Aires, 2017. ed. / Randall Bilof. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2017. p. 3-12.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

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AU - Seyff, Norbert

AU - Becker, Christoph

AU - Betz, Stefanie

AU - Chitchyan, Ruzanna

AU - Duboc, Leticia

AU - Mcintyre, Dan

AU - Penzenstadler, Birgit

N1 - Conference code: 39

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N2 - Requirements articulating the needs of stakeholders are critical to successful system development and key to influencing their long-term effects. As the concept of sustainability has entered the discourse of a number of software-related computing fields, so has the term ‘sustainability requirement’. However, it is unclear whether sustainability requirements are and should be different from how we already understand software requirements. This paper presents the results of a corpus-assisted discourse analysis study that explored the concept of sustainability requirements in order to understand how the term is being used in software and requirements engineering and related fields. The results of this study reveal that the term ‘sustainability requirement’ is generally used ambiguously and reveals significant segmentation across different fields. Our detailed analysis of selected influential papers highlights the segmented use of the term and suggests key focus questions that need to be addressed to establish a shared operative understanding of the term.

AB - Requirements articulating the needs of stakeholders are critical to successful system development and key to influencing their long-term effects. As the concept of sustainability has entered the discourse of a number of software-related computing fields, so has the term ‘sustainability requirement’. However, it is unclear whether sustainability requirements are and should be different from how we already understand software requirements. This paper presents the results of a corpus-assisted discourse analysis study that explored the concept of sustainability requirements in order to understand how the term is being used in software and requirements engineering and related fields. The results of this study reveal that the term ‘sustainability requirement’ is generally used ambiguously and reveals significant segmentation across different fields. Our detailed analysis of selected influential papers highlights the segmented use of the term and suggests key focus questions that need to be addressed to establish a shared operative understanding of the term.

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Venters CC, Seyff N, Becker C, Betz S, Chitchyan R, Duboc L et al. Characterising sustainability requirements: A new species, red herring, or just an odd fish? In Bilof R, editor, 2017 IEEE/ACM 39th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society Track (ICSE-SEIS), Buenos Aires, 2017. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. 2017. p. 3-12 doi: 10.1109/ICSE-SEIS.2017.2

Characterising sustainability requirements: A new species, red herring, or just an odd fish?

Abstract

Conference

UN SDGs

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Do we really know what we are building? Raising awareness of potential Sustainability Effects of Software Systems in Requirements Engineering

Crowd-Focused Semi-Automated Requirements Engineering for Evolution Towards Sustainability

Software Sustainability: Research and Practice from a Software Architecture Viewpoint

Tailoring Requirements Negotiation to Sustainability

Software Engineering the Future

8th International Workshop on Requirements Engineering for Sustainable Systems

Cite this

Characterising sustainability requirements: A new species, red herring, or just an odd fish?

Abstract

Conference

UN SDGs

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Research output

Do we really know what we are building? Raising awareness of potential Sustainability Effects of Software Systems in Requirements Engineering

Crowd-Focused Semi-Automated Requirements Engineering for Evolution Towards Sustainability

Software Sustainability: Research and Practice from a Software Architecture Viewpoint

Tailoring Requirements Negotiation to Sustainability

Activities

Software Engineering the Future

8th International Workshop on Requirements Engineering for Sustainable Systems

Cite this