A Framework to Analyse the Approach Adopted in the Information Systems Requirements Engineering Activity

The activity of requirements engineering (RE) is the initial stage for the information systems development process. The RE is often developed using an excessive technological-driven approach. This aspect is pointed as a factor for the failure of the RE and consequently to the corresponding information system.We present an evaluation framework for the requirements engineering activities within organizational settings that can help on analysing how this important activity is carried out in organizations. This framework, designed by RETIS, is composed by three parts. The first part focuses on the organizational domain, the second focuses on the users and information systems’ stakeholders, and the third focuses on the underlying methods and techniques.The initial validation of this investigation was based in the application of the RETIS in five real organizational settings. Organizations that demonstrate higher maturity in their information systems’ function presented a less technological-driven RE approach

A Framework to Analyse the Approach Adopted in the Information Systems Requirements Engineering Activity

The activity of requirements engineering (RE) is the initial stage for the information systems development process. The RE is often developed using an excessive technological-driven approach. This aspect is pointed as a factor for the failure of the RE and consequently to the corresponding information system.We present an evaluation framework for the requirements engineering activities within organizational settings that can help on analysing how this important activity is carried out in organizations. This framework, designed by RETIS, is composed by three parts. The first part focuses on the organizational domain, the second focuses on the users and information systems’ stakeholders, and the third focuses on the underlying methods and techniques.The initial validation of this investigation was based in the application of the RETIS in five real organizational settings. Organizations that demonstrate higher maturity in their information systems’ function presented a less technological-driven RE approach

An Elicitation Method for Technology-Assisted Goal Setting: Combating Problematic Social Networks Use as a Case Study.

Now that digital media has become an integral part of our everyday lives, people spend significant time using it for various purposes, including social networking and gaming. There is increasing acceptance in the literature of the link between obsessive, compulsive, and excessive usage of social media, e.g. social networks, and the wellbeing of users, whether personal, economic, or social. Despite the research on the negative experiences linked to problematic social networking usage, the work on how to regulate such an effect is at a preliminary stage. In the literature on behavioural change, technology-assisted solutions that utilise the concept of behavioural goals have started to appear, such as gamification and persuasive technology, mainly to increase motivation for change. Also, the literature has revealed that social networks can be augmented with functionalities to assist those seeking to regulate their problematic usage. When technology is used to assist behavioural change, e.g. apps for diet and smoking cessation, requirements become behavioural. While there are established methods for capturing business requirements in organisational information systems, characterised mainly by being a desired and declared state of the system, capturing behavioural requirements, such as goals, requires a different approach to the entire engineering lifecycle. Behavioural requirements gathering and validation would require dealing with issues of unreliability and denial present in problematic behaviours. Therefore, this thesis aims to provide a method expressly tailored to the elicitation of behavioural requirements. The method will be supported by the goal setting strategy and its associated elements. In order to attain this aim, this thesis followed a qualitative research approach with experts, practitioners, and end-users who self-declared having problematic social networking usage and seeking help. This process includes literature reviews, focus group sessions, experts' and practitioners' interviews, user interviews, and analysis of extended survey comments. Research conducted resulted in reference checklists for common goal setting elements, a taxonomy of the negative life experiences associated with problematic usage, and users' perceptions of the use of technology to assist goal setting. The results of the studies helped to propose a method to support users in specifying their goal-setting design requirements. The thesis then evaluated the proposed method with representative users who self-declared having problematic social network usage. The evaluation aimed to investigate the method’s effectiveness, whether it covers all the goal-setting elements, and how communication should work between study participants