On the Presence of Green and Sustainable Software Engineering in Higher Education Curricula

Nowadays, software is pervasive in our everyday lives. Its sustainability and environmental impact have become major factors to be considered in the development of software systems. Millennials-the newer generation of university students-are particularly keen to learn about and contribute to a more sustainable and green society. The need for training on green and sustainable topics in software engineering has been reflected in a number of recent studies. The goal of this paper is to get a first understanding of what is the current state of teaching sustainability in the software engineering community, what are the motivations behind the current state of teaching, and what can be done to improve it. To this end, we report the findings from a targeted survey of 33 academics on the presence of green and sustainable software engineering in higher education. The major findings from the collected data suggest that sustainability is under-represented in the curricula, while the current focus of teaching is on energy efficiency delivered through a fact-based approach. The reasons vary from lack of awareness, teaching material and suitable technologies, to the high effort required to teach sustainability. Finally, we provide recommendations for educators willing to teach sustainability in software engineering that can help to suit millennial students needs.Comment: The paper will be presented at the 1st International Workshop on Software Engineering Curricula for Millennials (SECM2017

Green and Sustainability in Software Development Lifecycle Process

This chapter gives an insight of GREENSOFT Model for sustainable software engineering. In today’s world, computing devices are extensively by all for many purposes. They consume lots of energy even though they reduce energy consumption. Computers are used extensively while developing software. Existing software engineering models do not pay much attention to green computing that focuses on the effective use of natural resources. Sustainability of resources is the key. The GREENSOFT model of software engineering proposes a methodology in which Green IT practices are used, which will reduce the energy consumption of computers while developing software

Sustainability in Software Engineering

The intersection between software engineering re- search and the problems related to sustainability and green IT has been the subject of increasing attention. In spite of that, we observe that sustainability is still not clearly defined, or understood, in the field of software engineering. This lack of clarity leads to confusion about e.g. what is relevant to measure or the research implications over time or space. This paper provides an overview of how the research so far has defined sustainability, and how this definition has been used to guide which research areas. To this end, we carried out a systematic mapping study for selecting, classifying and analyzing relevant publications. In this study, we investigate which knowledge areas and which time scope of sustainability effects are mostly targeted in scientific research. Our analysis shows research trends and discusses gaps to be filled

Assessing the Unseen: Roles of Confidentiality and Trust in Software Engineering Work-based Learning Programmes [Poster]

A typical academic degree focused on software engineering has little practical relationship with the industry it is named for, other than the occasional placement or internship. Unlike other professions such as medicine, dentistry and veterinary sciences, candidates do not need to participate in significant professional practice to earn their degree. Indeed, if we consider a traditional academic software engineering student they probably have far more experience constructing shiny new ‘green-field’ systems, than maintaining the old ‘brown-field’ systems found in industry, and generating most professional work. Consequently, there is growing enthusiasm for work-based learning programmes that provide an opportunity for candidates to cement abstract academic theory in concrete personal experience. Work-based learning software engineering students earn their degree by combining theory with actual practice in a professional environment. Nevertheless, the intangible outcomes for much of software engineering has led to an industry obsessed with confidentiality, driven by concerns of employees smuggling source code to competitors or regulators. This obsession potentially presents a barrier to work-based learning schemes as employers prevent outsiders, even close higher education partners, from observing the systems and the source code that learners are working on. Learners may have the opportunity for concrete personal experience, but educators are barred from observing any such experience. However, confidentiality agreements may not necessarily present barriers to assessment, but instead provide an opportunity to assess comprehension and transferable skills by requiring abstract descriptions and reports. This is the converse to the problem in some programming courses, where students submit code without demonstrating that they understand it and can discuss it in terms of the concepts taught. In this talk and accompanying poster we explore some models for software engineering work-based learning programmes that have the potential to maintain confidentiality while assessing learners’ comprehension and ability. We invite discussion and criticism from conference attendees of the presented models, and are interested in potential partners for future collaboration

Microservices and Machine Learning Algorithms for Adaptive Green Buildings

In recent years, the use of services for Open Systems development has consolidated and strengthened. Advances in the Service Science and Engineering (SSE) community, promoted by the reinforcement of Web Services and Semantic Web technologies and the presence of new Cloud computing techniques, such as the proliferation of microservices solutions, have allowed software architects to experiment and develop new ways of building open and adaptable computer systems at runtime. Home automation, intelligent buildings, robotics, graphical user interfaces are some of the social atmosphere environments suitable in which to apply certain innovative trends. This paper presents a schema for the adaptation of Dynamic Computer Systems (DCS) using interdisciplinary techniques on model-driven engineering, service engineering and soft computing. The proposal manages an orchestrated microservices schema for adapting component-based software architectural systems at runtime. This schema has been developed as a three-layer adaptive transformation process that is supported on a rule-based decision-making service implemented by means of Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. The experimental development was implemented in the Solar Energy Research Center (CIESOL) applying the proposed microservices schema for adapting home architectural atmosphere systems on Green Buildings

Exploring initial challenges for green software engineering: summary of the first GREENS workshop, at ICSE 2012

The GREENS workshop provides a forum for practitioners and academics to share knowledge, ideas, practices and current results related to green and sustainable software engineering. This first workshop was held at ICSE 2012 in Zurich, Switzerland. It featured a keynote talk, twelve research position statements and two breakout sessions that discussed topics that ranged from bringing sustainability and energy efficiency into all software lifecycle stages, to green measures and estimations, practices, notations, and tools to both greening the software engineering process, and greening the resulting Information and Communication Technology systems. This report presents the themes of the workshop, summarizes the results of the discussions held in the breakout sessions, as well as the identified research challenge

Methodical approach to foresight-research at definition of trends in Green IT development

The problem of determining the Green IT development strategy using decision support tools is described in the article. Technology Green IT is a typical result of the advanced technologies convergence, especially information and knowledge. The expediency of the foresight technology applying for the Green IT development perspective directions evaluating is shown. It is indicated that the most critical, in this case, is the stage of forming the initial list of directions. The technology of retrospective analysis of the Green IT development based on the parametric synthesis of the predictive model of exponential smoothing under the conditions of data uncertainty is presented. For the implementation of the parametric analysis of Brown’s predictive model, or exponential smoothing, is used the exponential average value of the stationary time series to evaluate its value at the next time point. The applying of the developed technology provides experts with additional volumes of information about the perspectives for the Green IT development. An example of a retrospective analysis of the Green IT development directions is given. The initial data for the retrospective analysis used the number of scientific publications for the period from 2010 to 2015 in Ukraine, which characterizes the Green IT direction development. The following directions were assessed: green software engineering, software ecosystem, energy-saving green software and green telecommunications. As a result, the most promising direction is green software engineering. The results of the analysis are one of the sources of information for assessing the perspectives for the Green IT development directions by expert

An investigation of green software engineering

The urgency of sustainability concerns has intensified in recent years, sounding alarm bells over the planet's condition and prompting nearly every industry and practice to reassess their contributions to the climate crisis. Software engineering is not immune to this scrutiny. Software engineering practices significantly affect the environment and may not align with sustainability goals. Although sustainability is a relatively recent focus in software engineering, it has garnered increased attention, with numerous studies addressing various concerns and practices. Green software engineering aspires to develop dependable, enduring, and sustainable software that fulfills user requirements while minimizing environmental impacts. As this green paradigm gains traction in software engineering, practitioners must incorporate sustainability considerations into future software designs. However, despite the surge in green software engineering research, a universally accepted definition and framework remain elusive. This paper outlines green software engineering by explaining its principles, challenges, and methods for measuring and evaluating software effectiveness in this context

E-Debitum: managing software energy debt

35th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering Workshops (ASEW ’20) - International Workshop on Sustainable Software Engineering (SUSTAIN-SE)This paper extends previous work on the concept of a new software energy metric: Energy Debt. This metric is a reflection on the implied cost, in terms of energy consumption over time, of choosing an energy flawed software implementation over a more robust and efficient, yet time consuming, approach. This paper presents the implementation a SonarQube tool called E-Debitum which calculates the energy debt of Android applications throughout their versions. This plugin uses a robust, well defined, and extendable smell catalogue based on current green software literature, with each smell defining the potential energy savings. To conclude, an experimental validation of E-Debitum was executed on 3 popular Android applications with various releases, showing how their energy debt fluctuated throughout releases.This work is financed by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT -Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia within project UIDB/50014/2020