Requirements engineering in open innovation: a research agenda

In recent years Open Innovation (OI) has gained much attention and made firms aware that they need to consider the open environment surrounding them. To facilitate this shift Requirements Engineering (RE) needs to be adapted in order to manage the increase and complexity of new requirements sources as well as networks of stakeholders. In response we build on and advance an earlier proposed software engineering framework for fostering OI, focusing on stakeholder management, when to open up, and prioritization and release planning. Literature in open source RE is contrasted against recent findings of OI in software engineering to establish a current view of the area. Based on the synthesized findings we propose a research agenda within the areas under focus, along with a framing-model to help researchers frame and break down their research questions to consider the different angles implied by the OI model

Requirements Management in an Open Source Software Project : Empirical Case Study

In the past few decades there has been increasing interest towards open innovation both among academia and in businesses. Especially software intensive companies face rapid technological change, which forces them to seek new sources of innovation. Companies can do this by using various open innovation approaches where they can share their knowledge and resources or utilize the knowledge and resources of outsiders ranging from other companies to individual developers. Open source software (OSS) is a blooming open innovation strategy used by a growing number of companies. OSS communities can have a large number of members, making the requirements management process challenging. This thesis aims to build an understanding of the requirements management process in a company that is leading an actively developed open source project. The studied OSS community doesn’t only have individual developers, but many companies participate in it as well. The thesis explores first open innovation, open source software development, and requirements engineering with means of a literature review. The goal of the literature review is to investigate open innovation and requirements management in OSS context. The literature review also provides a theoretical background for studying the open innovation and the requirements management process in the case company called Qt Company. The Qt Company leads an OSS project, which is the subject of this study. The project’s requirements management process was studied with the help of several information sources. These included interviews of Qt’s employees. The interviews were conducted in a research project called OpenReq. Additional information was gathered from the company’s websites and the project’s requirements management system. To verify the results, we first studied a few issues from the requirements management system to see whether they followed our conceptual model built based on the interviews, and illustrated as a swimlane diagram. Finally, we had a follow up interview with an employee from Qt Company (Qt’s community manager) to verify the results, and to correct any inaccuracies or misunderstandings. We found Qt Company using both inbound and outbound open innovation approaches in the studied OSS project. The project, and the community around it has many similarities to the OSS community descriptions found in the literature. For example, as often in OSS, the requirements in the studied project are unstructured. The requirements management process in the studied OSS project was found to include 12 different stakeholders. Also a diagram summarizing the whole requirements management process is constructed based on the interviews and presented at the results section of the thesis

Open innovation using open source tools: a case study at Sony Mobile

Despite growing interest of Open Innovation (OI) in Software Engineering (SE), little is known about what triggers software organizations to adopt it and how this affects SE practices. OI can be realized in numerous of ways, including Open Source Software (OSS) involvement. Outcomes from OI are not restricted to product innovation but also include process innovation, e.g. improved SE practices and methods. This study explores the involvement of a software organization (Sony Mobile) in OSS communities from an OI perspective and what SE practices (requirements engineering and testing) have been adapted in relation to OI. It also highlights the innovative outcomes resulting from OI. An exploratory embedded case study investigates how Sony Mobile use and contribute to Jenkins and Gerrit; the two central OSS tools in their continuous integration tool chain. Quantitative analysis was performed on change log data from source code repositories in order to identify the top contributors and triangulated with the results from five semi-structured interviews to explore the nature of the commits. The findings of the case study include five major themes: i) The process of opening up towards the tool communities correlates in time with a general adoption of OSS in the organization. ii) Assets not seen as competitive advantage nor a source of revenue are made open to OSS communities, and gradually, the organization turns more open. iii) The requirements engineering process towards the community is informal and based on engagement. iv) The need for systematic and automated testing is still in its infancy, but the needs are identified. v) The innovation outcomes included free features and maintenance, and were believed to increase speed and quality in development. Adopting OI was a result of a paradigm shift of moving from Windows to Linux

A Systematic Mapping Study on Requirements Engineering in Software Ecosystems

Software ecosystems (SECOs) and open innovation processes have been claimed as a way forward for the software industry. A proper understanding of requirements is as important for these IT-systems as for more traditional ones. This paper presents a mapping study on the issues of requirements engineering and quality aspects in SECOs and analyzes emerging ideas. Our findings indicate that among the various phases or subtasks of requirements engineering, most of the SECO specific research has been accomplished on elicitation, analysis, and modeling. On the other hand, requirements selection, prioritization, verification, and traceability has attracted few published studies. Among the various quality attributes, most of the SECOs research has been performed on security, performance and testability. On the other hand, reliability, safety, maintainability, transparency, usability attracted few published studies. The paper provides a review of the academic literature about SECO-related requirements engineering activities, modeling approaches, and quality attributes, positions the source publications in a taxonomy of issues and identifies gaps where there has been little research.Comment: Journal of Information Technology Research (JITR) 11(1

DREQUS: an approach for the Discovery of REQuirements Using Scenarios

ABSTRACT: Requirements engineering is recognized as a complex cognitive problem-solving process that takes place in an unstructured and poorly-understood problem context. Requirements elicitation is the activity generally regarded as the most crucial step in the requirements engineering process. The term “elicitation” is preferred to “capture”, to avoid the suggestion that requirements are out there to be collected. Information gathered during requirements elicitation often has to be interpreted, analyzed, modeled, and validated before the requirements engineer can feel confident that a complete set of requirements of a system have been obtained. Requirements elicitation comprises the set of activities that enable discovering, understanding, and documenting the goals and motives for building a proposed software system. It also involves identifying the requirements that the resulting system must satisfy in to achieve these goals. The requirements to be elicited may range from modifications to well-understood problems and systems (i.e. software upgrades), to hazy understandings of new problems being automated, to relatively unconstrained requirements that are open to innovation (e.g. mass-market software). Requirements elicitation remains problematic; missing or mistaken requirements still delay projects and cause cost overruns. No firm definition has matured for requirements elicitation in comparison to other areas of requirements engineering. This research is aimed to improve the results of the requirements elicitation process directly impacting the quality of the software products derived from them

Embracing Open Science in Industrial Engineering Education: A Roadmap for Pedagogical Innovation

Integrating open science into industrial engineering education forms the cornerstone for pedagogical innovation in the era of rapidly advancing technology. This article crafts a roadmap for adopting open science within industrial engineering education, anchored on the United Nations' recommendations for open science and accreditation requirements for engineering education. Using a systematic review of relevant literature, we extrapolate vital concepts, potential implementation strategies, and potential challenges. The study aims to illuminate the pathway to enhancing inclusivity, relevance, and global reach of industrial engineering education through the lens of open science

STA, the Space Trajectory Analysis Project

This article describes the objectives of the Space Trajectory Analysis (STA) project. The article also details the birth of STA, and its present configuration. STA is a project to develop an open source astrodynamics software suite involving university science departments and space research institutions. It was initiated by ESA as internal activity in 2005 and now it involves 16 partners. The article explains the partnership into the STA Steering Board. The main purpose of the STA is to allow advanced simulation for the analysis of space trajectories in an open and free environment under the premises of innovation and reliability.Further, the article explains that the STA development is open source and is based on the state of the art astrodynamics routines that are grouped into modules. Finally, the article concludes about the benefits of the STA initiative: the STA project allows a strong link among applied mathematics, space engineering, and informatics disciplines by reinforcing the academic community with requirements and needs coming from real missions

Introduction to the Reform Direction of Vehicle Engineering Major

In the era of modern technology and information development, the automotive industry is expanding, and the demand for talents in the automotive industry is getting richer and richer. Faced with the continuous promotion of the “new four” in the automotive industry, universities need to make corresponding adjustments to the current problems and future trends of the industry development in the education and teaching courses of vehicle engineering, and consider how to cultivate comprehensive talents who can promote the development of the industry in the flood of the new era. Based on this, this paper focuses on the new requirements of the automotive industry for the comprehensive quality of talents, takes the needs of the industry as the guide, reconstructs the new mechanism of combining industry-university-research, carries out joint training of school and enterprise, builds a research-oriented and open engineering practice teaching system, establishes a part-time teaching team with engineering background, strengthens students’ engineering ability, innovation ability and team cooperation ability, and realizes the docking of talents cultivated by school and talents demanded by enterprise. To establish a new mode of training talents in vehicle engineering