Engineering transparency requirements: A modelling and analysis framework

Transparency is a requirement that denotes the communication of information that should help audience to take informed decisions. The existing research on transparency in information systems usually focuses on the party who provides transparency and its inter-relation with other requirements such as privacy, security and regulatory requirements. Engineering transparency, however, also requires the analysis of the information receivers’ situation and their transparency requirements and the medium used to communicate and present the information. A holistic consideration of transparency will enhance its management and increase its usefulness. In this paper, we provide a novel engineering framework, consisting of a modelling language and nine analytical reasonings, which is meant to represent transparency requirements and detect a set of possible side-effects. Examples of such detections include detecting information overload, information starvation, and transparency leading to biased decisions. We then evaluate the modelling language through a case study and report the results

Effectivization and optimization of transport and package of printed circuit boards

[Context & motivation] Transparency is becoming an es- sential requirement for business information systems. Transparency is advocated to inspire trust, increase accountability and reduce corrup- tion. However, it may also lead to negative side effects such as infor- mation overload, bias and unnecessary pressure on stakeholders. [Ques- tion/problem] Despite its distinct characteristics and importance, trans- parency is still a limitedly explored concept in software engineering and information systems literature, and is often fragmented across adjacent concepts such as privacy, secrecy and regulatory requirements. This lim- its its representation level and impedes its management. [Principal ideas/results] In this paper, we propose four facets for transparency and illustrate their usefulness in guiding transparency requirements en- gineering. [Contribution] These facets help clarify the concept of trans- parency and provide foundations for its management in information sys- tems engineering as a distinct notion. Initiatives like the open data move- ment add to the timeliness and potential impact of our contribution