Knutas, Antti and Palacin, Victoria and Maccani, Giovanni and Helfert, Markus (2019) Software engineering in civic tech a case study about code for Ireland. In: 2019 IEEE/ACM 41st International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society (ICSE-SEIS). IEEE, pp. 41-50. ISBN 9781728117621

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Abstract

Civic grassroots have proven their ability to create useful and scalable software that addresses pressing social needs. Although software engineering plays a fundamental role in the process of creating civic technology, academic literature that analyses the software development processes of civic tech grassroots is scarce. This paper aims to advance the understanding of how civic grassroots tackle the different activities in their software development processes. In this study, we followed the formation of two projects in a civic tech group (Code for Ireland) seeking to understand how their development processes evolved over time, and how the group carried out their work in creating new technology. Our preliminary findings show that such groups are capable of setting up systematic software engineering processes that address software specification, development, validation, and evolution. While they were able to deliver software according to self-specified quality standards, the group has challenges in requirements specification, stakeholder engagement, and reorienting from development to product delivery. Software engineering methods and tools can effectively support the future of civic technologies and potentially improve their management, quality, and durability.

Item Type:	Book Section
Additional Information:	Funding: The work of the first author was supported by the Ulla Tuominen Foundation. This work was supported, in part, by Science Foundation Ireland grant 13/RC/2094. We thank Lero, the Irish Software Research Centre, for their support. Cite as: A. Knutas, V. Palacin, G. Maccani and M. Helfert, "Software Engineering in Civic Tech A Case Study about Code for Ireland," 2019 IEEE/ACM 41st International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society (ICSE-SEIS), Montreal, QC, Canada, 2019, pp. 41-50, doi: 10.1109/ICSE-SEIS.2019.00013.
Keywords:	civic grassroots; civic tech; software engineering; development processes; case study;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Business Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Institutes > Innovation Value Institute, IVI
Item ID:	14245
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE-SEIS.2019.00013
Depositing User:	Markus Helfert
Date Deposited:	24 Mar 2021 14:53
Publisher:	IEEE
Refereed:	Yes
Funders:	Ulla Tuominen Foundation, Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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