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Ethical software requirements from user reviews: A systematic literature review

Aakash Sorathiya, Gouri Ginde

TL;DR

This SLR provides an overview of ethical requirements identification techniques and the implications of extracting and addressing them and underscores the importance of user reviews in developing trustworthy software.

Abstract

Context: The growing focus on ethics within SE, primarily due to the significant reliance of individuals' lives on software and the consequential social and ethical considerations that impact both people and society has brought focus on ethical software requirements identification and elicitation. User safety, privacy, and security concerns are of prime importance while developing software due to the widespread use of software across healthcare, education, and business domains. Thus, identifying and elicitating ethical software requirements from app user reviews, focusing on various aspects such as privacy, security, accountability, accessibility, transparency, fairness, safety, and social solidarity, are essential for developing trustworthy software solutions. Objective: This SLR aims to identify and analyze existing ethical requirements identification and elicitation techniques in the context of the formulated research questions. Method: We conducted an SLR based on Kitchenham et al's methodology. We identified and selected 47 primary articles for this study based on a predefined search protocol. Result: Ethical requirements gathering has recently driven drastic interest in the research community due to the rise of ML and AI-based approaches in decision-making within software applications. This SLR provides an overview of ethical requirements identification techniques and the implications of extracting and addressing them. This study also reports the data sources used for analyzing user reviews. Conclusion: This SLR provides an understanding of the ethical software requirements and underscores the importance of user reviews in developing trustworthy software. The findings can also help inform future research and guide software engineers or researchers in addressing software ethical requirements.

Ethical software requirements from user reviews: A systematic literature review

TL;DR

This SLR provides an overview of ethical requirements identification techniques and the implications of extracting and addressing them and underscores the importance of user reviews in developing trustworthy software.

Abstract

Context: The growing focus on ethics within SE, primarily due to the significant reliance of individuals' lives on software and the consequential social and ethical considerations that impact both people and society has brought focus on ethical software requirements identification and elicitation. User safety, privacy, and security concerns are of prime importance while developing software due to the widespread use of software across healthcare, education, and business domains. Thus, identifying and elicitating ethical software requirements from app user reviews, focusing on various aspects such as privacy, security, accountability, accessibility, transparency, fairness, safety, and social solidarity, are essential for developing trustworthy software solutions. Objective: This SLR aims to identify and analyze existing ethical requirements identification and elicitation techniques in the context of the formulated research questions. Method: We conducted an SLR based on Kitchenham et al's methodology. We identified and selected 47 primary articles for this study based on a predefined search protocol. Result: Ethical requirements gathering has recently driven drastic interest in the research community due to the rise of ML and AI-based approaches in decision-making within software applications. This SLR provides an overview of ethical requirements identification techniques and the implications of extracting and addressing them. This study also reports the data sources used for analyzing user reviews. Conclusion: This SLR provides an understanding of the ethical software requirements and underscores the importance of user reviews in developing trustworthy software. The findings can also help inform future research and guide software engineers or researchers in addressing software ethical requirements.
Paper Structure (35 sections, 4 figures, 7 tables)

This paper contains 35 sections, 4 figures, 7 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Background
  3. Concepts and definitions
  4. Need for ethical software
  5. Requirements for ethical software
  6. Need for SLR
  7. Research methodology
  8. Planning
  9. Research questions
  10. Development and validation of the review protocol
  11. Conducting the review
  12. Identification and selection of the primary studies
  13. Data extraction
  14. Information synthesis
  15. Reporting the review
  16. ...and 20 more sections

Figures (4)

  • Figure 1: We follow the SLR process outlined by Kitchenham et al. keele2007guidelines which has three phases to it.
  • Figure 2: Details of study selection process
  • Figure 3: Number of primary studies based on publication year and venue type
  • Figure 4: The geographical distribution of the papers published by teams on the subject.