The Potential of Citizen Platforms for Requirements Engineering of Large Socio-Technical Software Systems

TL;DR

The paper addresses the challenge of collecting high-quality requirements for large public-sector socio-technical systems by exploring citizen platforms as deliberative RE environments. It articulates a five-phase requirements engineering framework that integrates preparation, elicitation, prioritization, development, and acceptance within a platform-enabled, participatory process. Key contributions include a risk-aware, governance-conscious conceptual model, considerations for representativeness, facilitation, and privacy, and guidance for pilot evaluations and policy-oriented applications. The work highlights the potential for more legitimate, transparent, and inclusive technology governance, while acknowledging risks such as participatory washing and demanding governance requirements in public policy contexts.

Abstract

Participatory citizen platforms are innovative solutions to digitally better engage citizens in policy-making and deliberative democracy in general. Although these platforms have been used also in an engineering context, thus far, there is no existing work for connecting the platforms to requirements engineering. The present paper fills this notable gap. In addition to discussing the platforms in conjunction with requirements engineering, the paper elaborates potential advantages and disadvantages, thus paving the way for a future pilot study in a software engineering context. With these engineering tenets, the paper also contributes to the research of large socio-technical software systems in a public sector context, including their implementation and governance.