Sofia Sherman

Privacy by designers: software developers’ privacy mindset

Privacy by design (PbD) is a policy measure that guides software developers to apply inherent solutions to achieve better privacy protection. For PbD to be a viable option, it is important to understand developers’ perceptions, interpretation and practices as to informational privacy (or data protection). To this end, we conducted in-depth interviews with 27 developers from different domains, who practice software design. Grounded analysis of the data revealed an interplay between several different forces affecting the way in which developers handle privacy concerns. Borrowing the schema of Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), we classified and analyzed the cognitive, organizational and behavioral factors that play a role in developers’ privacy decision making. Our findings indicate that developers use the vocabulary of data security to approach privacy challenges, and that this vocabulary limits their perceptions of privacy mainly to third-party threats coming from outside of the organization; that organizational privacy climate is a powerful means for organizations to guide developers toward particular practices of privacy; and that software architectural patterns frame privacy solutions that are used throughout the development process, possibly explaining developers’ preference of policy-based solutions to architectural solutions. Further, we show, through the use of the SCT schema for framing the findings of this study, how a theoretical model of the factors that influence developers’ privacy practices can be conceptualized and used as a guide for future research toward effective implementation of PbD.

What Do Software Architects Think They (Should) Do

Software architecture is an integral part of software development, and has become more complex, with the transition from traditional to agile development methods. Hence, the architect’s tasks in the software development project must be well defined. Though there was some amount of empirical research addressing architects‘ perceptions, most of the research in the area of software architecture addressed this topic theoretically. Perception, being a part of, and having an effect on, cognitive processes and decision making, is explored in this research in order to gain a deeper understanding of what tasks architects find to be included in their role and responsibility. Thus far, 8 in-depth interviews were conducted in various hi-tech firms, followed by distributing an on-line questionnaire, with the response of 12 architects. The obtained results demonstrate several differences between the role of the architect, as defined in literature, and the way architects perceive their role.

Social networking in an academic conference context: insights from a case study

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a conference-based online social network (OSN) for academics’ knowledge sharing and collaboration around and beyond a conference, while exploring the entanglement of the social and technical aspects of the system. Design/methodology/approach – Following an exploratory study, an OSN prototype was developed and implemented in ECIS 2014. The usage of the OSN platform was monitored and in-depth interviews were conducted with seven of its active users. Findings – Academic researchers have positive attitudes toward using conference-based OSN. However, there is a gap between academics’ perceptions and their actual behavior. Several barriers for engagement were identified, leading to technical and social recommendations, including the following needs: integrating the OSN platform with other conference information systems; addressing privacy concerns; allowing on-going collaboration; increasing OSN vitality; using the wisdom of the crowd; and promotion and its timi...

Finding the missing link to industry: LinkedIn professional groups as facilitators of empirical research

Conducting empirical research in industry is not an easy task. Previous research has discussed some of the challenges in this type of research and potential solutions have been proposed. However, conducting cross-organizational research introduces specific challenges, some of which are quite hard to overcome. In this paper, we present the use of professional interest groups in a professional social network, Linked In, as a way to recruit participant to an online survey. Using this social network, commonly used among practitioners, was found to be an effective research tool.

Identifying the need for a sustainable architecture maintenance process

Documentation plays a significant role in software development in general and in software architecture in particular. In large and complex systems, many changes affecting architecture and architectural documentation occur. This derives the need for constant changes within architecture documents in order to keep them up to date. This research in-progress aims to understand the current state of architecture maintenance towards proposing a solution for improving this practice via a well-defined process and supporting tools.

The Overall Value of Architecture Review in a Large Scale Software Organization

Software architecture review is an important part of architecture construction and evaluation, aimed at ensuring high-quality architecture thus leading to high-quality product. The literature recognizes the different benefits gained by architecture review. Yet, our empirical findings obtained in a large scale software organization show that (1) not all architects are fully aware of the review contribution, and (2) in addition to improving the quality of the architecture, the review encompasses other value propositions, such as promoting collaboration, knowledge sharing, and verifying alignment with the organization’s strategy. The study presented in this paper is a first step in an ongoing research aimed at improving existing architecture review processes, methods and tools for enhancing the review’s various contributions.

Enhancing Software Architecture via a Knowledge Management and Collaboration Tool

Software architecture is an important part of software development, aiming at ensuring a high-quality product. Recent research has shown that collaboration and knowledge management are important parts of the architecture process, and have significant role in architecture design and review. In this paper we present a prototype for a tool we developed, as part of our ongoing research on the software architecture process, for supporting collaboration, communication and knowledge sharing during all steps of the architecture development process. This tool was developed based on the findings of a case-study research in a global, large software organization.

Toward Defining the Role of the Software Architect

Software architecture is integral part of the software development; however, its integration in the development process has become more challenging with the transition from traditional to agile development methods, and with the architects becoming much more than technological experts responsible for high-level design. Some attention has been paid in recent years to the role of the architect, seeking a contemporary and comprehensive definition of this role. This paper reports on the results of an online survey, with the participation of 104 software architects, aimed at defining the soft aspects of the software architects role. The results reveal that architects perform a variety of human-centered activities such as mentoring, leadership, reviewing and management,. Moreover, in the contexts of mentoring and leadership, software architects strive to do more than they currently do.

Leveraging organizational climate theory for understanding industry-academia collaboration

Abstract Context Industry-academia collaboration (IAC) in the field of software engineering is widely discussed in the literature, highlighting its importance and benefits. However, along with the benefits, academic researchers face challenges while performing empirical studies in industry, risking their success. Awareness of these challenges and the importance of addressing them has recently grown, and became the center of discussion in several publication venues. Objective In this paper, we aim to address one of the key challenges affecting the success of IAC: stakeholder involvement. To this end, we propose a vision for leveraging organizational climate theory toward an effective management of IAC in software engineering research. Organizational climate is defined as the organizations priorities as perceived by its employees and was found to be an effective means of predicting employee behavior. Method To provide a basis and motivation for our vision, we conducted a literature review, focused on the workshop series of CESI, Conducting Empirical Studies in Industry, in order to elicit the relevant reported challenges of IAC, and to analyze them through the lens of the organizational climate theory. Results Emergent categories of the elicited challenges of IAC are related to the two basic components that determine the emergence of organizational climate: management commitment and communication. This result demonstrates that analyzing stakeholder involvement-related challenges of IAC through the lens of organizational climate theory provides an indication of the climate components that should be enhanced in order to address these challenges. Conclusion The above analysis lays the foundation for our vision that organizational climate may serve as an effective means of addressing the discussed challenges. We propose that developing measures of organizational research collaboration climate and deploying respective interventions for improvement would be instrumental for enhancing stakeholder involvement in IAC. We further propose a research outline toward fulfilling these potential contributions.