A process to incorporate social sustainability concerns in software architecture design

• Grant number: 19/16220-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: March 01, 2020
• End date: May 03, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Computer Science - Computing Methodologies and Techniques
• Principal Investigator: Elisa Yumi Nakagawa
• Grantee: Tiago Volpato
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ciências Matemáticas e de Computação (ICMC). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Software systems have been considered as one of the main means for the social advancement in several application domains, such as health, transportation, telecommunication, and education. Considering their relevance and criticality, the quality of these systems should be prioritized with special attention to their software architecture that fundamentally has played an important role to such quality. In parallel, software engineers have recently focused attention on the sustainability of these systems, whether in the environmental, technical, economic or social dimensions. In particular, the social dimension is about supporting software systems to create benefits for social communities, as well as activities or processes that promote social well-being in areas such as health. However, most existing software systems have been developed without considering the well-being and human values, resulting in systems that do not have a positive impact on communities. Besides that, the software systems design based on the notion of social sustainability is still poorly understood and practiced, i.e., how it can be identified, modeled, or measured. The main objective of this PhD project is to establish a process to incorporate social sustainability within the early stages of software development, particularly in software architecture design. To evaluate this process, case studies and/or experiments will be conducted by applying it in an e-Health system with stakeholders and health care providers at the Medical School at USP. Moreover, surveys with experts in sustainability and software architecture will complement this evaluation. As main result, we intend to broaden the concept of social sustainability in the software architecture design and, as a consequence, to contribute to the development of software systems that in fact can positively impact on the human well-being. (AU)