Publications
Journal: Requirements Engineerings
Title: Capturing consumer preferences as requirements for software product lines
Abstact: Delivering great consumer experiences in competitive market conditions requires software vendors to move away from traditional modes of thinking to an outside-in perspective, one that shifts their business to becoming consumer-centric. Requirements engineers operating in these conditions thus need new means to both capture real preferences of consumers and then relate them to requirements for software customized in different ways to fit anyone. Additionally, because system development models require inputs that are more concrete than abstract, the indistinct values of consumers need to be classified and formalized. To address this challenge, this study aims to establish a conceptual link between preferences of consumers and system requirements, using software product line (SPL) as a means for systematically accommodating the variations within the preferences. The novelty of this study is a conceptual model of consumer preference, which integrates generic value frameworks from both psychology and marketing, and a method for its transformation to requirements for SPL using a goal-oriented RE framework as the mediator. The presented artifacts are grounded in an empirical study related to the development of a system for online education.
Journal: International Journal of Information System Modeling and Design (IJISMD)
Title: Capturing Consumer Preference in System Requirements Through Business Strategy
Abstact: A core concern within Business-IT alignment is coordinating strategic initiatives and plans with Information Systems (IS). Substantial work has been done on linking strategy to requirements for IS development, but it has usually been focused on the core value exchanges offered by the business, and thus overlooking other aspects that influence the implementation of strategy. One of these, consumer preferences, has been proven to influence the successful provisioning of the business’s customer value proposition, and this study aims to establish a conceptual link between both strategy and consumer preferences to system requirements. The core contention is that reflecting consumer preferences through business strategy in system requirements allows for the development of aligned systems, and therefore systems that better support a consumer orientation. The contribution of this paper is an approach to establish such alignment, with this being accomplished through the proposal of a consumer preference meta-model mapped to a business strategy meta-model further linked to a system requirements technique. The validity of this proposal is demonstrated through a case study carried out within an institution of higher education in Sweden.
Conference: Practice of Enterprise Modeling (PoEM 2013), Riga, Latvia
Title: Capturing and Representing Values for Requirements of Personal Health Records
Abstact: Patients’ access to their medical records in the form of Personal Health Records (PHRs) is a central part of the ongoing shift in health policy, where patient empowerment is in focus. A survey was conducted to gauge the stakeholder requirements of patients in regards to functionality requests in PHRs. Models from goal-oriented requirements engineering were created to express the values and preferences held by patients in regards to PHRs from this survey. The present study concludes that patient values can be extracted from survey data, allowing the incorporation of values in the common workflow of requirements engineering without extensive reworking.
Journal: Network and Communication Technologies
Title: Knowing Your Population: Privacy-Sensitive Mining of Massive Data
Abstact: Location and mobility patterns of individuals are important to environmental planning, societal resilience, public health, and a host of commercial applications. Mining telecommunication traffic and transactions data for such purposes is controversial, in particular raising issues of privacy. However, our hypothesis is that privacy-sensitive uses are possible and often beneficial enough to warrant considerable research and development efforts. Our work contends that peoples’ behavior can yield patterns of both significant commercial, and research, value. For such purposes, methods and algorithms for mining telecommunication data to extract commonly used routes and locations, articulated through time-geographical constructs, are described in a case study within the area of transportation planning and analysis. From the outset, these were designed to balance the privacy of subscribers and the added value of mobility patterns derived from their mobile communication traffic and transactions data. Our work directly contrasts the current, commonly held notion that value can only be added to services by directly monitoring the behavior of individuals, such as in current attempts at location-based services. We position our work within relevant legal frameworks for privacy and data protection, and show that our methods comply with such requirements and also follow best-practices.
Workshop: Sixth International i* Workshop at CAiSE 2013
Title: Using i* to Capture Consumer Preferences as Requirements for Software Product Lines
Abstact: The need for software to fit to diversity of numerous consumers has become a norm. Furthermore, technology innovations stimulate the growth of such software, thus making it even more available and appealing to consumers. Although how economic values relate and influence IT systems is an area that has been addressed, it is not clear whether and how consumer values do so. To address this challenge, this study aims to using i* establish a link between preferences of consumers and system requirements for Software Product Line (SPL) as a seamless way for systematically realizing variations. The presented results are grounded in an empirical study related to the development of a system for Online Education.
Workshop: Business IT Alignment (Busital) at CAiSE 2012
Title: Towards Consumer Preference-Aware Requirements
Abstact: From the business perspective, one of the core concerns within Business-IT alignment is coordinating strategic initiatives and plans with Information Systems (IS). However, while substantial work has been done on linking strategy to requirements for IS development, it has usually been focused on the core value exchanges offered by the business, overlooking other aspects influencing the implementation of strategy. One of these, consumer preferences, has been proven to influence the successful provisioning of the business’s customer value proposition, and this study aims to establish a conceptual link between them and system requirements. The core contention is that reflecting consumer preferences through business strategy in system requirements allows for the development of systems aligned to consumer preferences, and therefore systems that better support a consumer orientation, where the reasoning behind a particular solution stems from them. The contribution of this paper is the proposal of a consumer preference meta-model along with an illustration of its relationship to a requirements’ technique (i*) through the Strategy Maps business strategy formulation.
Conference: Third International Conference on Software Business (ICSOB)
Title: Consumer Value-Aware Enterprise Architecture
Abstract: To improve the alignment between business and IT, this paper explores how to make Enterprise Architecture (EA) aware of consumer values. Current proposals in enterprise modeling recognize the need for modeling user needs, or values. However they do not classify them nor do they provide means to obtain them. In our study, these are first introduced as basic values captured via Schwartz’s Value Survey, a cross-culturally applicable tool from the world of psychology, which are mapped onto Holbrook’s Typology of Consumer Values. Additionally, because formal models require inputs that are more concrete than abstract, and through this proposal, the indistinct values of consumers can be transformed and formalized to be incorporated into enterprise architecture, represented here by ISO/IEC 42010. The novelty of this work is found in the method for operationalizing consumer values for their alignment and utilization within information systems.
Conference: Practice of Enterprise Modeling (PoEM 2011), Oslo, Norway
Title: Modeling Business Strategy: A Consumer Value Perspective
Abstract: Business strategy lays out the plan of an enterprise to achieve its vision by providing value to its customers. Typically, business strategy focuses on economic value and its relevant exchanges with customers and does not directly address consumer values. However, consumer values drive customers’ choices and decisions to use a product or service, and therefore should have a direct impact on business strategy. This paper explores whether and how consumer values influence business strategy, and how they might be linked to IS solutions that support the implementation of such strategies. To address these questions, the study maps consumer values to a business strategy approach via a meta-model commonly used for such purposes, based on strategy maps and balanced scorecards (SMBSC). Additionally, the applicability of the mappings is illustrated via a case scenario where the mappings are applied and the business strategy conceptualization captures them. Finally, based on these mappings, high level guidelines for linking consumer values to requirements for the development.
Conference: 2010 International Simulation Multi-Conference (Euro SIW)
Paper: Semantic Enhancements when Designing a BOM-based Conceptual Model Repository
Abstract: The Defence Conceptual Modeling Framework (DCMF) is the Swedish Defence Research Agency’s (FOI) proposal for conceptual modeling in the military domain. DCMF enables the conceptualization, composition, visualization, and reuse of knowledge for modeling and simulation. To achieve these aims, DCMF requires that its final products—conceptual models expressed as Base Object Models (BOMs)—-are embedded with semantics. In this study, this is accomplished by formalizing them through the use of an ontology. These semantically enriched models are better able to achieve key requirements of DCMF, mainly conceptualization and reuse of knowledge. Such requirements are crucial when conceptual models are stored for later use in a repository.
Patent Filing: Collecting and Associating Data (European Patent Agency Filing 2 242 292 A1 )
Application: Collecting and Associating Data
Description: The present invention relates to a method and system for collecting human migration data into a database, comprising the steps of receiving information regarding the spatial movement, here called a path, or stationary position, here called a station, of a mobile device in a communication network, from the same communication network, and associating information or a sequence of information that represents a path or a station, here called a signal, with previously collected specific information regarding an individual associated with the mobile device. The inventive method specifically comprises the steps of de-identifying the information by deleting all information that can uniquely identify the mobile device or the individual from the signal and from the specific information, and storing the signal together with the specific information in the database, the signal and personal information thus being associated with each other and stored without any information that can uniquely identify the mobile device or the individual.
Workshop: LocWeb 2009 (part of CHI 2009)
Paper: Time Geography Rediscovered: A Common Language for Location-Oriented Services
Abstract: We propose that the concepts of Time Geography be evaluated as a framework for use within location-oriented services. Originally conceived as a system to describe patterns in human migration, Time Geography is ideally suited for providing the common language and concepts necessary for dialogue within this evolving area. Location-oriented services have been the focus of a great deal of attention, but with research occurring in many disparate disciplines, the lack of a common model that can conceptualize these ideas has not received appropriate attention. To demonstrate its applicability within location-oriented services, we present a research activity which makes explicit use of concepts from Time Geography, with the hope that it can be seen as a tractable and practical solution for several difficulties facing this fast growing area of interest.