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Crowdsourcing Transparency Requirements through Structured Feedback and Social Adaptation

Mahmood Hosseini, Alimohammad Shahri, Keith Phalp and Raian AliBournemouth University

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Agenda Introduction

What are transparency requirements? Peculiarities of transparency

Motivation Why crowdsourcing? Why structured feedback? Why social adaptation?

Overviews Overview of transparency reference models Overview of our proposed framework Overview of structured feedback elements

Applying the concepts in the engineering of transparency requirements Applying crowdsourcing Applying structured feedback Applying social adaptation

Conclusion and future work

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Transparency RequirementsIn

trodu

cti

onM

otiv

atio

nOv

ervi

ews

Appl

icatio

nsCo

nclu

sion

What information should I put on my product label?

(THE RIGHT TO SHOW)

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Transparency RequirementsIn

trodu

cti

onM

otiv

atio

nOv

ervi

ews

Appl

icatio

nsCo

nclu

sion

What information do I need to know in a T&C?

(THE RIGHT TO KNOW)

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Transparency Requirements Non functional requirements Getting more attention

The change of the millennium Social crises, e.g., Panama Papers and Ashley

Madison Financial crises, e.g., the one in 2008

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Image courtesy of Time, 14 Apr 2016

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Transparency Requirements Initiatives to handle transparency

requirements E.g., Freedom of Information Act, Open

Government Need for engineering

Reference models, conceptual models, tools, automated analysis

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Peculiarities of Transparency What to disclose

Informational needs of the stakeholders Who to disclose to

Stakeholder identification, their different needs When to disclose

Timeliness How much to disclose

Preventing information overload Regulations and limitations

Other non-functional requirements such as privacy Evolution over time

Information life span, transient requirement Targeted transparency vs. tailored transparency

Role level vs. individual level01/06/2016

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But what is transparency anyway?

Transparency is

providing high

quality informatio

n

Transparency should be meaningful for its users

Transparency is

synonymous with

information

Transparency

should only

reach those who

need it

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Transparency is about accessible,

understandable

information

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Motivation:Why Crowdsourcing? Crowdsourcing allows the

engagement of a large, diverse crowd

It has been investigated in RE activities StakeRare, StakeSource, REfine,

CrowdREquire

It can be considered as a solution to dynamic or bi-directional transparency

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Motivation:Why Structured Feedback? Easier to aggregate, process,

analyse and evaluate

Its use has been investigated in crowdsourcing activities

Transparency attributes allow for structured feedback

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Motivation:Why Social Adaptation? Social adaptation regards user

feedback as the main driving force for software evolution

A good fit for transparency requirements They are volatile They change over time They vary for different stakeholders

We need social adaptation to ensure the crowd is heard01/06/2016

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Overview of Transparency Reference Models

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(Presented in RE 2015)

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Overview of Transparency Reference Models

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(Facets Presented in REFSQ 2016)

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Overview of Transparency Reference Models

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(Facets Presented in REFSQ 2016)

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Overview of Transparency Reference Models

01/06/2016Kahn, B. K., Strong, D. M., & Wang, R. Y. (2002). Information quality benchmarks: product and service performance. Communications of the ACM, 45(4), 184-192.

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(Fac

ets P

rese

nted

in R

EFSQ

201

6)

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Overview of Our Proposed Framework

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monitor

analyse planexecute

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Overview of Structured Feedback Elements

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Applying Crowdsourcing in the Engineeringof Transparency Requirements The four pillars of

crowdsourcing match transparency actors The crowd: information

receivers The crowdsourcer: information

provider The crowdsourced task:

transparency provision The crowdsourcing platform:

information medium01/06/2016

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Applying Crowdsourcing in the Engineeringof Transparency Requirements Crowdsourcing for the identification

of stakeholders Identification of alternative information

providers, as acknowledged in Section 2(21)(1) of UK FOIA

Identification of alternative information mediums

Creation of alternative information mediums, e.g., by sharing information in social media

Identification of other information receivers, i.e., spreading transparency to those who need it

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Applying Crowdsourcing in the Engineeringof Transparency Requirements Spotting transparency

meaningfulness mismatch (i.e., mismatches in data, process, and/or policy transparency) Annotation of information as data, process and

policy Notifying where information concerning data,

process, and policy is missing through requests of information

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Applying Crowdsourcing in the Engineeringof Transparency Requirements Information availability:

Missing information Disseminating information for better

reach

Information interpretation: Crowd interpretation of the

information into a more crowd-friendly language

Helping formal interpreters, e.g., news agencies in local issues

Compare interpretations01/06/2016

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Applying Crowdsourcing in the Engineeringof Transparency Requirements Information accessibility:

Spotting difficulties in access, e.g., too many clicks, obsolete electronic formats

Enhancing accessibility by sharing

Information perception: Perception sharing to help

information providers reduce the perception gap

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Applying Crowdsourcing in the Engineeringof Transparency Requirements Information understandability:

Highlighting ambiguities, discrepancies, etc., e.g., in a Terms and Conditions document

Information acceptance: Sharing their acceptance/refusal,

and the reason for it, e.g., lack of reputation of the news source

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Applying Crowdsourcing in the Engineeringof Transparency Requirements Information actionability:

Sharing if and how information is useful, similar to celebrity endorsements, e.g., an increase in the annual fee resulting in bank customers moving their money to other banks

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Applying Crowdsourcing in the Engineeringof Transparency Requirements Product/service quality

dimensions conforming to specifications Finding inconsistencies, imprecisions,

etc.

Product/service quality dimensions meeting or exceeding consumer expectations Crowd feedback must be elicited in

the quality assurance of these dimensions

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Applying Structured Feedback in the Engineering of Transparency Requirements Pinpointing the loci where transparency

has been successful or has failed: On the level of transparency required (i.e.,

data, process, policy) On the last step where transparency has

been achieved or failed (i.e., availability, interpretation, accessibility, perception, understandability, acceptance, actionability)

On the information quality in transparency On stakeholder identification and medium

discovery Still, the use of free-form comment is

recommended along with structured feedback

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Applying Social Adaptation in the Engineering of Transparency Requirements Transparency requirements are often

individual, context-dependent, and emerging requirements

Every individual’s transparency requirement should be ideally elicited, similar to the industry idea of mass customisation

For transparency, a continuous feedback acquisition facilitates mass customisation How, what, where, when to disclose and to whom

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Applying Social Adaptation in the Engineering of Transparency Requirements Monitoring:

Stakeholders’ transparency requirements change with the change of time and context, and they often become obsolete as soon as they are met

Monitoring through feedback is necessary to ensure transparency requirements are met all the time

The power of the crowd can be harnessed through structured feedback for the engineering of transparency requirements

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Applying Social Adaptation in the Engineering of Transparency Requirements Analysis:

Structured feedback can help the analysis of transparency requirements

Modelling and formalisation of transparency requirements helps reasoning and analysis

We have proposed a domain-specific modelling language, TranspLan, for the engineering of transparency requirements ▪ (to be presented in CAiSE 2016)

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Applying Social Adaptation in the Engineering of Transparency Requirements Planning:

Finding the best alternative for satisficing transparency requirements

Using recommender systems helps in the selection of alternatives

User profiling helps recommender systems understand users’ interests

Execution: Just consider that transparency

requirements are transient!01/06/2016

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Conclusion and Future Work We proposed a conceptual

framework for utilising crowdsourcing and social adaptation through structured feedback for engineering and evolving transparency requirements

Our future work will be consolidating the proposed framework, and providing methods supported by automated tools for covering the entire life cycle of transparency requirements

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Acknowledgements

The research is supported by an FP7 Marie Curie CIG grant (the SOCIAD project).

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Thank You!

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