Document - Eliciting the double-edged impact of digitalisation: a case study in rural areas

2023

Conference article Open Access

Eliciting the double-edged impact of digitalisation: a case study in rural areas

Ferrari A., Lepore F., Ortolani L., Brunori G.

Case study Computer Science - Computers and Society FOS: Computer and information sciences Rural areas Requirements elicitation Requirements Engineering Software Engineering (cs.SE) Computers and Society (cs.CY) Computer Science - Software Engineering

Designing systems that account for sustainability concerns demands for a better understanding of the impact that digital technology interventions can have on a certain socio-technical context. However, limited studies are available about the elicitation of impact-related information from stakeholders, and strategies are particularly needed to elicit possible longterm effects, including negative ones, that go beyond the planned system goals. This paper reports a case study about the impact of digitalisation in remote mountain areas, in the context of a system for ordinary land management and hydro-geological risk control. The elicitation process was based on interviews and workshops. In the initial phase, past and present impacts were identified. In a second phase, future impacts were forecasted through the discussion of two alternative scenarios: a dystopic, technology-intensive one, and a technology-balanced one. The approach was particularly effective in identifying negative impacts. Among them, we highlight the higher stress due to the excess of connectivity, the partial reduction of decision-making abilities, and the risk of marginalisation for certain types of stakeholders. The study posits that before the elicitation of system goals, requirements engineers need to identify the socio-economic impacts of ICT technologies included in the system, as negative effects need to be properly mitigated. Our study contributes to the literature with: a set of impacts specific to the case, which can apply to similar contexts; an effective approach for impact elicitation; and a list of lessons learned from the experience.

Source: RE 2023 - 31st IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, pp. 157–168, Hannover, Germany, 4-8/09/2023

Publisher: IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos, CA, USA

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@inproceedings{oai:it.cnr:prodotti:490373,
	title = {Eliciting the double-edged impact of digitalisation: a case study in rural areas},
	author = {Ferrari A. and Lepore F. and Ortolani L. and Brunori G.},
	publisher = {IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos, CA, USA},
	doi = {10.1109/re57278.2023.00024 and 10.48550/arxiv.2306.05078},
	booktitle = {RE 2023 - 31st IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, pp. 157–168, Hannover, Germany, 4-8/09/2023},
	year = {2023}
}