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Well-Being, Aging, and Health (WBAH) are important aspects of life that affect us all. The requirements for WBAH systems have also become a topic of common interest for researchers from different disciplines. This is unsurprising, given that health-related expenses often represent about 10% of a country's gross domestic product, according to the World Health Organization.1

As software engineering (SE) practitioners, we can help society by using our communities of experts to address a software need of a socially conscious organization. Doing so can benefit society in the locale of a SE conference and provide access to international experts for local organizations. Furthermore, established SE researchers as well as practitioners and students have the opportunity for a unique learning experience. While the SE community has already realized the importance of addressing human values and promoting social good objectives in software development, we are unaware of previous attempts to leverage SE conferences for this activity. Conferences present an opportunity to enjoy the assembly of SE practitioners, researchers, and students for the purpose of a philanthropic endeavor. Over the past four years of running a “Requirements Engineering for Social Good” event called RE Cares, co-located with the International Conference on Requirements Engineering, we worked with the stakeholders local to the conference venue. We selected stakeholders who would not necessarily have ready access to requirements engineering, software design, and development expertise otherwise, to build software targeting “good causes.” In the last two years, this event was altered to adapt to the constraints induced by COVID-19, moving to a hybrid mode and changing many of its practices accordingly. This paper summarizes and generalizes our experiences, discussing our lessons learned in the context of the pandemic and beyond and providing a framework for conducting similar social contribution in any SE conferences in general.

In this age of digital transformation, knowledge-intensive organizations strive to improve business outcomes and sustainability by improving their knowledge-intensive business processes (KIBPs) to obtain a competitive advantage. Many researchers have claimed that KIBP enhancement is possible through knowledge management (KM) initiatives supported by an effective KM infrastructure. Current KM infrastructures deal with formal KM procedures, where knowledge is created, stored, assimilated, and disseminated. Such activities, however, are designed to be performed outside of the business process. KM infrastructures are expected to be more effective when they include specific real-time knowledge procedures integrated into the operational flow of KIBPs. This paper explores how modern KM infrastructures can support KIBPs, considering both formal and operational KM procedures. Our study’s essential contribution is the conceptual KM infrastructure framework (KMIF) developed based on grounded theory research. This infrastructure provides a systematic and robust approach, starting from the ground up, for structuring organizational knowledge assets across a range of KIBP environments. We define operational knowledge procedures directly involved in KIBPs, adding a layer to KM infrastructures beyond the formal knowledge procedures. A mixed-method case study was conducted to demonstrate and evaluate the proposed KMIF for enhancing business outcomes and sustainability of knowledge-intensive organizations.

This paper presents an academic educational case of the ‘Jam week’ at Shenkar College of Engineering Design and Art. During the 2021 Jam week – a four days’ hackathon-like course – 700 students working in teams addressed challenges related to loneliness, as defined by five social care organizations. The event was virtually held through an online collaborative whiteboard platform (Miro) and Zoom meetings. The design thinking (DT) methodology was followed, involving multidisciplinary teams of engineering and design students, who collaboratively proposed solutions presented with conceptual videos and posters. Each social organization was allocated with several teams that addressed its challenges, considered in our context as a micro-crowd (MC). We performed a study for examining the influence of the collaborative environment on the MCs’ requirements engineering (RE) activities, and specifically how the structured online boards facilitate the DT process. Following a qualitative analysis of the shared boards, our findings indicate the ways in which the shared collaborative tool and the multidisciplinary nature of the MCs contributed to the high-quality outcomes developed by the teams. We further propose the concept of parallel MC-based RE referring to teams of multidisciplinary developers working in parallel for developing many ideas in a timely and creative manner.

Welcome to the 5th International Workshop on Crowd-Based Requirements Engineering (CrowdRE’21), where scientists and representatives of industry meet to exchange ideas, experiences, and other contributions regarding the state of the art of Crowd-Based Requirements Engineering (CrowdRE). The discipline of CrowdRE seeks to address the challenges of traditional requirements engineering (RE) in scaling up to settings with thousands to millions of users of (software) products or (software-driven) services, who form a large and heterogeneous group that can be denoted as a ‘crowd’ [1, 3]. The user feedback generated by the crowd, such as texts or usage data, can be a valuable source of requirements, problems, wishes, and needs. Responding quickly, effectively, and iteratively to this feedback can greatly increase a product’s success. CrowdRE comprises any approach that provides RE with suitable means for this crowd paradigm, especially by involving the crowd and by collecting, harmonizing, analyzing, and interpreting their user feedback.

© 1984-2012 IEEE. As researchers and teachers and practitioners, we software types excel at multitasking. This, in part, led us to ask the question: Can one attend a software engineering conference and do something good for society? We found the answer to be a resounding yes. In this article, we present our first experience of running RE Cares, a conference collocated event. This event included a workshop, conference sessions, and a hackathon for developing an application to support emergency field activity for Mutual Aid Alberta, a nonprofit organization coordinating natural disaster responses in the Canadian province.

This study discusses the importance of well-being (WB) and the role of applications in promoting WB. While there are many applications that aim to promote WB in various aspects of daily life (e.g. healthy eating, mindfulness), most of them fail to engage users over time. This paper posits that understanding the users’ emotional needs and creating attachment between the users and the applications, are critical factors for determining user engagement. The paper shows how applying the design thinking methodology, and in particular its customer journey map (CJM) tool, to present offline and online journeys, can help scholars understand how a specific application can be used in everyday life, enabling users to become attached and engaged. The paper presents how this approach helped students cope with a challenge of creating applications for reducing stress among mentally challenged persons during a multidisciplinary workshop attended by engineering and design students.

This paper proposes a unified knowledge management requirements engineering methodology (KM-REM) for tackling the complex nature of knowledge-intensive organizations. Despite the importance of KM for the success of knowledge-intensive organizations, the concept of RE for KM solutions is still vague lacking. Its definitions and guidelines for addressing the different facets of KM during the RE process are yet to be well-defined, encompassing social and technical aspects thereof. Applying the design science research paradigm by using a method engineering methodology, the KM-REM method was developed and implemented in a case study involving a global IT provider firm. This allowed for a comprehensive analysis and requirements specification for a KM solution, which was validated based on expert (managers) evaluation. KM-REM provides comprehensive, practical guidance and tools for KM analysts and RE professionals, for conducting KM-oriented RE, toward enhancing knowledge-intensive business processes with embedded KM solutions. Moreover, KM-REM facilitates tractability in the RE process, by focusing on manageable KM requirements. Thus, the contribution of KM-REM is threefold. First, it extends the research on RE for KM solutions as a specialized area within the RE discipline. Second, it cohesively organizes the RE dimensions and modeling principles for KM, providing customized guidelines and tools. Third, it demonstrates how the perspectives of traditional RE methods can be extended to include social and cultural aspects.

Purpose This research was aimed at studying the evolution and roles of the Israeli physicians' professional social network as perceived by the members of the network. Methodology The research examined a case study of RAMBAM/KEHILA professional networks, applying both qualitative and quantitative methods for establishing a grounded theory. Findings Physicians want to be part of their professional community and consider the network as a place where the “wisdom of the crowd” exists. They seek approval for their initial line of reasoning regarding their clinical cases but will consider other approaches if such are suggested by persons of professional repute or if answers are based on evidence-based medicine. The evolved network constitutes an a-political space which has gained the trust of the community and enables physicians of various ranks to share experiences and thoughts. Moreover, the network fosters learning opportunities and the network dynamics have impact on physicians' professional development. Discussion This unique ten-year longitudinal research examined the evolution of a professional social network. The research findings have practical and social implications. Practically, the study shows the values of professional network as an instrument for clinicians' lifelong learning and professional development. Socially, the study presents the professional network social role in facilitating social interactions when the network participants are involved in determining its roles and gain trust by avoiding any political or commercial interference.