Recently software crowdsourcing has become a viable development paradigm for Software-as-a-Service （SaaS） ecosystems. TopCoder, one of the largest competi- tive programming communities, enables enterprises to tap in...Recently software crowdsourcing has become a viable development paradigm for Software-as-a-Service （SaaS） ecosystems. TopCoder, one of the largest competi- tive programming communities, enables enterprises to tap into its global talent pool and crowdsource a variety of SaaS development tasks including requirement analysis, architec- ture design, code, and testing. Many researchers have pro- posed auction-based modelling methods to characterize gen- eral software crowdsourcing. But there are few papers on the comprehensive analysis of SaaS crowdsourcing process and developer community. This paper introduces a holistic analysis framework to model the SaaS-oriented software crowdsourcing from two dimensions： individual behavior in crowdsourcing contests and collective competition in the community. The framework includes a game-theoretical model to describe the compet- itive nature of software crowdsourcing process. Moreover, the framework defines a competition network to characterize the topological properties of a crowdsourcing community for SaaS development. The analysis of this model indicates that the success of a competitive software crowdsourcing project essentially depends upon the networks of key participants with sufficient skills and dedication for the project. This is validated by a large historical data collected from the Top- Coder website over a ten-year period.展开更多
Software crowdsourcing(SW CS)is an evolving software development paradigm,in which crowds of people are asked to solve various problems through an open call(with the encouragement of prizes for the top solutions).Beca...Software crowdsourcing(SW CS)is an evolving software development paradigm,in which crowds of people are asked to solve various problems through an open call(with the encouragement of prizes for the top solutions).Because of its dynamic nature,SW CS has been progressively accepted and adopted in the software industry.However,issues pertinent to the understanding of requirements among crowds of people and requirements engineers are yet to be clarified and explained.If the requirements are not clear to the development team,it has a significant effect on the quality of the software product.This study aims to identify the potential challenges faced by requirements engineers when conducting the SW–CS based requirements engineering(RE)process.Moreover,solutions to overcome these challenges are also identified.Qualitative data analysis is performed on the interview data collected from software industry professionals.Consequently,20 SW–CS based RE challenges and their subsequent proposed solutions are devised,which are further grouped under seven categories.This study is beneficial for academicians,researchers and practitioners by providing detailed SW–CS based RE challenges and subsequent solutions that could eventually guide them to understand and effectively implement RE in SW CS.展开更多
文摘Recently software crowdsourcing has become a viable development paradigm for Software-as-a-Service （SaaS） ecosystems. TopCoder, one of the largest competi- tive programming communities, enables enterprises to tap into its global talent pool and crowdsource a variety of SaaS development tasks including requirement analysis, architec- ture design, code, and testing. Many researchers have pro- posed auction-based modelling methods to characterize gen- eral software crowdsourcing. But there are few papers on the comprehensive analysis of SaaS crowdsourcing process and developer community. This paper introduces a holistic analysis framework to model the SaaS-oriented software crowdsourcing from two dimensions： individual behavior in crowdsourcing contests and collective competition in the community. The framework includes a game-theoretical model to describe the compet- itive nature of software crowdsourcing process. Moreover, the framework defines a competition network to characterize the topological properties of a crowdsourcing community for SaaS development. The analysis of this model indicates that the success of a competitive software crowdsourcing project essentially depends upon the networks of key participants with sufficient skills and dedication for the project. This is validated by a large historical data collected from the Top- Coder website over a ten-year period.
基金‘This research is funded by Taif University,TURSP-2020/115’.
文摘Software crowdsourcing(SW CS)is an evolving software development paradigm,in which crowds of people are asked to solve various problems through an open call(with the encouragement of prizes for the top solutions).Because of its dynamic nature,SW CS has been progressively accepted and adopted in the software industry.However,issues pertinent to the understanding of requirements among crowds of people and requirements engineers are yet to be clarified and explained.If the requirements are not clear to the development team,it has a significant effect on the quality of the software product.This study aims to identify the potential challenges faced by requirements engineers when conducting the SW–CS based requirements engineering(RE)process.Moreover,solutions to overcome these challenges are also identified.Qualitative data analysis is performed on the interview data collected from software industry professionals.Consequently,20 SW–CS based RE challenges and their subsequent proposed solutions are devised,which are further grouped under seven categories.This study is beneficial for academicians,researchers and practitioners by providing detailed SW–CS based RE challenges and subsequent solutions that could eventually guide them to understand and effectively implement RE in SW CS.
