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The requirements engineering (RE) process constitutes the earliest phase of the information system development life cycle. Requirements elicitation is considered as one of the most critical activities of this phase. Moreover, requirements elicitation is still a challenge, especially in the distributed environment of so‐called inter‐company cooperative information systems (ICISs). The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology to elicit requirements for an ICIS.

An analytical research approach was conducted. The current RE approaches, which are based either on goal, scenario or viewpoint were evaluated. Then the role of the elicitation technique selection step within the requirements elicitation process was examined. Finally the factors that affect this step in a distributed environment were studied. An example from the textile industry is used to illustrate the applicability of the proposed methodology.

Though existing requirements elicitation approaches based either on goal, scenario or viewpoint are effective techniques, they do not fit exactly to a cooperative distributed environment: more issues are created by inadequate communication, time difference between sites, cultural, language and characteristics diversity of stakeholders which affect the elicitation technique selection step and thus the requirements elicitation process. In order to tackle these issues, this paper presents a methodology called MAMIE (from Macro‐ to Micro‐level requirements Elicitation) to elicit requirements for an ICIS. A prototype tool has been developed to support the operation of the methodology.

The major limitation of the paper is that has not yet been tested in an existing organization.

To provide the analyst with well‐defined steps in order to elicit requirements of an ICIS. To understand the role of the elicitation technique selection step within the requirements elicitation process and identifying the factors which have an impact on this step. To select an appropriate elicitation technique according to these factors.

MAMIE integrates the three notions of goal, scenario and viewpoint to elicit requirements for an ICIS. The paper argues that these concepts may be used simultaneously and in a complementary way to improve the requirements elicitation process. Moreover, in order to increase the quality of the elicited requirements and thus the quality of the system‐to‐be, selecting an elicitation technique in MAMIE is not based on personal preferences but on situation assessment.

This paper presents a recommendation on how one requirement elicitation technique supports the other techniques in defining system requirement for a case-based system. A case-based lesson planning system aims to assist teachers in constructing quality lesson plans through its cycle which begins with case retrieval. To retrieve relevant lesson plans, appropriate inputs should be used and the intended output needs to be identified via suitable requirement elicitation techniques. The use of a single technique might result in inadequate requirement specification, thus affecting the quality of the output requirements as well as quality of the final information system.

Requirement elicitation was carried out in three phases: phase I involved document review, phase II was an interview and phase III used a survey. Respondents of the study comprised experienced teachers as well as new teachers. This research used both qualitative and quantitative approaches to answer the research questions, which involved semi-structured interviews, document review and survey to collect the relevant data. Documents were reviewed by analysing lesson plans from three different countries. In addition, a review of lesson plans prepared by teachers and the standard syllabus were carried out. Findings from the document review were used in structured interviews using a teach-back technique, sorting and matrix of attribute-values. A questionnaire was then constructed based on the interviews and document review.

The findings of this initial study, as part of a larger research investigation, would help in knowledge modelling and representation. This will contribute to effective case retrieval via good design of the system input and output. The study identifies important elements of a lesson plan according to their ranking. Keywords that were used by teachers as input for retrieval were identified together with the expected output.

The main goal of requirement elicitation is to specify complete and detailed requirements of the proposed system. There are two main types of requirement: functional and non-functional requirements. This paper only focuses on functional requirements – specifically case retrieval with appropriate input and output.

Various requirement engineering (RE) techniques can be applied in different phases of requirement elicitation. Suitable technique should be chosen at different phases of RE, as it is important for triangulation purposes. Incomplete RE will affect the modelling part of system development, and, thus, affect the design and implementation of an information system.

Software engineer or anybody involved in system development should plan accordingly for the RE process. They should be creative and reasonable in selecting suitable RE techniques to be applied.

This study aims to gain understanding of the various aspects of lesson planning. Crucial knowledge in lesson planning that was gathered from the elicitation phase is modelled to have a good understanding of the problems and constraints among teachers. The findings of this initial study, as part of a larger research investigation, would help in knowledge modelling and representation. This will contribute to effective case retrieval via a good design of the system input and output.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceptions of 19 requirement engineering (RE) techniques in Kuwait in term of three criteria “awareness,” “use,” and “perceived value generated over past system development projects.” Also, this paper aims to examine possible relationships between these RE techniques and two information system development success factors.

This paper develops a questionnaire and tests with a sample of respondents from 175 organizations in Kuwait.

Results show that: Arab culture influence perception of RE techniques; most companies have good knowledge of different techniques; several different techniques for identifying and analyzing customer requirements are used; the most highly valued RE techniques are decision trees, goal oriented, prototyping, data flow diagram (DFD), and interviews; six techniques (tree analysis, role playing, unified modeling language, Kawakita Jiro method, flow charts, and Ishikawa) are found to have the least perceived value; and only two techniques (prototyping and decision tree) are highly correlated with the statement “Obtaining the right requirements is a critical success factor for system development,” while other three techniques (quality function deployment, DFD and role playing) are correlated with “We experienced problems during past system developments projects because of wrong requirements collection.”

The study sheds light on perceptions on RE techniques perception in Kuwait where less is known about the subject from Western researchers.

This paper suggests re‐examining university curriculums in order to prepare students for familiarity with techniques that have proven their effectiveness elsewhere and call for more collaboration between academia and practitioners in order to appropriate research outcomes. In addition, this paper is of benefit to foreign consulting companies willing to penetrate the Gulf Cooperative Council.

This is the first Arab study that sheds light on system development practices in the Arab world.

Although requirement elicitation is generally acknowledged to be very important in traditional information systems development (ISD), it does not get enough attention in most Web‐based information systems development (WISD). This paper highlighted the difference between ISD and WISD, and proposed a three‐stage model of user requirements elicitation for Web‐based information systems. This model divides the requirements definition into three stages: initial analysis, key user requirements elicitation and regular user responses. Most current WIS design methodologies consider only initial analysis, and neglect actual users’ requirements. Key user input is emphasized in this model, and social network analysis is proposed as a tool for identifying key users. Requirements analysis for WISD is no longer considered a one‐stop step, but is better regarded as a continuous evolving process. Finally, managerial implications are also provided in this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to review the crucial elements of integrated river basin management (IRBM) and their legal frameworks which have to be considered in a comprehensive management approach. A wide range of decision support systems (DSS) have been developed for IRBM‐related fields during the last few decades. However, most of the developed systems are either not used in practice or are used by people other than those they were designed for. The paper also discusses whether DSS are useful for IRBM and presents the requirements which have to be considered in the development of IRBM‐DSS.

Beside literature research, a variety of requirement elicitation techniques such as interviews, buzz groups, questionnaire and prototype evaluation were employed. Feedback from roughly 200 experts representing different work fields and river basins in Central and Western Europe was collected.

Different legal frameworks of IRBM fields were analysed with a view to determining whether they can be applied in a comprehensive approach. Broad elicitations affirm that DSS can assist in various phases of planning and management processes. Some general requirements of DSS for IRBM can be identified which should be considered in DSS development. DSS can be described as socio‐technical instruments and “communication vehicles” because of their multiple roles in participation processes.

The paper illustrates different elicitation techniques used to specify what users require of DSS. Furthermore, it describes some essential requirements for DSS development such as the main added value, key functionalities and factors for successful implementation.

The described results are based on my own studies and elicitations which have been conducted in the course of the past two years.

This paper aims to introduce the goal-oriented requirements extraction approach (GOREA). It is an elicitation approach that uses, specifically, healthcare business goals to derive the requirements of e-health system to be developed.

GOREA consists of two major phases: (1) modelling e-health business requirements phase and (2) modelling e-health information technology (IT) and systems requirements phase. The modelling e-health business requirements phase is divided into two main stages: (1) model e-health business strategy stage and (2) model e-health business environment stage. The modelling e-health IT and systems requirements phase illustrates the process of obtaining requirements of e-health system from the organizational goals that are determined in the previous phase. It consists of four main steps that deal with business goals of e-health system: (1) modelling e-health business process (BP) step; (2) modelling e-health business goals step; (3) analysing e-health business goals step; and (4) eliciting e-health system requirements step. A case study based on the basic operations and services in hospital emergency unit for checking patient against COVID-19 virus and taking its diagnostic testing has been set and used to examine the validity of the proposed approach by achieving the conformance of the developed system to the business goals.

The results indicate that (1) the proposed GOREA has a positive influence on the system implementation according to e-health business expectations; and (2) it can successfully fulfil the need of e-health business in order to save the citizens life by checking them against COVID-19 virus.

The proposed approach has some limitations. For example, it is only validated using one e-health business goal and thus it has to be authenticated with different e-health business goals in order to address different e-health problems.

Many e-health projects and innovations are not established based on robust system requirements engineering phase. In order to ensure the success delivery of e-health services, all characteristics of e-health systems and applications must be understood in terms of technological perspectives as well as the all system requirements.

In this paper, the authors consider how qualitative research techniques that are used in applied psychology to understand a person’s feelings and needs provides a means to elicit their security needs.

Recognizing that the codes uncovered during a grounded theory analysis of semi-structured interview data can be interpreted as policy attributes, the paper develops a grounded theory-based methodology that can be extended to elicit attribute-based access control style policies. In this methodology, user-participants are interviewed and machine learning is used to build a Bayesian network-based policy from the subsequent (grounded theory) analysis of the interview data.

Using a running example – based on a social psychology research study centered around photograph sharing – the paper demonstrates that in principle, qualitative research techniques can be used in a systematic manner to elicit security policy requirements.

While in principle qualitative research techniques can be used to elicit user requirements, the originality of this paper is a systematic methodology and its mapping into what is actionable, that is, providing a means to generate a machine-interpretable security policy at the end of the elicitation process.

Many project failures can be attributed to changes in requirements as the project progresses. The purpose of this paper is to review several system dynamics models of the requirements process from the literature, especially the model of Andersson and Karlsson. This model addresses the deficiencies in the system dynamics model devised hitherto to create a model than can be used to predict requirements acquisition and staff resources for different levels of project complexity and size.

A new control‐theoretic model of requirements gathering is devised using the Software Test Model of Cangussu as a framework. Conventional control system techniques are then used to compute typical responses.

The results agree with the limited published data. This model can be used to predict an estimate of the possible number of requirements that could be devised for the project. It allows the incorporation of workforce, quality and complexity information to predict the time to complete the requirements process. This model is then used to predict how the requirements process responds to requirements creep and to changes in workforce used.

This model is theoretical and is proposed so that it can be simple tested. It makes a number of assumptions not yet recorded by industry that would have to be obtained.

If it is supported by experimental data then a better project development model can be created with the prospect of greater control of project development.

This work, although based on the work of Cangussu et al., is devised by the author.

General data protection regulation (GDPR) entered into force in May 2018 for enhancing personal data protection. Even though GDPR leads toward many advantages for the data subjects it turned out to be a significant challenge. Organizations need to implement long and complex changes to become GDPR compliant. Data subjects are empowered with new rights, which, however, they need to become aware of. GDPR compliance is a challenging matter for the relevant stakeholders calls for a software platform that can support their needs. The aim of data governance for supporting GDPR (DEFeND) EU project is to deliver such a platform. The purpose of this paper is to describe the process, within the DEFeND EU project, for eliciting and analyzing requirements for such a complex platform.

The platform needs to satisfy legal and privacy requirements and provide functionalities that data controllers request for supporting GDPR compliance. Further, it needs to satisfy acceptance requirements, for assuring that its users will embrace and use the platform. In this paper, the authors describe the methodology for eliciting and analyzing requirements for such a complex platform, by analyzing data attained by stakeholders from different sectors.

The findings provide the process for the DEFeND platform requirements’ elicitation and an indicative sample of those. The authors also describe the implementation of a secondary process for consolidating the elicited requirements into a consistent set of platform requirements.

The proposed software engineering methodology and data collection tools (i.e. questionnaires) are expected to have a significant impact for software engineers in academia and industry.

It is reported repeatedly that data controllers face difficulties in complying with the GDPR. The study aims to offer mechanisms and tools that can assist organizations to comply with the GDPR, thus, offering a significant boost toward the European personal data protection objectives.

This is the first paper, according to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to provide software requirements for a GDPR compliance platform, including multiple perspectives.

This paper aims to explore the requirements of organizational knowledge management initiatives using requirements engineering techniques, identifying the optimal techniques configuration and serving as a management tool for knowledge engineers.

The method is selection attributes. Knowledge management enablers are characterized and mapped with the coverage capabilities of requirements engineering techniques, using the attributes of the elicited object and a box-plot analysis. The information is gathered from 280 references, 32 companies and 16 experts in requirements engineering.

Requirements of organizational knowledge management initiatives are got optimally by combining interviews, use cases, scenarios, laddering and focus group techniques. The requirements of structure and processes are more complex to identify, while culture requirements are the best covered.

Knowledge management enablers are analyzed according to the current studies and comprehension of engineering techniques.

Knowledge engineers need to consider the coverage capabilities of engineering techniques to design an optimal requirement identification and meet the objectives of organizational knowledge acquisition initiatives. Requirement engineers can improve the requirements identification by a staged selection process.

The requirements of knowledge management initiatives that impact the community can be identified and traced to ensure the knowledge objectives. Requirements related to culture and people, like shared values, beliefs, and behaviors, are also considered.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study about formal requirement identification of knowledge management initiatives in the organizational context, providing the optimal configuration. A novel staged process is proposed for requirements engineering techniques selection, analyzing the enablers at component level and identifying the attributes associated with the elicited object.