A4 Article in conference proceedings
How to Write Ethical User Stories? : Impacts of the ECCOLA Method (2021)

Halme, E., Vakkuri, V., Kultanen, J., Jantunen, M., Kemell, K.-K., Rousi, R., & Abrahamsson, P. (2021). How to Write Ethical User Stories? : Impacts of the ECCOLA Method. In P. Gregory, C. Lassenius, X. Wang, & P. Kruchten (Eds.), Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming : 22nd International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2021, Virtual Event, June 14–18, 2021, Proceedings (pp. 36-52). Springer. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, 419. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78098-2_3

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Publication details

All authors or editors: Halme, Erika; Vakkuri, Ville; Kultanen, Joni; Jantunen, Marianna; Kemell, Kai-Kristian; Rousi, Rebekah; Abrahamsson, Pekka

Parent publication: Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming : 22nd International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2021, Virtual Event, June 14–18, 2021, Proceedings

Parent publication editors: Gregory, Peggy; Lassenius, Casper; Wang, Xiaofeng; Kruchten, Philippe

Place and date of conference: Virtual Conference, 14.-18.6.2021

ISBN: 978-3-030-78097-5

eISBN: 978-3-030-78098-2

Journal or series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing

ISSN: 1865-1348

eISSN: 1865-1356

Publication year: 2021

Number in series: 419

Pages range: 36-52

Number of pages in the book: 211

Publisher: Springer

Place of Publication: Cham

Publication country: Switzerland

Publication language: English

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78098-2_3

Publication open access: Openly available

Publication channel open access: Partially open access channel

Publication is parallel published (JYX): https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/76660

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are increasing in significance within software services. Unfortunately, these systems are not flawless. Their faults, failures and other systemic issues have emphasized the urgency for consideration of ethical standards and practices in AI engineering. Despite the growing number of studies in AI ethics, comparatively little attention has been placed on how ethical issues can be mitigated in software engineering (SE) practice. Currently understanding is lacking regarding the provision of useful tools that can help companies transform high-level ethical guidelines for AI ethics into the actual workflow of developers. In this paper, we explore the idea of using user stories to transform abstract ethical requirements into tangible outcomes in Agile software development. We tested this idea by studying master’s level student projects (15 teams) developing web applications for a real industrial client over the course of five iterations. These projects resulted in 250+ user stories that were analyzed for the purposes of this paper. The teams were divided into two groups: half of the teams worked using the ECCOLA method for AI ethics in SE, while the other half, a control group, was used to compare the effectiveness of ECCOLA. Both teams were tasked with writing user stories to formulate customer needs into system requirements. Based on the data, we discuss the effectiveness of ECCOLA, and Primary Empirical Contributions (PECs) from formulating ethical user stories in Agile development.

Keywords: software engineering; software development; agile methods; artificial intelligence; ethicality

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Ministry reporting: Yes

Reporting Year: 2021

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