Exploring ethical values in software systems: A systematic literature review

IF 3.7 2区计算机科学 Q1 COMPUTER SCIENCE, SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

Journal of Systems and Software Pub Date : 2025-03-21 DOI:10.1016/j.jss.2025.112430

Razieh Alidoosti , Patricia Lago , Maryam Razavian , Antony Tang

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Context:

Ethics has attracted considerable attention in the field of software engineering. The prevalence of software-intensive systems and how they become an integral part of people’s lives makes it essential for software engineers to care about the potential impacts and injustice of software systems on people. The social and ethical implications on individuals and society play an important role in the study of software engineering ethics.

Objective:

The general aim of this paper is to study the state of the art in ethics in software engineering and to understand ethical considerations in software design and development.

Method:

We conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) with an initial sample of 623 articles, of which 85 articles were selected as primary studies.

Result:

We created a body of knowledge on stakeholders and software engineering ethical values. More specifically, we provided a stakeholders map to identify different types of system stakeholders and presented a value model to categorize ethical values and recognize value relations.

Conclusion:

This SLR sheds light on the state of software engineering ethics. It highlights challenges such as the identification of indirect stakeholders, the lack of attention to their concerns, and the need for a stakeholder classification. The review emphasizes the importance of considering stakeholders’ concerns to uncover ethical values and discusses methods for value extraction, with a focus on the value model. There are needs to address particular ethical values, resolve value conflicts, and operationalize ethical values in software design. These findings offer valuable insights for future research and practice, encouraging a comprehensive integration of ethical aspects into software engineering.

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来源期刊

Journal of Systems and Software 工程技术-计算机：理论方法

CiteScore

8.60

自引率

5.70%

发文量

193

审稿时长

16 weeks

期刊介绍： The Journal of Systems and Software publishes papers covering all aspects of software engineering and related hardware-software-systems issues. All articles should include a validation of the idea presented, e.g. through case studies, experiments, or systematic comparisons with other approaches already in practice. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: •Methods and tools for, and empirical studies on, software requirements, design, architecture, verification and validation, maintenance and evolution •Agile, model-driven, service-oriented, open source and global software development •Approaches for mobile, multiprocessing, real-time, distributed, cloud-based, dependable and virtualized systems •Human factors and management concerns of software development •Data management and big data issues of software systems •Metrics and evaluation, data mining of software development resources •Business and economic aspects of software development processes The journal welcomes state-of-the-art surveys and reports of practical experience for all of these topics.