An exploration study on developing blockchain systems–the practitioners' perspective

IF 4.3 2区计算机科学 Q2 COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Information and Software Technology Pub Date : 2025-06-19 DOI:10.1016/j.infsof.2025.107825

Bakheet Aljedaani , Aakash Ahmad , Mahdi Fehmideh , Arif Ali Khan , Jun Shen

{"title":"An exploration study on developing blockchain systems–the practitioners' perspective","authors":"Bakheet Aljedaani , Aakash Ahmad , Mahdi Fehmideh , Arif Ali Khan , Jun Shen","doi":"10.1016/j.infsof.2025.107825","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Context</h3><div>Blockchain-based software (BBS) builds upon the foundational technologies of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, utilising decentralised, immutable ledgers, to support the development and operation of security-critical and transaction-intensive systems and services. In recent years, a number of research studies have investigated the strategic benefits and technical limitations of BBS that is central to the operations of a wide variety of systems ranging from cyber security, healthcare, education, and financial technologies. Despite an increasing interest both from academia and industry in BBS, there is a dearth of empirical evidence resulting in a lack of understanding about processes, methods, and techniques to enable a systematic development of this class of software systems.</div></div><div><h3>Objectives</h3><div>Existing research lacks a consolidated view, particularly empirically-driven guidelines based on published evidence and development practices. Therefore, our objective is to derive new or leverage existing development processes, patterns, and models to design, implement, and validate BBS systems.</div></div><div><h3>Method</h3><div>Tied to this knowledge gap, we conducted a two-phase research that unifies the findings of (i) a systematic literature review and (ii) practitioners’ survey to derive and validate the development process for BBS systems. First, we conducted a systematic literature review of 58 studies to derive a process comprising of 26 activities, to develop BBS systems. We than engaged 102 blockchain practitioners from, 35 countries across 6 continents to validate the BBS system development processes.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>Our results revealed a statistically significant difference (<em>p</em>-value < .001) in the importance ratings of 24 out of 26 BBS activities by our participants. The only two activities that were not statistically significant were incentive protocol design and granularity design. Our study also presented some of the activities that have been emphasised by our participants within the different development phases (i.e., Analysis Phase, Design Phase, Implementation Phase, Deployment Phase, and Execution and Maintenance Phase).</div></div><div><h3>Conclusion</h3><div>Our research is among the first to advance understanding on the aspect of development process for BBS and helps researchers and practitioners in their quests on challenges and recommendations associated with the development of BBS systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54983,"journal":{"name":"Information and Software Technology","volume":"186 ","pages":"Article 107825"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3000,"publicationDate":"2025-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Information and Software Technology","FirstCategoryId":"94","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0950584925001648","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Context

Blockchain-based software (BBS) builds upon the foundational technologies of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, utilising decentralised, immutable ledgers, to support the development and operation of security-critical and transaction-intensive systems and services. In recent years, a number of research studies have investigated the strategic benefits and technical limitations of BBS that is central to the operations of a wide variety of systems ranging from cyber security, healthcare, education, and financial technologies. Despite an increasing interest both from academia and industry in BBS, there is a dearth of empirical evidence resulting in a lack of understanding about processes, methods, and techniques to enable a systematic development of this class of software systems.

Objectives

Existing research lacks a consolidated view, particularly empirically-driven guidelines based on published evidence and development practices. Therefore, our objective is to derive new or leverage existing development processes, patterns, and models to design, implement, and validate BBS systems.

Method

Tied to this knowledge gap, we conducted a two-phase research that unifies the findings of (i) a systematic literature review and (ii) practitioners’ survey to derive and validate the development process for BBS systems. First, we conducted a systematic literature review of 58 studies to derive a process comprising of 26 activities, to develop BBS systems. We than engaged 102 blockchain practitioners from, 35 countries across 6 continents to validate the BBS system development processes.

Results

Our results revealed a statistically significant difference (p-value < .001) in the importance ratings of 24 out of 26 BBS activities by our participants. The only two activities that were not statistically significant were incentive protocol design and granularity design. Our study also presented some of the activities that have been emphasised by our participants within the different development phases (i.e., Analysis Phase, Design Phase, Implementation Phase, Deployment Phase, and Execution and Maintenance Phase).

Conclusion

Our research is among the first to advance understanding on the aspect of development process for BBS and helps researchers and practitioners in their quests on challenges and recommendations associated with the development of BBS systems.

查看原文本刊更多论文

发展区块链系统的探索性研究——实践者的视角

基于区块链的软件（BBS）建立在比特币等加密货币的基础技术之上，利用分散的、不可变的分类账，来支持安全关键型和交易密集型系统和服务的开发和运营。近年来，许多研究调查了BBS的战略利益和技术限制，BBS是网络安全、医疗保健、教育和金融技术等各种系统的核心操作。尽管学术界和工业界对BBS的兴趣越来越大，但由于缺乏经验证据，导致对能够系统地开发这类软件系统的过程、方法和技术缺乏理解。现有的研究缺乏一个统一的观点，特别是基于已发表的证据和发展实践的经验驱动的指南。因此，我们的目标是派生新的或利用现有的开发过程、模式和模型来设计、实现和验证BBS系统。方法针对这一知识差距，我们进行了两阶段的研究，将(i)系统文献综述和（ii）从业者调查的结果结合起来，得出并验证BBS系统的开发过程。首先，我们对58项研究进行了系统的文献综述，得出了一个由26个活动组成的开发BBS系统的过程。随后，我们聘请了来自6大洲35个国家的102万名从业人员来验证BBS系统的开发过程。结果我们的研究结果显示有统计学意义的差异(p值<；.001)在我们的参与者对26个BBS活动中的24个的重要性评级中。只有激励协议设计和粒度设计两项活动在统计上不显著。我们的研究还展示了参与者在不同开发阶段（即分析阶段、设计阶段、实现阶段、部署阶段以及执行和维护阶段）中所强调的一些活动。结论我们的研究是第一个促进对BBS开发过程的理解，并帮助研究人员和从业者探索与BBS系统开发相关的挑战和建议的研究之一。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Information and Software Technology 工程技术-计算机：软件工程

CiteScore

9.10

自引率

7.70%

发文量

164

审稿时长

9.6 weeks

期刊介绍： Information and Software Technology is the international archival journal focusing on research and experience that contributes to the improvement of software development practices. The journal''s scope includes methods and techniques to better engineer software and manage its development. Articles submitted for review should have a clear component of software engineering or address ways to improve the engineering and management of software development. Areas covered by the journal include: • Software management, quality and metrics, • Software processes, • Software architecture, modelling, specification, design and programming • Functional and non-functional software requirements • Software testing and verification & validation • Empirical studies of all aspects of engineering and managing software development Short Communications is a new section dedicated to short papers addressing new ideas, controversial opinions, "Negative" results and much more. Read the Guide for authors for more information. The journal encourages and welcomes submissions of systematic literature studies (reviews and maps) within the scope of the journal. Information and Software Technology is the premiere outlet for systematic literature studies in software engineering.