Roel Wieringa Knihy

This book offers guidelines for practicing design science in information systems and software engineering research. The design process typically involves two activities: designing an artifact to improve stakeholder outcomes and empirically investigating its performance in context. A key feature is "validation in context," emphasizing that artifacts should be validated where they are intended to be used. The book is structured into five parts. Part I explores the nature of design science, its artifacts, and related research questions. Part II focuses on the design cycle, covering the creation, design, and validation of artifacts based on stakeholder requirements. Part III discusses the importance of conceptual frameworks and theories in design science. Part IV examines the empirical cycle, detailing research problem analysis, setup, and data analysis for investigating artifacts in context. Finally, Part V addresses practical applications of the empirical cycle, presenting various research methods, including observational case studies and technical action research. The book also includes two checklists for the design and empirical cycles. It serves as a resource for students and researchers in software engineering and information systems, offering guidance on structuring research goals, analyzing design problems, validating designs, and presenting research results effectively.

This volume compiles the papers accepted for presentation at the 16thWorking C- ference on Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality (REFSQ 2010), held in Essen during June 30 and July 1-2, 2010. Since 1994, when the first REFSQ took place, requirements engineering (RE) has never ceased to be a dominant factor influencing the quality of software, systems and services. Initially started as a workshop, the REFSQ working conference series has now established itself as one of the leading international forums to discuss RE in its (many) relations to quality. It seeks reports of novel ideas and techniques that enhance the quality of RE products and processes, as well as reflections on current research and industrial RE practices. One of the most appreciated characteristics of REFSQ is that of being a highly interactive and structured event. REFSQ 2010 was no exception to this tradition. In all, we received a healthy 57 submissions. After all submissions had been ca- fully assessed by three independent reviewers and went through electronic disc- sions, the Program Committee met and finally selected 15 top-quality full papers (13 research papers and 2 experience reports) and 7 short papers, resulting in an acc- tance rate of 38 %. The work presented at REFSQ 2009 continues to have a strong anchoring in pr- tice with empirical investigations spanning over a wide range of application domains.