SCA 2013 conference

1. Socially-Augmented Software
Empowering Software Operation Through Social Contacts
Trans-Atlantic Research and Education Agenda in System of Systems
Raian Ali, Nan Jiang & Huseyin Dogan

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Overview
 About me
 An example of a Socially-Augmented Operation
 Rationale: Power of Contacts
 Proposed Concept
 Benefits and Examples
 Application Illustration
 Challenges for Social-Augmentation
 Future Work

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Socially-Augmented Operation
 Augmentation is the action or process of
making or becoming greater in size or amount
(Oxford Dictionaries, 2013)
 An example: Relocating and relying on a
friend to find an accommodation.
Socially-Augmented Software is the integration of the power of contacts
and machines to achieve a collective benefit, by ensuring contacts are
connected by the most appropriate means, and that they have the right
tools to make sense of the information and knowledge available to them.

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Rationale: Power of Contacts
 Paradigm shift: the mind-set of managing network of contacts
using a software is already there.
 Some pros and cons of empowering software operations
through contacts:
+ can be very practical when it is relatively difficult to fulfil the
entire requirements of an individual through solely automated
means.
- allow a freestyle interaction that could lead to useless and
even harmful solutions causing e.g. information overload.
 Augmenting software with people is challenging and
restrictions need to be carefully designed to avoid discouraging or
confusing users when interacting and cooperating with software.

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Proposed Concept
Socially-Augmented Software Process

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Benefits and Examples
 Enables achieving a range of requirements that would not be
achievable through automated means e.g. smart-grip system.
 Enables alternative approaches for solving problems more cost-
effectively for certain domains, requirements and users e.g. relying on
contacts than an e-guide to provide and consume desired services.
 Avoids the deployment of expensive IT and business infrastructure
e.g. wireless network coverage through contacts.
 Enables the formulation of socially-customized solutions within a
community to which a user belongs e.g. knowing the habits of a friend
when booking a holiday.
 Enables a richer accommodation of, and adaptation to, changes e.g.
a fully automated tour guide may assume that the hotels in a certain
geographic area are unlikely to provide internet.

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Application illustration
 Consider a museum-guide mobile information system giving
information about pieces of art, alerting of some events in the
museum helping on registering for services, etc.
 We divide the operation of socially-augmented software into three
stages
1. Requirements Activation
2. Solutions Evaluation
3. Solution Execution
Ref: Jim Wilson/The New York Times

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Requirements Activation
1. Requirements Activation: requirements can be activated by social
requests through a users contacts on behalf of the user.

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Solutions Evaluation
2. Solutions Evaluation: software could follow different alternative
solutions in order to fulfil users requirements.

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Solution Execution
3. Solution Execution: the software has to execute or facilitate
execution of certain tasks which comprise information extraction
and processing.

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Challenges for Social-Augmentation
 The baseline criteria for user to request or provide services:
Who – a set of contacts who can request and consume a service.
When/Where – the environment that surrounds both the provider and
the consumer on which they both have no control, i.e. their context.
What – the specification of the services to be provided, i.e. the
information to share and the tasks to execute.
Why – the reason for which a consumer asks for a service, i.e. the goal
which is intended to be achieved.
How – the way by which a contact provides a service. Two main
categories comprise (i) sharing with all and (ii) sharing under demand.

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Future Work
 Revisit the access policies and roles privileges for organizational
information systems and find out how these will be aligned with users
social life and contacts.
 Investigate the influencers on data quality to enable better design for
quality e.g. reliability of user data and social penalties/sanctions.
 Test our entire vision on real life case studies and validate the
feasibility of socially-augmented software and consequently address
the issue of people acceptance of this novel software style.
Developers tend to solve socio-technical problems with
techno-social approaches.
Need to consider Human Factors related topics such as human
centered design, human cognition, situational awareness, information
overload, training, organizational and professional culture, and trust.

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Contact us
Dr. Raian Ali
Email: rali@bournemouth.ac.uk
Dr. Nan Jiang
njiang@bournemouth.ac.uk
Dr. Huseyin Dogan
hdogan@Bournemouth.ac.uk