Slides from my ICSE 2020 talk on Human Values in Software Engineering Research. Take-away: only 16% of top software engineering research has considered broader human values

1. A Study on the Prevalence of Human
Values in Software Engineering
Publications, 2015 – 2018
Jon Whittle
Faculty of IT, Monash University
MONASH
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
@Jon_Whittle_
Harsha Perera, Waqar Hussain, Jon
Whittle, Arif Nurwidyantoro, Davoud
Mougouei, Rifat Ara Shams, Gillian Oliver

2. A history of software engineering…
http://stg-tud.github.io/sedc/Lecture/ws13-14/1-Introduction-
General.html#mode=document

3. Software
Engineering
now
Values & ethics
in software
engineering
functionality, cost, safety,
security, privacy
Inclusion, diversity,
responsibility, transparency,
well-being, fairness, respect

4. Dawson D and Schleiger E* , Horton J, McLaughlin J, Robinson C∞, Quezada G, Scowcroft J, and Hajkowicz S† (2019) Artificial Intelligence: Australia’s Ethics
Framework. Data61 CSIRO, Australia.

5. Does SE research address
this?

6. Definition of values
Analysis of papers
• Selection
• Map to values definition
• Direct/indirect relevance
• Raters
• >= 2
• disagreements
Methodology

8. Abstracts from ICSE, FSE, TSE, TOSEM (From 2015 to 2018)
Venue 2018 2017 2016 2015 Total
ICSE - Main 153 68 101 83 405
ICSE - SEIP 35 30 28 25 118
ICSE - SEIS 11 9 7 9 36
FSE 122 124 143 123 512
TSE 31 61 61 62 215
TOSEM 14 12 16 22 64
Total 366 304 356 324 1350

9. ‘
Protecting the environment
“…improve the energy efficiency of
mobile apps…”
Helpfulness
“…a portal created to support
newcomers to OSS projects…”
Example Classifications

10. Human Values
in SE Research

11. Which values?

12. Which values?

13. ‘
• (top) SE research pays insufficient
attention to values
• not all SE papers should address
values, but how many should?
• adapt Schwartz to SE?
Conclusions

14. https://ovislab.net
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_contin
ue=4&v=pSdoeKID1qk&feature=emb_logo

15. https://ovislab.net