Sustainability in software and green software has increased attention in software engineering (SE), given the potential of software to contribute positively to sustainable development initiatives. This trend is substantiated by the numerous systematic reviews (SRs) that have been published on the matter. However, a significant gap in understanding remains concerning the sustainability concepts and their dimensions within the field. This tertiary study aims to construct a comprehensive map of sustainability topics in SE. As a result, 80 SRs were selected in this report. A notable lack of consensus exists regarding SE sustainability definitions and the dimensions involved. The environmental dimension is the most frequently reported, capturing 55% of the research focus, with a predominant emphasis on energy efficiency. Approximately 52.5% of studies delve into products related to system performance and evolvability and software architecture. However, limited attention is given to the social, economic, and individual dimensions. Despite the considerable focus on the green dimension, there is a necessity for further research in both empirical primary studies and SRs to enhance the reliability of the findings. Achieving consensus on definitions of terminology and implementing standardized measurement methods are essential steps to advance understanding the sustainable SE.

ABSTRACT Researchers, organizations, and professionals have a great interest in defining sustainability indicators within the framework of Green Business Process Management (Green BPM), together with business process models that allow the impact of those indicators to be assessed in organizations. However, there is a lack of procedures that help organizations to incorporate indicators in Green BPM. For this reason, the so‐called Gaia method has been developed based on the Green BPM lifecycle. This method allows the implementation, monitoring, and continuous improvement of sustainability in business processes based on sustainability indicators. This paper presents an empirical validation of Gaia through a case study carried out in a higher education institution, emphasizing the definition and evaluation of sustainability indicators in business processes. The evaluation of sustainability indicators into the BPM lifecycle allowed sustainability indices to be obtained for each process, leading to the calculation of an organization's sustainability coefficient. The proposal has been applied to a higher education organization, which obtained a sustainability coefficient , corresponding to the medium sustainability level (). The case study has been the basis for the re‐elaboration of objectives, lines of action, and the redesign of business processes that contribute to evaluating and improving the levels of sustainability desired by the organization under study. The main limitation of our study is that the Gaia method has been applied on one organization only. A tool that automates the method to assess the sustainability of business processes is being developed.

Video game engines are used in most modern video games because they simplify and speed up development. In addition, some of the most popular engines, such as Unreal Engine 5 (UE5), also integrate visual scripting tools. Visual scripting in UE5, through Blueprints, is a model-driven development approach that replaces text code, like C++, with a visual language of interconnected nodes representing functions and data flows, forming a flowchart-like logic diagram. This approach simplifies game development by abstracting complex code into intuitive, visual models, enabling creators to construct and iterate game components without extensive programming knowledge. Although Blueprint models usually decrease the complexity of implementing components, thus accelerating the development, they might lead to less energy-efficient runtime performance than C++. In this work, we evaluate the energy consumption of three relevant video game components (health system management, inputs processing, and collections operations for an inventory), each implemented with Blueprint models and C++. The results show that the energy consumption per frame when using C++ is up to 48% lower than when using Blueprint models. The combination of artistic and technical profiles in video game developments has favoured the adoption of Blueprint models. However, there is a lack of works analyzing the energy consumption. Until this work, there was no evidence that the success of models for developing video games, like the one under study in this work, was accompanied by a cost in energy consumption for certain situations. Given the huge popularity of video games, this cost in energy might reach up to the equivalent of the energy consumption of 28 million European households.

Quantum computing is considered a revolutionary technology due to its ability to solve computational problems that are beyond the capabilities of classical computers. However, quantum computing requires great amounts of energy to run. Therefore, a factor in deciding whether to use quantum computing should be not only the complexity of the problem to be solved, but also the energy required to solve it. This paper presents an empirical study developed with the aim of comparing classical and quantum computing in terms of energy efficiency to determine whether the increased power of quantum computers is offset by their higher energy consumption. To achieve this, a variety of problems with different levels of complexity were tested on both types of computers. Specifically, we used the IBM Quantum computers with a maximum of 5 qubits and an Intel i7, as a classical computer. In addition to this we have also analysed the evolution of the quantum computers, performing measurements on three time periods. Our empirical study showed that there is a variability of results obtained in the three time periods and that quantum computing is not recommended for low-complexity problems, given its high energy consumption, particularly when compared to traditional computing.

Global Software Development (GSD) is currently a strong industry trend. This means that if computer science engineers are to be trained to deal with this model, it is very important to include the topic in software engineering courses, attempting to ensure that students learn about GSD and become familiar with its advantages and challenges. However, software engineering courses do not always consider including it in their curricula. It must also be recognized that it is difficult to find a suitable method to teach/develop the different skills needed for GSD. There is often a lot of content and not a great deal of time available to teach it. In this article, we propose the use of a serious game called GSD-Aware, with which students can “suffer” some of the typical challenges of GSD by interacting with avatars and by using several means of communication to solve a number of problems posed. The article focuses on the description of the game and on the empirical study conducted to analyze whether GSD-Aware helps students to be conscious of GSD challenges. It was discovered that after 50 minutes playing the game, the students were aware of the greater influence that the following factors can have: lack of coordination, lack of trust, cultural differences, lack of face-to-face and informal communication, time difference, and lack of team spirit. In their final analysis, students agreed that the serious game scenarios helped them to understand what GSD is and to grasp the importance of some GSD challenges.

Software Quality is a multidimensional concept for which Reliability is considered as a key attribute. Notwithstanding, due to its conceptual complexity, there is no common agreement on what Software Reliability is, thus different stakeholders use a variety of Software Reliability views. With the aim to improve our understanding of what Software Reliability means for industrial stakeholders as well as that of contributing to enhance the industrial applicability of Software Quality Models we propose approaching Software Reliability analysis by using structural model based on representative International Standards, which are industry-oriented. As analysis method, since interested on stakeholders' vision of Reliability we will apply the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchical Process (FAHP) which is designed to manage human assessment, always characterized by a certain degree of vagueness and subjectivity. The rationality of the proposed model and feasibility of the analysis method is proved by the application on a very large industrial system which provides empirical evidence on the conceptual descriptiveness capturing stakeholders' views and industrial applicability in an efficient manner.

Abstract Background Codes of ethics (CoE) are widely adopted in several professional areas, including that of Software Engineering. However, contemporary CoE do not pay sufficient attention to one of the most important trends to have appeared in the last years environmental issues. Aim The aim of this study is to establish a Green CoE for software engineering and Professional Practices (GreCo). Our intention is to cover a wide range of aspects related to sustainability, such as economic, environmental, social, and technical features. We are additionally interested in encouraging software engineers to adopt these aspects. Methods The Green CoE presented is the result of the interaction of several experts in the area. A first version of GreCo, whose starting point was a discussion at the GInSEng workshop, was created by identifying key principles and adapting them to the Green area. Next, various important CoE were reviewed so as to gather the existing references to sustainability or to detect new ones. These elements would then possibly be incorporated into the new code or stimulate the creation of new sustainable principles. Results The final result is the GreCo code, which has been produced by modifying existing principles or by the introduction of new ones.

Quality demands on current and future software systems need to address diverse quality characteristics considered important for the diversity of stakeholders. Dealing with software quality may require achieving a balance between relevant quality characteristics. Current literature shows that software organizations barely handle them. However, the lack of management of these interactions may be a causal factor in failed projects. In this paper, we present a process for monitoring interactions between quality requirements based on an interaction model of quality characteristics. This process is part of the SQIMF framework and supports the identification and characterization of the interactions between quality requirements. An exploratory case study was conducted in order to understand the factors that could influence the interactions that occur.

Improving a particular quality characteristic in a software product may have a negative impact on the others. The literature shows that few organizations handle interactions between quality characteristics; this neglect may be a causal factor in failed projects. That led us to propose a process framework to support organizations that want to manage the interactions between quality characteristics. In this paper, we present the methods that may be used when the process framework is deployed. The methods were extracted from a published mapping study on software quality trade-offs. They were classified with regard to the particular context facet addressed and the specific decision-making approach used. Our contribution is a set of methods to manage interaction between quality characteristics, organized into a software process framework.

Background: Maturity models have been developed to assist organizations to enhance software quality, and the software engineering community has proposed numerous types of these, most of them based on CMM, ISO/IEC 15504 and CMMI-DEV. The great proliferation of maturity models leads to a need for systematic approaches to build them. Aim: To discover and analyze the existing methods and recommended practices for developing maturity models. Method: A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted. Results: 1500 papers were returned as a result of the searches, from which 23 were chosen as candidates, and 7 of these, published between 2005 and 2010, were eventually selected as primary studies. Conclusions: The proposal of methods for maturity models development is an emerging topic in literature. Most published maturity models are based on practices and success factors from projects that showed good results in an organization or industry, but which lack a sound theoretical basis and methodology. The proposed methods highlight as main activities: to establish goals for maturity model development, to design model architecture, to set out capability levels and dimensions, to and pilot testing. However, the creation of an assessment questionnaire and specific activities for maintenance are poorly supported. The SLR results have served to propose a method for developing maturity models that is focused on product quality characteristics.

In the software measurement context, there exists a lack of consensus among the concepts and terminology used. Even inconsistencies and terminology conflicts can be detected among standards. For this reason, a software measurement ontology (SMO) has come into existence with the aim of providing a coherent software measurement terminology. In this paper, an example of the use of SMO as framework for the definition of a portlet functionality model is presented. Attributes, measures as well as indicators have been identified for the portlet functionality following the SMO