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Using Situational and Narrative Analysis for Investigating the Messiness of Software Security

Published: 23 October 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Background: Software engineering work and its context often has characteristics of what in social science is termed 'messy'; it has ephemeral and irregular qualities. This puts high demands on researchers doing inquiry and analysis. Aims: This paper aims to show what a combination of situational analysis (SA) and narrative analysis (NA) can bring to qualitative software engineering research, and in particular for situations characterised by mess. Method: SA and NA were applied to a case study on software security. Results: We found that these analysis methods helped us gain new insights and understandings and a broader perspective of the situation we are studying. Additionally, the methods helped collaboration in the analysis. Conclusion: We recommend applying and studying these and similar combinations of analysis approaches further.

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  • (2023)Localised Trust in a Globalised Knot: Designing Information Privacy for Digital-IDACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies10.1145/3616024Online publication date: 16-Aug-2023
  • (2023)Security Responses in Software DevelopmentACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/356321132:3(1-29)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2023
  • (2023)The importance of stories in wildlife managementEcological Management & Restoration10.1111/emr.1256723:3(237-243)Online publication date: 9-Jan-2023
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  1. Using Situational and Narrative Analysis for Investigating the Messiness of Software Security

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      ESEM '20: Proceedings of the 14th ACM / IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM)
      October 2020
      412 pages
      ISBN:9781450375801
      DOI:10.1145/3382494
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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      Published: 23 October 2020

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      Author Tags

      1. agile software development
      2. narrative analysis
      3. qualitative studies
      4. situational analysis
      5. software security

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      ESEM '20 Paper Acceptance Rate 26 of 123 submissions, 21%;
      Overall Acceptance Rate 130 of 594 submissions, 22%

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      Cited By

      View all
      • (2023)Localised Trust in a Globalised Knot: Designing Information Privacy for Digital-IDACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies10.1145/3616024Online publication date: 16-Aug-2023
      • (2023)Security Responses in Software DevelopmentACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/356321132:3(1-29)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2023
      • (2023)The importance of stories in wildlife managementEcological Management & Restoration10.1111/emr.1256723:3(237-243)Online publication date: 9-Jan-2023
      • (2022)Influencing the security prioritisation of an agile software development projectComputers and Security10.1016/j.cose.2022.102744118:COnline publication date: 1-Jul-2022

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