arXiv subjects

Markus Funke

Publications and source records attributed to Markus Funke.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Fairness-First Design Thinking for Software Architecture

Fairness issues often remain hidden in digital systems, making them difficult to detect and even more difficult to address. In this study, we introduce a fairness-first Design Thinking (DT) approach to support addressing fairness concerns in software architecture (SA) design. We implemented our approach in a graduate-level course where students executed all steps of our DT approach as part of an assignment. We analyzed the assignment data to reflect on the implications for applying the DT approach in SA and teaching the DT approach in SA education. As a result of this study, we provide (i) a DT approach for SA, (ii) implications of the DT approach on handling fairness in both problem and solution spaces, and (iii) implications for education. Our reflections highlight that fairness theory and context identification are essential for a holistic, fairness-first design. We propose the use of composite views to address cross-cutting concerns such as fairness. In the future, we will update the course material to provide end-to-end fairness traceability in SA, helping students to understand how fairness concerns can be translated into actionable design decisions.

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arXiv2026

Designing Value-Based Platforms: Architectural Strategies Derived from the Digital Markets Act

The digital markets act (DMA) regulates very large digital platforms like Meta's Facebook or Apple's iOS with the goal to promote fairness, contestability (of market power) and user choice. From a system design or broader technical perspective, the implications of the DMA have not been studied so far. Using systematic methods from qualitative coding and thematic analysis, we investigate the DMA from a technical perspective and derive eight high-level design strategies that serve as fundamental approaches towards value-based architectural goals like 'fair practice', or 'user choice' (as envisioned by the DMA). We investigate how compliance with the DMA has been achieved and derive 15 tactics that we map to our strategies. While the DMA obligations challenge existing platform designs, they also create new opportunities for designing services within these huge ecosystems. We, thus, discuss our strategies in light of both. We see this work as a first step towards filling this pressing gap in the architecture of platform ecosystems, i.e., how to incorporate abstract human values in architecture design.

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arXiv2026

ICSE 2023 Sustainability Report

With growing discussions about the carbon footprint of academic conferences, more questions are being raised whether the environmental impacts caused by transportation and other factors justify the value of traditional paper presentations and social events. There is a pressing need to critically evaluate whether the ecological consequences of these events outweigh their perceived benefits. To that extent, we conducted a questionnaire survey among participants of the 45th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) 2023 in Melbourne, Australia, seeking their feedback on the different conference sessions (e.g., workshops, keynotes, paper presentations, social events). In total, 161 participants filled out our survey. Overall, the conference was rated with 4.4 stars out of 5 stars. We do not see any significant differences among the different sessions, making it difficult to derive conclusions about their certain value and implications to sustainability. The relatively low response rate (11%) did not help in gaining better insights. Based on the participants registration data, we additionally estimated the carbon footprint emerged from air travel. The total carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) accumulates to around 5,053.5 tonnes of CO2e which is equivalent to the electricity required to power around 1,000 homes in a year. With this report, we want to provide guidance to organizers of future conference editions with respect to their location and the perceived value of traditional paper presentations, social events, and other sessions.

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arXiv2026

ICSE 2022 Sustainability Report

The carbon footprint of academic conferences becomes a topic of increasing debate. It is important to consider whether the benefits derived from attending conferences in person outweigh the community's carbon footprint. Therefore, we need to evaluate the overall ecological consequences in relation to the perceived advantages. To that extent, we conducted a post-conference questionnaire survey among participants of the 44th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) 2022 in Pittsburgh, USA, seeking their feedback about the conference and experience from a sustainability perspective. In total, 53 participants filled out our survey. Overall, 8 of 42 respondents felt that the community's carbon footprint was not offset by the benefits of in-person attendance.

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arXiv2025

Injecting Sustainability in Software Architecture: A Rapid Review

Sustainability has evolved from an emerging concern into a fundamental responsibility in software design, development, and operation. Research increasingly explores how sustainability can be systematically integrated into existing software engineering practices. Building on an industry-academia collaboration, we contribute to this discourse by conducting a mixed-method empirical study. We combine a rapid review of secondary studies with a focus group of practitioners. The review identifies challenges and opportunities in embedding sustainability in software architecture, while the focus group enriches and compares these findings. Based on the literature and industry synthesis, we derive five tangible takeaways to inform architects working in the field, and to guide our industry partners in the integration of sustainability concerns in architecture practices.

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arXiv2025

Towards an Architectural Perspective for Sustainability: Bundle the Needs from Industry

Sustainability is increasingly recognized as an emerging quality property in software-intensive systems, yet architects lack structured guidance to address it effectively throughout the software design phase. Architectural perspectives-an architectural knowledge artifact composed of concerns, activities, tactics, pitfalls, and checklists-offer a promising approach to tackle such emerging quality properties across architectural views and are also independent of architecture frameworks and industry contexts. In this paper, we present a sustainability perspective vision, i.e., a revised notion of architectural perspective meant to be filled with its own elements to target sustainability concerns. We formulate our sustainability perspective vision through evidence from applying snowballing to seminal literature and from conducting a focus group with experts in the field. Our findings confirm the relevance of the different perspective elements in practice and highlight implications for shaping a sustainability perspective that meets industrial needs.

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arXiv2024

The Sustainability Assessment Framework Toolkit: A Decade of Modeling Experience

Software intensive systems play a crucial role in most, if not all, aspects of modern society. As such, both their sustainability and their role in supporting sustainable processes, must be realized by design. To this aim, the architecture of software intensive systems should be designed to support sustainability goals; and measured to understand how effectively they do so. In this paper, we present the Sustainability Assessment Framework (SAF) Toolkit -- a set of instruments we developed to support software architects and design decision makers in modeling sustainability as a software quality property. The SAF Toolkit is the result of our experience gained in over a decade of cases in collaboration with industrial partners. We illustrate the toolkit with examples stemming from various cases. We extract our lessons learned, and our current research and future plans to extend the SAF Toolkit for further architecture modeling and measurement.

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arXiv2024

Balancing Progress and Responsibility: A Synthesis of Sustainability Trade-Offs of AI-Based Systems

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities have increased the eagerness of companies to integrate AI into software systems. While AI can be used to have a positive impact on several dimensions of sustainability, this is often overshadowed by its potential negative influence. While many studies have explored sustainability factors in isolation, there is insufficient holistic coverage of potential sustainability benefits or costs that practitioners need to consider during decision-making for AI adoption. We therefore aim to synthesize trade-offs related to sustainability in the context of integrating AI into software systems. We want to make the sustainability benefits and costs of integrating AI more transparent and accessible for practitioners. The study was conducted in collaboration with a Dutch financial organization. We first performed a rapid review that led to the inclusion of 151 research papers. Afterward, we conducted six semi-structured interviews to enrich the data with industry perspectives. The combined results showcase the potential sustainability benefits and costs of integrating AI. The labels synthesized from the review regarding potential sustainability benefits were clustered into 16 themes, with "energy management" being the most frequently mentioned one. 11 themes were identified in the interviews, with the top mentioned theme being "employee wellbeing". Regarding sustainability costs, the review discovered seven themes, with "deployment issues" being the most popular one, followed by "ethics & society". "Environmental issues" was the top theme from the interviews. Our results provide valuable insights to organizations and practitioners for understanding the potential sustainability implications of adopting AI.

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