Towards trustworthy tracing responsibility of collaborative software engineering artefacts of student's software projects

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Current document version control systems (VCS) are prone to impersonation in changes to the artefacts and their update history, risking its credibility. This is particularly problematic in specific application domains such as in Education, where teachers have to have the means to prevent and detect students' unethical behaviour or fraud, as grading is one of the essential pillars of trust in the correction and fairness in the conduct of the educational system. Therefore, there is a need for a completely secure, trustworthy and easy-to-use version management of digital artefacts, which can be used to introduce students to the world of version control. We thus propose a blockchain-based solution for version control of engineering artefacts. The goal is to facilitate collaboration in a multi-user area, like the education field, and track changes in a trusted and secure manner. As a proof of concept, we designed and implemented a solution using the Hyperledger Fabric Network to govern and regulate file version control functions among students and teachers. Our prototype is hosted on the cloud and uses Git and GitHub to hash and store the different artefact versions and the blockchain network to keep all the changes in a perpetual and immutable way tracing to their respective authors non-prone to forgery. Besides constructing the proof of concept tool prototype, we conducted a usability experiment. The results of the usability tests were positive, with users with limited experience in version control systems starting to use and comprehend the solution in little time. The next step will be to generalize and evolve this tool to other application scenarios where trustworthy tracing is essential.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2022 IEEE 46th Annual Computers, Software, and Applications Conference, COMPSAC 2022
EditorsHong Va Leong, Sahra Sedigh Sarvestani, Yuuichi Teranishi, Alfredo Cuzzocrea, Hiroki Kashiwazaki, Dave Towey, Ji-Jiang Yang, Hossain Shahriar
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Pages151-160
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)978-1-6654-8810-5
ISBN (Print)978-1-6654-8811-2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022
Event46th IEEE Annual Computers, Software, and Applications Conference, COMPSAC 2022 - Virtual Online, Los Alamitos, United States
Duration: 27 Jun 20221 Jul 2022

Publication series

NameProceedings - 2022 IEEE 46th Annual Computers, Software, and Applications Conference, COMPSAC 2022
PublisherIEEE
ISSN (Print)0730-3157

Conference

Conference46th IEEE Annual Computers, Software, and Applications Conference, COMPSAC 2022
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityLos Alamitos
Period27/06/221/07/22

Keywords

  • artefacts
  • authenticity
  • blockchain
  • education
  • software engineering
  • version control

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Towards trustworthy tracing responsibility of collaborative software engineering artefacts of student's software projects'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this