Using Ethnographic Techniques to Describe Requirements Engineering Processes in Geographic Information Systems Workgroups

Abstract

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are a relevant field in Information Systems. However GIS applications are hard to develop given the disciplinary heterogeneity of GIS working groups. This paper presents the initial results of a qualitative study conducted to describe the GIS community requirements processes and needs. Ethnographic techniques are being used to achieve this goal. Ethnography is a discipline taken from social sciences that puts a strong emphasis on the Field Work and for this reason its conceptual framework and tools are presented. Applied through field work in different GIS scenarios as government offices, private consultants, NGOs 1 and academy the obtained results are described allowing the identification of clue features related to requirements engineering for GIS applications. Finally, the conclusion includes reflections on the Ethnographic techniques and considerations (such as to extend UML) to design better methodologies for GIS-RE.