Selina Demi

• Chaaban, Omar; Sánchez-Gordón, Mary & Demi, Selina (2026). Perceptions of Undesirable Software Development Tasks among Computer Science Students. Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics International (AHFE International). 231, p. 88–99. doi: 10.54941/ahfe1007999. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Software development projects include both technical and non-technical tasks, some of which may be perceived as undesirable by developers. While prior research has examined how developers perceive and manage such tasks, students’ perspectives remain unexplored.Therefore, this study aims to explore task undesirability for students. A survey-based approach was adopted to gather insights from 30 participants enrolled in IT-related programs at Østfold University College. The preliminary results revealed that back-end related tasks, bug fixing and writing documentation were among the most undesirable tasks, leading to negative emotional responses, such as frustration and demotivation among students. In addition, strategies such as “Just Do It” and working in groups were commonly employed to cope with these tasks. Although further research is needed to better understand support mechanisms that enhance students’ engagement and well-being, findings suggest that coping strategies arise when students’ experiences are not sufficiently supported. This provides an opportunity to design courses that enhance learning experiences by not only mitigating the negative impact of undesirable tasks but also making these tasks more desirable for students.

• Demi, Selina; Guttormsen, Bjørnar; Reinaas, Kevin Forberg; Hansen, Mats & Sand, Sofie (2025). Advancing Cybersecurity Education in the Era of Generative AI. NIKT: Norsk IKT-konferanse for forskning og utdanning. ISSN 1892-0713. 37(4). doi: 10.5324/42gawg86. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Artificial intelligence advancements have recently received atten-tion in both academic and industrial settings, demonstrating disruptive potential in many domains, including education. Previous studies have shown that AI-driven tools can transform conventional learning methods. This paper focuses on identifying how generative AI (GAI) tools are leveraged by cybersecurity stu-dents. A survey has been designed based on cognitive process dimension of Bloom’s taxonomy and distributed to students studying cybersecurity in Norway. The results of the survey were illustrated with a set of use cases that demonstrated how Microsoft Copilot can enable students with skills ranging from lower-order knowledge-based skills to higher-order competence-based skills.The applied use cases presented in this paper indicate that GAI tools can en-hance lower- and higher-order thinking skills of cybersecurity students and con-tribute to bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and competence-based skills needed to face real-world cybersecurity challenges. However, the results of the survey indicated that this potential has not yet been fully utilized by students, as they use such tools mainly for tasks that require lower-order thinking skills, such as remembering and understanding cybersecurity concepts, and less for more advanced cognitive tasks, such as creating role-playing scenarios. These preliminary findings can be useful to trigger discussions on how to improve fu-ture cybersecurity curricula to include applied GAI use cases and align them with learning outcomes. Ultimately, future efforts can be dedicated to developing a roadmap as a collaborative effort among policy-makers, cybersecurity academics and practitioners on the trustworthy incorporation of applied GAI in cybersecu-rity education.

• Demi, Selina; Sánchez-Gordón, Mary; Holone, Monica Kristiansen & Larrucea, Xabier (2024). Trustworthy and collaborative traceability management: Experts’ feedback on a blockchain-enabled framework. Journal of Software: Evolution and Process (JSEP). ISSN 2047-7473. 36(11). doi: 10.1002/smr.2707. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Blockchain technology has attracted significant attention in both academia and industry. Recently, the application of blockchain has been advocated in software engineering. The global software engineering paradigm exacerbates trust issues, as distributed and cross-organizational teams need to share software artifacts. In such a context, there is a need for a decentralized yet reliable traceability knowledge base to keep track of what/how/when/by whom software artifacts were created or changed. This study presents a blockchain-enabled framework for trustworthy and collaborative traceability management and identifies benefits, challenges, and potential improvements based on the feedback of software engineering experts. A qualitative approach was followed in this study through semistructured interviews with software engineering (SE) experts. Transcripts were analyzed by applying the content analysis technique. The results indicated the emergence of five categories, further grouped into three main categories: experts' perceptions, blockchain-based software process improvement, and experts' recommendations. In addition, the findings suggested four archetypes of organizations that may be interested in blockchain technology: distributed organizations, organizations with contract-based projects, organizations in regulated domains, and regulators who may push the use of this technology. Further efforts should be devoted to the integration of the proposal with tools used throughout the software development lifecycle and leveraging the potential of smart contracts in validating the implementation of requirements automatically.

• Akbar, Muhammad Azeem; Khan, Arif Ali; Mahmood, Sajjad; Rafi, Saima & Demi, Selina (2023). Trustworthy artificial intelligence: A decision-making taxonomy of potential challenges. Software, Practice & Experience. ISSN 0038-0644. doi: 10.1002/spe.3216. Full text in Research Archive
• Demi, Selina; Colomo-Palacios, Ricardo; Sánchez-Gordón, Mary; Velasco, Carlos & Cano, Ramón (2022). A Neural Blockchain for Requirements Traceability: BC4RT Prototype. In Yilmaz, Murat; Clarke, Paul; Messnarz, Richard & Wöran, Bruno (Ed.), Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement: 29th European Conference, EuroSPI 2022, Proceedings. Springer. ISSN 9783031155598. p. 45–59. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-15559-8_4. Full text in Research Archive
• Demi, Selina; Sánchez-Gordón, Mary & Kristiansen, Monica Lind (2022). Blockchain for requirements traceability: A qualitative approach. Journal of Software: Evolution and Process (JSEP). ISSN 2047-7473. doi: 10.1002/smr.2493. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Blockchain technology has emerged as a “disruptive innovation” that has received significant attention in academic and organizational settings. However, most of the existing research is focused on technical issues of blockchain systems, overlooking the organizational perspective. This study adopted a grounded theory to unveil the blockchain implementation process in organizations from the lens of blockchain experts. The results revealed three main categories: key activities, success factors, and challenges related to blockchain implementation in organizations, the latter being identified as the core category, along with 17 other concepts. Findings suggested that the majority of blockchain projects stop at the pilot stage and outlined organizational resistance to change as the core challenge. According to the experts, the following factors contribute to the organizational resistance to change: innovation–production gap, conservative management, and centralized mentality. The study aims to contribute to the existing blockchain literature by providing a holistic and domain-agnostic view of the blockchain implementation process in organizational settings. This can potentially encourage the development and implementation of blockchain solutions and guide practitioners who are interested in leveraging the inherent benefits of this technology. In addition, the results are used to improve a blockchain-enabled requirements traceability framework proposed in our previous paper.

• Shourmasti, Elaheh Shahmir; Colomo-Palacios, Ricardo; Holone, Harald & Demi, Selina (2021). User experience in social robots. Sensors. 21(15). doi: 10.3390/s21155052. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Social robots are increasingly penetrating our daily lives. They are used in various domains, such as healthcare, education, business, industry, and culture. However, introducing this technology for use in conventional environments is not trivial. For users to accept social robots, a positive user experience is vital, and it should be considered as a critical part of the robots’ development process. This may potentially lead to excessive use of social robots and strengthen their diffusion in society. The goal of this study is to summarize the extant literature that is focused on user experience in social robots, and to identify the challenges and benefits of UX evaluation in social robots. To achieve this goal, the authors carried out a systematic literature review that relies on PRISMA guidelines. Our findings revealed that the most common methods to evaluate UX in social robots are questionnaires and interviews. UX evaluations were found out to be beneficial in providing early feedback and consequently in handling errors at an early stage. However, despite the importance of UX in social robots, robot developers often neglect to set UX goals due to lack of knowledge or lack of time. This study emphasizes the need for robot developers to acquire the required theoretical and practical knowledge on how to perform a successful UX evaluation.

• Demi, Selina; Sánchez-Gordón, Mary & Colomo-Palacios, Ricardo (2021). What have we learnt from the challenges of (semi-) automated requirements traceability? A discussion on blockchain applicability. IET Software. ISSN 1751-8806. 15(6), p. 391–411. doi: 10.1049/sfw2.12035. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Over the last 3 decades, researchers have attempted to shed light into the requirements traceability problem by introducing tracing tools, techniques, and methods with the vision of achieving ubiquitous traceability. Despite the technological advances, requirements traceability remains problematic for researchers and practitioners. This study aims to identify and investigate the main challenges in implementing (semi-)automated requirements traceability, as reported in the recent literature. A systematic literature review was carried out based on the guidelines for systematic literature reviews in software engineering, proposed by Kitchenham. We retrieved 4530 studies by searching five major bibliographic databases and selected 70 primary studies. These studies were analysed and classified according to the challenges they present and/or address. Twenty-one challenges were identified and were classified into five categories. Findings reveal that the most frequent challenges are technological challenges, in particular, low accuracy of traceability recovery methods. Findings also suggest that future research efforts should be devoted to the human facet of tracing, to explore traceability practices in organisational settings, and to develop traceability approaches that support agile and DevOps practices. Finally, it is recommended that researchers leverage blockchain technology as a suitable technical solution to ensure the trustworthiness of traceability information in interorganisational software projects.

• Demi, Selina; Hilmy, Samir & Keller, Christina (2021). Doctor at Your Fingertips: An Exploration of Digital Visits from Stakeholders’ Perspectives. Life. 11(1), p. 1–13. doi: 10.3390/life11010006. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Technological advances and the evolution of mobile technologies enable patients to meet their doctors through their smartphones. While offering the opportunity of digital visits to patients, there are also challenges for this development. The purpose of this study is to enhance the understanding of digital visits, as perceived by experts working in telemedicine companies. To serve this purpose, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with managers and employees in eight telemedicine companies. The analysis of the empirical data confirmed the importance of digital visits and their efficiency. The potential of digital visits is expected to increase significantly, should they make use of remote devices to transfer real-time data from patients to physicians. In such a case, digital visits are expected to cover approximately 70-75% of medical cases. However, the use of remote devices must be taken with caution and specific conditions need to be taken into account. We encourage researchers to perform research on promising technologies such as artificial intelligence and remote diagnostic devices, which could make more diagnoses and conditions possible to be treated by digital visits. This is even more important in light of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

• Demi, Selina; Colomo-Palacios, Ricardo & Sánchez-Gordón, Mary (2021). Software Engineering Applications enabled by Blockchain Technology: A Systematic Mapping Study. Applied Sciences. 11(7). doi: 10.3390/app11072960. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The novel, yet disruptive blockchain technology has witnessed growing attention, due to its intrinsic potential. Besides the conventional domains that benefit from such potential, such as finance, supply chain and healthcare, blockchain use cases in software engineering have emerged recently. In this study, we aim to contribute to the body of knowledge of blockchain-oriented software engineering by providing an adequate overview of the software engineering applications enabled by blockchain technology. To do so, we carried out a systematic mapping study and identified 22 primary studies. Then, we extracted data within the research type, research topic and contribution type facets. Findings suggest an increasing trend of studies since 2018. Additionally, findings reveal the potential of using blockchain technologies as an alternative to centralized systems, such as GitHub, Travis CI, and cloud-based package managers, and also to establish trust between parties in collaborative software development. We also found out that smart contracts can enable the automation of a variety of software engineering activities that usually require human reasoning, such as the acceptance phase, payments to software engineers, and compliance adherence. In spite of the fact that the field is not yet mature, we believe that this systematic mapping study provides a holistic overview that may benefit researchers interested in bringing blockchain to the software industry, and practitioners willing to understand how blockchain can transform the software development industry.

• Demi, Selina; Sánchez-Gordón, Mary & Colomo-Palacios, Ricardo (2021). A Blockchain-enabled Framework for Requirements Traceability. In Yilmaz, Murat; Clarke, Paul & Messnarz, Richard (Ed.), Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement: 28th European Conference, EuroSPI 2021, Proceedings. Springer. ISSN 9783030855208. p. 3–13. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-85521-5_1. Full text in Research Archive
• Demi, Selina; Colomo-Palacios, Ricardo; Johansen, Stig Henning & Sánchez-Gordón, Mary (2020). Mapping human values and scrum roles: a study on students' preferences. In Rothermel, Gregg & Bae, Doo-Hwan (Ed.), ICSEW'20: Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering Workshops. ACM Publications. ISSN 9781450379632. p. 570–576. doi: 10.1145/3387940.3391467. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Despite the long tradition on the study of human values, the impact of this field in the software engineering domain is rarely studied. To these regards, this study focuses on applying human values to agile software development process, more specifically to scrum roles. Thus, the goal of the study is to explore possible associations between human values and scrum roles preferences among students. Questionnaires are designed by employing the Short Schwartz's Value Survey and are distributed among 57 students. The results of the quantitative analysis process consisting of descriptive statistics, linear regression models and Pearson correlation coefficients, revealed that values such as power and self-direction influence the preference for the product owner role, the value of hedonism influences the preference for scrum masters and self-direction is associated with team members' preference.

• Demi, Selina (2020). Blockchain-oriented Requirements Engineering: A Framework. In Breaux, Travis; Zisman, Andrea; Fricker, Samuel & Glinz, Martin (Ed.), 28th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE'20): Proceedings. IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). ISSN 9781728174389. p. 428–433. doi: 10.1109/RE48521.2020.00063. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper presents a PhD research plan that focuses on solving existing problems in requirements engineering, by means of a novel blockchain-enabled framework. Requirements engineering in general and requirements traceability in particular are characterized by a variety of distributed stakeholders and heterogeneity of tools. These characteristics introduce integration, communication, coordination and trust issues and impede the accurate and trustworthy traceability of requirements. Thereby, this paper proposes blockchain technology for the trustworthy management and traceability of requirements throughout the software development life cycle.

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• Demi, Selina (2022). A Neural Blockchain for Requirements Traceability: BC4RT Prototype. Full text in Research Archive
• Demi, Selina (2021). A Blockchain-Enabled Framework for Requirements Traceability. Full text in Research Archive
• Demi, Selina (2020). Mapping human values and scrum roles: a study on students` preferences. Full text in Research Archive
• Demi, Selina (2020). Blockchain-oriented Requirements Engineering: A Framework. Full text in Research Archive

View all works in NVA