International Journal of

ADVANCED AND APPLIED SCIENCES

EISSN: 2313-3724, Print ISSN: 2313-626X

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 Volume 8, Issue 5 (May 2021), Pages: 89-106

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 Review Paper

 Title: Motivations, challenges, and process support for the evolution of existing software to mobile computing platforms

 Author(s): Ibrahim Alseadoon *

 Affiliation(s):

 College of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Ha’il, Ha’il, Saudi Arabia

  Full Text - PDF          XML

 * Corresponding Author. 

  Corresponding author's ORCID profile: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2289-356X

 Digital Object Identifier: 

 https://doi.org/10.21833/ijaas.2021.05.011

 Abstract:

Software maintenance and evolution support changes in the structure and behavior of existing software to change it as per the needs and demands of new requirements. The majority of the existing software systems lack features of mobile computing such as portability, context-awareness, connectivity, and high interactivity. The evolution of the existing software for mobile computing platforms can enable these systems to retain their core data and logic while acquiring new features that are compatible with mobile systems. The objectives of this research are to (i) systematically identify the motivations and challenges of software evolution for mobile computing, and (ii) develop and validate a process model that supports the evolution of existing software to a mobile computing platform. To conduct this research, an empirical software engineering approach has been adopted to investigate existing solutions (30 published studies from 1996 to 2019) and empirically derive a process model that supports software evolution for mobile computing. A case study-based approach is adopted to demonstrate the process-centric evolution of existing software as a mobile-enabled application. Case study-based demonstration highlights that the proposed process (i) supports an incremental evolution and (ii) allows user-decision support to guide the evolution process. Evaluation results highlight computation and energy efficiency along with enhanced usability of a mobile application when executed on resource-constrained mobile devices. The results of this research could help researchers and practitioners to rationalize motivations and challenges to utilize a process-based approach to evolve existing or aging software for mobile computing platforms. Future research is focused on providing patterns and tool support to automate and customize the evolution process. 

 © 2021 The Authors. Published by IASE.

 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

 Keywords: Software engineering, Software quality, Mobile computing, Software maintenance and evolution, Evolution process

 Article History: Received 19 September 2020, Received in revised form 13 December 2020, Accepted 5 February 2021

 Acknowledgment 

No Acknowledgment.

 Compliance with ethical standards

 Conflict of interest: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

 Citation:

  Alseadoon I (2021). Motivations, challenges, and process support for the evolution of existing software to mobile computing platforms. International Journal of Advanced and Applied Sciences, 8(5): 89-106

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 Figures

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 Tables

 Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

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