Towards Human-Centred Crowd Computing: Software for Better Use of Computational Resources

Abstract

Internet-connected smart devices are increasing at an exponential rate. These powerful devices have created a yet-untapped pool of idle resources that can be utilised, among others, for processing data in resource-depleted environments. The idea of bringing together a pool of smart devices for "crowd computing" (CC) has been studied in the recent past from an infrastructural feasibility perspective. However, for the CC paradigm to be successful, numerous socio-technical and software engineering (SE), specifically the requirements engineering (RE)-related factors are at play and have not been investigated in the literature. In this paper, we motivate the SE-related aspects of CC and the ideas for implementing mobile apps required for CC scenarios. We present the results of a preliminary study on understanding the human aspects, incentives that motivate users, and CC app requirements, and present our future development plan in this relatively new field of research for SE applications.