A model-driven requirements engineering method for human-centered digitalisation of agriculture

[Context and motivation] Digitalisation in agriculture is a socio-technical process that involves multiple stakeholders with diverse backgrounds and skills, e.g., in farming or technology. Capturing process transformation requires focusing on different dimensions, i.e., system structure, process flow, and actors’ goals. Model-driven requirements engineering (MoDRE) techniques can offer the means to elicit and represent this multi-dimensional information. [Question/problem] This research investigates how MoDRE techniques can support the information exchange within interdisciplinary teams involved in the representation of process transformation in digital agriculture. [Principal ideas/results] We propose a method for process modelling in agricultural domains consisting of (1) an artefact based on a set of different diagrams, namely UML, i* and BPMN, (2) a procedure based on guidelines and (3) a tool to support the co-creation of the diagrams within the context of living labs (LLs, i.e., networks of stakeholders involved in a common socio-technical system). We plan to apply the method through action research in the context of 20 European living labs in the agricultural domain and evaluate the method through standard user questionnaires. [Contribution] There is little empirical evidence on using MoDRE techniques in real-world environments. This study fills this gap by developing a method for socio-technical process modelling in co-design contexts.