Abstract-Software is no longer a passive tool, but is an active agent in shaping modern communities. Yet, to date, software engineers do not endeavour to explicitly state requirements which a software system must fulfil if it is to positively contribute to the well-being (that is the social sustainability) of its user community. This paper presents a proposal on how to bridge this gap. It notes that social sustainability requirements stem from key societal values, such as equity, security, education, which can be elicited into value patterns. Such patterns can then serve as templates for software requirements specification. The viability of this proposal is demonstrated through formation of equity value patterns, which are instantiated as requirements to 6 sample studies. We observe that while each organisation and sub-community will have own diverse cultural and traditional values with respective requirements, the fundamental notions (such as equity, security, freedom) that serve as the core of social sustainability remain relatively stable. It is such values that we propose to elicit into patterns for requirements specification.

Equality is an important aspect in todays diverse communities, which plays a significant role in communities social sus-tainability. This paper looks into modeling equality as a social sustainability dimension using a generic model of sustainability. Patterns of equality requirements are identified in this generic model. This model and respective patterns are then used in software requirements elicitation of a case study.

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Equality is one of the key requisites of social sustainability: history shows that deprivation of some groups in favour of others inevitably leads to social tensions, unrest, and uprisings. As nowadays software systems control access to services, information, and even education, we maintain that all software systems ought to address equality requirements. To facilitate this, we present a template for equality requirements derived through study of 6 sample requirements specifications. The utility of the template is evaluated through a study of its application by a group of expert requirements engineers. The results obtained from a group that used the template are contrasted to the results from another group that completed the same task without the template. This study observes a substantial positive feedback from the template use.