Validating a Quality Model through Expert Review for Green Information Systems

Software developers use a quality model as a guide to help them determine the quality factors of a software product they are designing. This study aims to validate a quality model for green information systems, or green IS, towards achieving eco-sustainability. Thus, this study aims to identify quality factors for green IS that will contribute to eco-sustainability. This study's methodology included two rounds of expert evaluation with four experts. Two strategies were deployed in each round to discover the quality factors. In the first round, the strategy was to take existing software quality factors and interpret them in the context of eco-sustainability. In the second round, existing eco-sustainability goals were adopted and clustered into categories; in this study’s context, quality factors were aligned with the eco-sustainability goals. An initial model consisting of 35 quality factors was synthesized from a green IS design framework, sustainable software, and social media literature. The experts presented and assessed the model in the first round. Thus, 18 quality factors have been selected for the next second-round review. Five quality factors— accuracy, completeness, accessibility, customization, and collaboration emerged from the second-round review. Each quality factor was aligned to the eco-sustainability sub-goals of eco-efficiency, eco-equity, and eco-effectiveness, which resulted in the development of a proposed model. The experts concluded that the revised model could be employed in a data collection survey since it closely resembles the green IS quality model for eco-sustainability.