Integrating participatory sensing in application development practices

With the widespread capabilities of commodity mobile devices, applications will increasingly incorporate participatory sensing functionality. Participatory sensing directly involves end-users in collecting (and ultimately sharing) information about the environment. Applications that rely on participatory sensing range from those that simply enable information sharing, to environmental monitoring and response, and route and behavior planning. As more and more applications demand the incorporation of participatory sensing, it becomes imperative to create software architectures, design patterns, and programming libraries that enable the integration of participatory sensing with software engineering theory and practice. In this position paper, we explore the new challenges that participatory sensing applications present, specifically focusing on challenges that demand a reevaluation of software engineering design principles, tools, and techniques. For these challenges, we also posit possible ways forward.