Identifying and managing risks in the development of online educational software

During the last three decades, there has been great progress in the field of risk management. Risk management is particularly significant when it comes to software projects. This is because software projects are exposed to various serious risks, including interaction with humans, need for continuous development and occasional lack of proper evaluation procedures. These factors, combined with the extensive diversity of software projects, have caused the complexity of management of their risk to increase. The problem is even more intense when it comes to educational software. At this instant, the literature for identifying and managing risks associated with educational software is very limited, despite the fact that the application area of educational software is constantly expanding at a very high rate. In this paper, we identify additional risks that arise during the development of online educational software on top of the already defined, software development-related risks. Towards this goal, a questionnaire with potential risks has been created, and participants in a related survey have been asked to evaluate them. Preliminary results of this survey are presented.