Related papers: Improving Software Engineering Research through Ex…
Software engineering research benefited for decades from openly available tools, accessible systems, and problems that could be studied at modest scale. Today, many of the most relevant software systems are large, proprietary, and embedded…
Software security has been an important research topic over the years. The community has proposed processes and tools for secure software development and security analysis. However, a significant number of vulnerabilities remains in…
Empirical software engineering has received much attention in recent years and coined the shift from a more design-science-driven engineering discipline to an insight-oriented, and theory-centric one. Yet, we still face many challenges,…
The experimental evaluation of the methods and concepts covered in software engineering has been increasingly valued. This value indicates the constant search for new forms of assessment and validation of the results obtained in Software…
Should students be used as experimental subjects in software engineering? Given that students are in many cases readily available and cheap it is no surprise that the vast majority of controlled experiments in software engineering use them.…
In recent years, the research community has raised serious questions about the reproducibility of scientific work. In particular, since many studies include some kind of computing work, reproducibility is also a technological challenge, not…
Context: Over the past decade Software Engineering research has seen a steady increase in survey-based studies, and there are several guidelines providing support for those willing to carry out surveys. The need for auditing survey research…
Software testing is a complex, intellectual activity based (at least) on analysis, reasoning, decision making, abstraction and collaboration performed in a highly demanding environment. Naturally, it uses and allocates multiple cognitive…
This paper proposes a software repository model together with associated tooling and consists of several complex, open-source GUI driven applications ready to be used in empirical software research. We start by providing the rationale for…
Increasingly, courses on Empirical Software Engineering research methods are being offered in higher education institutes across the world, mostly at the M.Sc. and Ph.D. levels. While the need for such courses is evident and in line with…
Software engineering concepts and processes are worthy of formal study; and yet we seldom formalize them. This "research ideas" article explores what a theory of software engineering could and should look like. Software engineering research…
Context: Surveys constitute an valuable tool to capture a large-scale snapshot of the state of the practice. Apparently trivial to adopt, surveys hide, however, several pitfalls that might hinder rendering the result valid and, thus,…
Empirical methods like experimentation have become a powerful means to drive the field of software engineering by creating scientific evidence on software development, operation, and maintenance, but also by supporting practitioners in…
Sketching is an important means of communication in software engineering practice. Yet, there is little research investigating the use of sketches. We want to contribute a better understanding of sketching, in particular its use during…
Background: The state of the art in software engineering consists of a myriad of contributions and the gaps between them; it is difficult to characterize. Questions: In order to help understanding the state of the art, can we identify gaps…
Background. In the realm of software engineering, there are widely accepted guidelines for reporting and creating laboratory packages. Unfortunately, the landscape differs considerably in the emerging field of quantum computing. To the best…
Software Engineering as an industry is highly diverse in terms of development methods and practices. Practitioners employ a myriad of methods and tend to further tailor them by e.g. omitting some practices or rules. This diversity in…
Software plays a central role in scientific discovery. Improving how we develop and use software for research can have both broad and deep impacts on a spectrum of challenges and opportunities society faces today. The emergence of Research…
Modern science is relying on software more than ever. The behavior and outcomes of this software shape the scientific and public discourse on important topics like climate change, economic growth, or the spread of infections. Most…
Mixed methods research is often used in software engineering, but researchers outside of the social or human sciences often lack experience when using these designs. This paper provides guiding principles and advice on how to design mixed…