Benefitting from the Grey Literature in Software Engineering Research

Researchers generally place the most trust in peer-reviewed, published information, such as journals and conference papers. By contrast, software engineering (SE) practitioners typically do not have the time, access or expertise to review and benefit from such publications. As a result, practitioners are more likely to turn to other sources of information that they trust, e.g., trade magazines, online blog-posts, survey results or technical reports, collectively referred to as Grey Literature (GL). Furthermore, practitioners also share their ideas and experiences as GL, which can serve as a valuable data source for research. While GL itself is not a new topic in SE, using, benefitting and synthesizing knowledge from the GL in SE is a contemporary topic in empirical SE research and we are seeing that researchers are increasingly benefitting from the knowledge available within GL. The goal of this chapter is to provide an overview to GL in SE, together with insights on how SE researchers can effectively use and benefit from the knowledge and evidence available in the vast amount of GL

BIPMIN: A Gamified Framework for Process Modeling Education

Business Process Modeling is a skill that is becoming sought after for computer engineers, with Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) being one example of the tools used in modeling activities. Students of the Master of Computer Engineering course at Politecnico di Torino learn about BPMN in dedicated courses but often underperform on BPMN-related exercises due to difficulties understanding how to model processes. In recent years, there has been a surge of studies that employ gamification (using game elements in non-recreative contexts to obtain benefits) as a tool in Computer Engineering education to increase students’ engagement with the learning process. This study aims to use the principles of gamification to design a supplementary learning tool for the teaching of information systems technology. In particular, to improve student understanding and use of BPMN diagrams. This study also analyzes the usability and motivation of the participants in using different game elements in increasing student motivation and performance. As part of the study, a prototype web application was developed, which implemented three different designs, each incorporating different game elements relating to either progress, competition, or rewards. An evaluation was then conducted on the prototype to evaluate the performance of the practitioners in performing BPMN modeling tasks with the gamified tool, the usability of the proposed mechanics and the enjoyment of the individual game mechanics that were implemented. With the usage of the gamified tool, the users of the experimental sample were able to complete BPMN modeling tasks with performances compatible with estimates made through expert judgement (i.e., gamification had no negative effect on performance), and were motivated to check the correctness of their models many times during the task execution. The system was evaluated as highly usable (85.8 System Usability Score); the most enjoyed game elements were rewards, levels, progress bars and aesthetics

Gamifying Software Testing – A Focus on Strategy & Tools Development

This study aims to introduce new software testing strategies and tools with the aim of creating a more engaging and rewarding environment for software testers. For this purpose, gamification has been selected as a potential solution to raise the performances of testers. Empirical experiments were conducted to validate key factors and metrics influencing the design and development of a gamified software testing system

Exploring the application of gamification in the software development process

The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of game elements in software development teams and their impact on the software development process in South African financial institutions. The study was instigated by the numerous tools and procedures to administer software development entanglements, which is an ongoing challenge. In recent years, many researchers have investigated the dynamics and issues pertaining to the development team's behaviour. Most organisations are challenged in their development teams and seek new creative methods and solutions to overcome the obstacles to enhance their software development process. A software development process is identified as a set of actions to generate software applications in which humans are a key factor. Considering that it involves human activity, challenges that arise are a user's engagement, collaboration, communication, and motivation may arise. Many researchers seek to enhance the software development process, and innovative research offers emerging practical concepts and techniques. The study adopted a quantitative research design approach founded on the positivist paradigm followed by a deductive approach. A survey was developed to collect data from four selected South African institutions using a questionnaire of 95 respondents. The study's results contribute to knowledge by illustrating that although project teams are aware of the benefits of game elements, it does not necessarily translate into applying game elements. The study revealed that in the context of project team members, engagement, motivation, and performance positively impact the application of gamification in South African financial institutions. Understanding the factors which impact the application of gamification among financial institutions is neglected. Therefore, this research study sought to address a gap in the literature on gamification. Gamification augments the software development process and subdues the challenges connected to human factors. Nevertheless, applying game elements in a software development team is not as straightforward as it may appear because it is a controversial issue that is yet to be investigated by researchers in this field. The outcome of this study brings forth practical recommendations for future research and industry.School of ComputingM. Sc. (Computing

Spreadsheet of sources: Gamification of Software Testing - an MLR

The sources used in the paper and the analysis results (raw data). <br><br>Mäntylä, M. V., Smolander, K. Gamification of Software Testing - an MLR, In Proceedings of The 17th International Conference on Product-Focused Software Process Improvement  PROFES, 22th – 24th November 2016, Trondheim, Norway <br