165 research outputs found
Adding Value to Software Requirements: An Empirical Study in the Chinese Software Industry
The rapid growth of the Chinese software industry has attracted attention from all over the world. Meanwhile, software requirements selection has a crucial impact on the final value of a software product and the satisfaction of stakeholders. This paper presents an empirical study, which focuses on the decision-making criteria for requirements selection in market-driven software development projects in international companies in China. The outcome shows that some criteria, such as business strategy, customer satisfaction, and software features, are more important than others when making decisions for requirements selection
Guidelines for the Search Strategy to Update Systematic Literature Reviews in Software Engineering
Context: Systematic Literature Reviews (SLRs) have been adopted within
Software Engineering (SE) for more than a decade to provide meaningful
summaries of evidence on several topics. Many of these SLRs are now potentially
not fully up-to-date, and there are no standard proposals on how to update SLRs
in SE. Objective: The objective of this paper is to propose guidelines on how
to best search for evidence when updating SLRs in SE, and to evaluate these
guidelines using an SLR that was not employed during the formulation of the
guidelines. Method: To propose our guidelines, we compare and discuss outcomes
from applying different search strategies to identify primary studies in a
published SLR, an SLR update, and two replications in the area of effort
estimation. These guidelines are then evaluated using an SLR in the area of
software ecosystems, its update and a replication. Results: The use of a single
iteration forward snowballing with Google Scholar, and employing as a seed set
the original SLR and its primary studies is the most cost-effective way to
search for new evidence when updating SLRs. Furthermore, the importance of
having more than one researcher involved in the selection of papers when
applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria is highlighted through the
results. Conclusions: Our proposed guidelines formulated based upon an effort
estimation SLR, its update and two replications, were supported when using an
SLR in the area of software ecosystems, its update and a replication.
Therefore, we put forward that our guidelines ought to be adopted for updating
SLRs in SE.Comment: Author version of manuscript accepted for publication at the
Information and Software Technology Journa
Empirical software engineering experts on the use of students and professionals in experiments
[Context] Controlled experiments are an important empirical method to generate and validate theories. Many software engineering experiments are conducted with students. It is often claimed that the use of students as participants in experiments comes at the cost of low external validity while using professionals does not. [Objective] We believe a deeper understanding is needed on the external validity of software engineering experiments conducted with students or with professionals. We aim to gain insight about the pros and cons of using students and professionals in experiments. [Method] We performed an unconventional, focus group approach and a follow-up survey. First, during a session at ISERN 2014, 65 empirical researchers, including the seven authors, argued and discussed the use of students in experiments with an open mind. Afterwards, we revisited the topic and elicited experts' opinions to foster discussions. Then we derived 14 statements and asked the ISERN attendees excluding the authors, to provide their level of agreement with the statements. Finally, we analyzed the researchers' opinions and used the findings to further discuss the statements. [Results] Our survey results showed that, in general, the respondents disagreed with us about the drawbacks of professionals. We, on the contrary, strongly believe that no population (students, professionals, or others) can be deemed better than another in absolute terms. [Conclusion] Using students as participants remains a valid simplification of reality needed in laboratory contexts. It is an effective way to advance software engineering theories and technologies but, like any other aspect of study settings, should be carefully considered during the design, execution, interpretation, and reporting of an experiment. The key is to understand which developer population portion is being represented by the participants in an experiment. Thus, a proposal for describing experimental participants is put forward.Peer reviewe
The Repercussions of Business Process Modeling Notations on Mental Load and Mental Effort
Over the last decade, plenty business process modeling notations emerged for the documentation of business processes in enterprises. During the learning of a modeling notation, an individual is confronted with a cognitive load that has an impact on the comprehension of a notation with its underlying formalisms and concepts. To address the cognitive load, this paper presents the results from an exploratory study, in which a sample of 94 participants, divided into novices, intermediates, and experts, needed to assess process models expressed in terms of eight different process modeling notations, i.e., BPMN 2.0, Declarative Process Modeling, eGantt Charts, EPCs, Flow Charts, IDEF3, Petri Nets, and UML Activity Diagrams. The study focus was set on the subjective comprehensibility and accessibility of process models reflecting participant's cognitive load (i.e., mental load and mental effort). Based on the cognitive load, a factor reflecting the mental difficulty for comprehending process models in different modeling notations was derived. The results indicate that established modeling notations from industry (e.g., BPMN) should be the first choice for enterprises when striving for process management. Moreover, study insights may be used to determine which modeling notations should be taught for an introduction in process modeling or which notation is useful to teach and train process modelers or analysts.
\keywords{Business Process Modeling Notations, Cognitive Load, Mental Load, Mental Effort, Human-centered Desig
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