Area Of Software Engineering Research Articles

A Systematic Literature Review on Risk Factors in Software Development Outsourcing

Software development outsourcing has become a prevalent practice in the software industry. Organizations in both public and private sectors are adopting software development outsourcing in order to achieve lower cost and to access to skilled labour. However, it is widely recognized that outsourced software development projects involve risks and sometimes leads to undesirable consequences. Existing research in the software engineering and related areas have identified several risks in the software development outsourcing projects such as lack of communication and technical skills. The aim of this paper is to examine the literature on outsourced software development in order to identify some risks that could occur during the pre-contract, contract and post-contract phases of the outsourcing life cycle. It is anticipated that by understanding these risks, project managers could better manage them and subsequently increase the possibility of the success of outsourcing project. A systematic literature review of studies on software development outsourcing published in year 2005 to year 2015 was conducted. Of 41 studies consulted, 18 were concerned with outsourcing software development risk factors. The top three risk factors identified are lack of required technical skills and competencies (61%), lack of communication (44%) and poorly articulated requirements (44%).

Search-based mutant selection for efficient test suite improvement: Evaluation and results

ContextSearch-based techniques have been applied to almost all areas in software engineering, especially to software testing, seeking to solve hard optimization problems. However, the problem of selecting mutants to improve the test suite at a lower cost has not been explored to the same extent as other problems, such as mutant selection for test suite evaluation or test data generation. ObjectiveIn this paper, we apply search-based mutant selection to enhance the quality of test suites efficiently. Namely, we use the technique known as Evolutionary Mutation Testing (EMT), which allows reducing the number of mutants while preserving the power to refine the test suite. Despite reported benefits of its application, the existing empirical results were derived from a limited number of case studies, a particular set of mutation operators and a vague measure, which currently makes it difficult to determine the real performance of this technique. MethodThis paper addresses the shortcomings of previous studies, providing a new methodology to evaluate EMT on the basis of the actual improvement of the test suite achieved by using the evolutionary strategy. We make use of that methodology in new experiments with a carefully selected set of real-world C++ case studies. ResultsEMT shows a good performance for most case studies and levels of demand of test suite improvement (around 45% less mutants than random selection in the best case). The results reveal that even a reduced subset of mutants selected with EMT can serve to increase confidence in the test suite, especially in programs with a large set of mutants. ConclusionsThese results support the use of search-based techniques to solve the problem of mutant selection for a more efficient test suite refinement. Additionally, we identify some aspects that could foreseeably help enhance EMT.

Transferring interactive search-based software testing to industry

Context: Search-Based Software Testing (SBST), and the wider area of Search-Based Software Engineering (SBSE), is the application of optimization algorithms to problems in software testing, and software engineering, respectively. New algorithms, methods, and tools are being developed and validated on benchmark problems. In previous work, we have also implemented and evaluated Interactive Search-Based Software Testing (ISBST) tool prototypes, with a goal to successfully transfer the technique to industry.Objective: While SBST and SBSE solutions are often validated on benchmark problems, there is a need to validate them in an operational setting, and to assess their performance in practice. The present paper discusses the development and deployment of SBST tools for use in industry, and reflects on the transfer of these techniques to industry.Method: In addition to previous work discussing the development and validation of an ISBST prototype, a new version of the prototype ISBST system was evaluated in the laboratory and in industry. This evaluation is based on an industrial System under Test (SUT) and was carried out with industrial practitioners. The Technology Transfer Model is used as a framework to describe the progression of the development and evaluation of the ISBST system, as it progresses through the first five of its seven steps.Results: The paper presents a synthesis of previous work developing and evaluating the ISBST prototype, as well as presenting an evaluation, in both academia and industry, of that prototype’s latest version. In addition to the evaluation, the paper also discusses the lessons learned from this transfer.Conclusions: This paper presents an overview of the development and deployment of the ISBST system in an industrial setting, using the framework of the Technology Transfer Model. We conclude that the ISBST system is capable of evolving useful test cases for that setting, though improvements in the means the system uses to communicate that information to the user are still required. In addition, a set of lessons learned from the project are listed and discussed. Our objective is to help other researchers that wish to validate search-based systems in industry, and provide more information about the benefits and drawbacks of these systems.

Are you sure you are happy?

Context: The study of emotions, especially those that promote an apparent increase in performance at the workplace, has received considerable attention since the early days of the industrial revolution. In the much newer area of software engineering, these studies include affections, emotions, motivation and happiness, among other feelings. However, there are still many fallacies, misconceptions and ambiguous definitions, which prevent a useful assessment of these issues. Objective: the aim of this study is to summarize the existing definitions of as well as the appropriate metrics to assess its level on software engineers. Method: a systematic search in several online electronic data sources, complemented with snowballing techniques, to identify and select published literature, supporting research in software engineering. We reported the findings as an annotated literature review. Results: The search strategies retrieved 619 publications, from which we selected 18 primary works. These works were grouped into three categories, according to their focus: a) definition of happiness, b) metrics to measure happiness, and c) general purpose articles. The review provides a description of 8 articles, 4 in the first category and 4 in the second. Conclusions: Research on happiness at has its own issues and challenges, as reported in the articles in this review. Our work can contribute by shedding light on these challenges, highlighting the precise definitions and showing the appropriate metrics to assess them. There is still too much to do since research shows a high degree of divergence in the results.

Improving the Quality of Controlled Experiments in Software Engineering

All experimental studies are prone to risk with regard to the validity of their results. After applying a determined action to control a threat, during planning or executing an experiment, new risks to the study validity can arise. Aim. To improve the quality of controlled experiments in Software Engineering (SE), setting out strategies that permit researchers giving priority to specific threats in causes virtue and consequences (trade-offs), which exist between threats to validity and possible measures for control. Method. We will employ a knowledge base acquired through a survey and a Systematic Literature Review to model an approach for prioritizing and controlling threats to validity. The proposed approach will also be evaluated through experiments. Contribution. To improve the control processes for threats to validity considered to be critical, reducing efforts required by researchers, thereby improving the quality of future controlled experiments in the Software Engineering area by increasing its results? validity.

Quality Assurance for Open Educational Resources: The OERTrust Framework

Learning Objects have met some barriers to their development and effective adoption, which varied from the lack of quality assurance mechanisms to the impossibility of editing and adapting most of them to real teaching and learning contexts. However, with the advent of OER (Open Educational Resources), if the later problem – to retain, reuse and even remix learning content – was meant to be solved, the same could not be said for the first one. Quality assurance is still an unsolved problem in this context, even more complex due to the possibility of versioning and collaborative design brought by OER. Thus, it is necessary to propose validation mechanisms for them, at least establishing some guarantees about their functionality and quality. In this sense, this work aims to discuss OERTrust, a proposal of  supporting framework for OER validation and testing process, considering both versioning and remixing features. OERTrust is based on the principles of validation and testing that come from Software Engineering area and relies on fuzzy logic to define the importance and influence of different tests to each kind of OER. https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.17.3.1

A brief method to assess the association of socio and technical dependencies on software quality

Managing coordination among developers is very challenging when dependent task occurred since the quality of the software during development need to be maintained. Socio-Technical Congruence (STC) introduced to measure the coordination and help to identify the coordination breakdown from the root of development. However, since STC is a new area in software engineering, there are limited researches on this study. That provides opportunities to expand STC study by investigate the relationship of socio and technical dependencies on software quality in software engineering project. This paper outline related research, literature review and the method used to conduct the study.

Software development based on collective intelligence on the Internet: feasibility, state-of-the-practice, and challenges

We are undergoing a revolution in the field of software engineering. In this revolution, the Internet plays a dual role: on one hand, the Internet provides an open, dynamic, and constantly changing environment for software, and greatly increases the scale and complexity of various software, bringing about challenges to the area of software engineering; on the other hand, based on the two roles of internet-of-computers and internet-of-things , the Internet is gradually exhibiting an entirely new role called internet-of-intelligences, and is facilitating the rapid growth of collective intelligence in diverse fields, providing opportunities to develop creative solutions to cope with the essential difficulties of software engineering. In this paper, we provide a brief introduction and analysis to software development based on collective intelligence on the Internet, from the three aspects of feasibility, state of the practice, and problems and challenges. We also demonstrate our preliminary thinking regarding the ideal form of software development based on collective intelligence on the Internet. We hope this study could provide a valuable viewpoint for software engineering researchers to understand the current and future status of software development in the context of the Internet, and provide some possible useful options to facilitate the creative development of software engineering.

How to design gamification? A method for engineering gamified software

ContextSince its inception around 2010, gamification has become one of the top technology and software trends. However, gamification has also been regarded as one of the most challenging areas of software engineering. Beyond traditional software design requirements, designing gamification requires the command of disciplines such as (motivational/behavioral) psychology, game design, and narratology, making the development of gamified software a challenge for traditional software developers. Gamification software inhabits a finely tuned niche of software engineering that seeks for both high functionality and engagement; beyond technical flawlessness, gamification has to motivate and affect users. Consequently, it has also been projected that most gamified software is doomed to fail. ObjectiveThis paper seeks to advance the understanding of designing gamification and to provide a comprehensive method for developing gamified software. MethodWe approach the research problem via a design science research approach; firstly, by synthesizing the current body of literature on gamification design methods and by interviewing 25 gamification experts, producing a comprehensive list of design principles for developing gamified software. Secondly, and more importantly, we develop a detailed method for engineering of gamified software based on the gathered knowledge and design principles. Finally, we conduct an evaluation of the artifacts via interviews of ten gamification experts and implementation of the engineering method in a gamification project. ResultsAs results of the study, we present the method and key design principles for engineering gamified software. Based on the empirical and expert evaluation, the developed method was deemed as comprehensive, implementable, complete, and useful. We deliver a comprehensive overview of gamification guidelines and shed novel insights into the nature of gamification development and design discourse. ConclusionThis paper takes first steps towards a comprehensive method for gamified software engineering.

Open source software ecosystems: A Systematic mapping

Context: Open source software (OSS) and software ecosystems (SECOs) are two consolidated research areas in software engineering. OSS influences the way organizations develop, acquire, use and commercialize software. SECOs have emerged as a paradigm to understand dynamics and heterogeneity in collaborative software development. For this reason, SECOs appear as a valid instrument to analyze OSS systems. However, there are few studies that blend both topics together.Objective: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the current state of the art in OSS ecosystems (OSSECOs) research, specifically: (a) what the most relevant definitions related to OSSECOs are; (b) what the particularities of this type of SECO are; and (c) how the knowledge about OSSECO is represented.Method: We conducted a systematic mapping following recommended practices. We applied automatic and manual searches on different sources and used a rigorous method to elicit the keywords from the research questions and selection criteria to retrieve the final papers. As a result, 82 papers were selected and evaluated. Threats to validity were identified and mitigated whenever possible.Results: The analysis allowed us to answer the research questions. Most notably, we did the following: (a) identified 64 terms related to the OSSECO and arranged them into a taxonomy; (b) built a genealogical tree to understand the genesis of the OSSECO term from related definitions; (c) analyzed the available definitions of SECO in the context of OSS; and (d) classified the existing modelling and analysis techniques of OSSECOs.Conclusion: As a summary of the systematic mapping, we conclude that existing research on several topics related to OSSECOs is still scarce (e.g., modelling and analysis techniques, quality models, standard definitions, etc.). This situation calls for further investigation efforts on how organizations and OSS communities actually understand OSSECOs.

Quantity versus impact of software engineering papers: a quantitative study

According to the data from the Scopus publication database, as analyzed in several recent studies, more than 70,000 papers have been published in the area of Software Engineering (SE) since late 1960’s. According to our recent work, 43% of those papers have received no citations at all. Since citations are the most commonly used metric for measuring research (academic) impact, these figures raise questions (doubts) about the (non-existing) impact of such a large set of papers. It is a reality that typical academic reward systems encourage researchers to publish more papers and do not place a major emphasis on research impact. To shed light on the issue of volume (quantity) versus citation-based impact of SE research papers, we conduct and report in this paper a quantitative bibliometrics assessment in four aspects: (1) quantity versus impact of different paper types (e.g., conference versus journal papers), (2) ratios of uncited (non-impactful) papers, (3) quantity versus impact of papers originating from different countries, and (4) quantity versus impact of papers by each of the top-10 authors (in terms of number of papers). To achieve the above objective, we conducted a quantitative exploratory bibliometrics assessment, comprised of four research questions, to assess quantity versus impact of SE papers with respect to the aspects discussed above. We extracted the data through a systematic, automated and repeatable process from the Scopus paper database, which we also used in two previous papers. Our results show that the distribution of SE publications has a major inequality in terms of impact overall, and also when categorized in terms of the above four aspects. The situation in the SE literature is similar to the other areas of science as studied by previous bibliometrics studies. Also, among our results is the fact that journal articles and conference papers have been cited 12.6 and 3.6 times on average, confirming the expectation that journal articles have more impact, in general, than conference papers. Also, papers originated from English-speaking countries have in general more visibility and impact (and consequently citations) when compared to papers originated from non-English-speaking countries. Our results have implications for improvement of academic reward systems, which nowadays mainly encourage researchers to publish more papers and usually neglect research impact. Also, our results can help researchers in non-English-speaking countries to consider improvements to increase their research impact of their upcoming papers.

Software Engineering for Smart Cyber-Physical Systems

Smart Cyber--Physical Systems (sCPS) are modern CPS systems that are engineered to seamlessly integrate a large number of computation and physical components; they need to control entities in their environment in a smart and collective way to achieve a high degree of effectiveness and efficiency. At the same time, these systems are supposed to be safe and secure, deal with environment dynamicity and uncertainty, cope with external threats, and optimize their behavior to achieve the best possible outcome. This "smartness" typically stems from highly cooperative behavior, self--awareness, self--adaptation, and selfoptimization. Most of the "smartness" is implemented in software, which makes the software one of the most complex and most critical constituents of sCPS. As the specifics of sCPS render traditional software engineering approaches not directly applicable, new and innovative approaches to software engineering of sCPS need to be sought. This paper reports on the results of the Second International Workshop on Software Engineering for Smart Cyber--Physical Systems (SEsCPS 2016), which specifically focuses on challenges and promising solutions in the area of software engineering for sCPS.

An ontology to support the classification of learning material in an organizational learning environment

PurposeThe purpose of this research was to evaluate whether ontology integrated in an organizational learning environment may support the automatic learning material classification in a specific knowledge area.Design/methodology/approachAn ontology for recommending learning material was integrated in the organizational learning environment based on ontology. An experiment was performed with 15 experts and 84 learners. Experts and learners were asked to classify 30 learning material related to Software Engineering area. The results obtained from experts and learners were compared with the ontology results.FindingsAmong 30 learning materials evaluated, 24 learning materials got closer to the expert classification using the ontology than using the learners’ manual classification. The learners had difficulties in correctly classifying the learning materials according to the knowledge area applied.Originality/valueIn an autonomous collaborative environment without a tutor responsible for organizing the learning materials shared by collaborators, an ontology may be an auxiliary mechanism to support automatic learning material classification. The proposed ontology uses recommendations given by the collaborators to get the correct knowledge area classification. The correct classification may support retrieval of appropriate learning materials according to the learners’ needs.

A report on the genetic improvement workshop@GECCO 2016

In July I was fortunate enough to attend the 2nd Genetic Improvement workshop in Denver, hosted under the Genetic and Evolutionary Computing Conference (GECCO) umbrella. For those unaware, Genetic Improvement (or simply 'GI') is an emerging area of software engineering that attempts to use search-based techniques to improve code. I myself have spent much of the last two years emerging myself in GI literature and carrying out investigations relevant to the field. Even in this short time I have been privileged to witness it grow from the solving of toy problems to frameworks capable of outperforming human-driven manual alternatives (readers need look no further than the winners of this year's Humie awards). Events such as the GI workshop serve as a platform for ideas, research proposals, and new experimental results to be discussed. They fill a niche for those who wish to discuss research with others in a structured manner while avoiding the restrictive formalities of submitting to a conference or journal. Building on the success of the 1st workshop (hosted in Madrid last year) the event was extended to cover three consecutive sessions at the GECCO conference. Pleasingly attendance was high with an audience full of both familiar faces and curious newcomers.

IDENTIFICATION AND QUANTIFICATION OF FACTORS AFFECTING REUSABILITY OF OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE IN REUSE-INTENSIVE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Open Source Software (OSS) is one of the emerging areas in software engineering. Reuse of OSS is employed in reuse-intensive software development such as Component Based Software Development and Software Product Lines. OSS is gaining the interest of the software development community due to its enormous benefits. The context of this study is the identification and quantification of factors affecting reusability of OSS in reuse-intensive software development. The use of OSS in the systematic reuse of software, such as in Software Product Lines (SPLs) is a new phenomenon. Therefore, the aim of this study is to identify and quantify the factors affecting the reusability of OSS in reuse-intensive software development, especially for SPLs. In this study, a mixed methods based approach is employed to identify the factors affecting the reusability of OSS. Interviews are conducted with experts in this field as the qualitative part, followed by a survey, experiments and a statistical analysis. The factors identified during the interviews are ranked by software engineers in a survey. Experiment is conducted to assess the reusability of open source packages. The factors are validated by conducting a statistical analysis of the results of the experiments. A set of nine factors were identified as a result of the qualitative study. A model was formed on the basis of the findings of interviews and a survey. It includes five factors. These were statistically analyzed by applying the model to 77 open source packages. A set of nine factors were identified as affecting reusability of OSS in a reuse-intensive development environment. Five of them were validated at the code level. The statistical results show a positive correlation between reusability and the identified factors. Keywords: Open source software; software reusability; mixed method

Human Competitiveness of Genetic Programming in Spectrum-Based Fault Localisation

We report on the application of Genetic Programming to Software Fault Localisation, a problem in the area of Search-Based Software Engineering (SBSE). We give both empirical and theoretical evidence for the human competitiveness of the evolved fault localisation formulæ under the single fault scenario, compared to those generated by human ingenuity and reported in many papers, published over more than a decade. Though there have been previous human competitive results claimed for SBSE problems, this is the first time that evolved solutions have been formally proved to be human competitive. We further prove that no future human investigation could outperform the evolved solutions. We complement these proofs with an empirical analysis of both human and evolved solutions, which indicates that the evolved solutions are not only theoretically human competitive, but also convey similar practical benefits to human-evolved counterparts.

Pedagogical relevance of educational Neuroscience in the training of the Software Engineer

The present research arises from the need to strengthen the logical reasoning, essential for all students who choose to study in computer science, especially in the area of software engineering, a new career that will be offered by UTEQ (Quevedo State Technical University). A bibliographical research was carried out, where publications of Educational Neuroscience are cited, a new discipline that relates the study of the brain, the mind and education. Likewise, researches of processes and learning styles oriented to the logical thinking necessary in the student of software engineering are mentioned; And finally recommendations are made for the teacher to apply them in order to improve student learning.

An initial analysis of software engineers\u2019 attitudes towards organizational change

Employees’ attitudes towards organizational change are a critical determinant in the change process. Researchers have therefore tried to determine what underlying concepts that affect them. These extensive efforts have resulted in the identification of several antecedents. However, no studies have been conducted in a software engineering context and the research has provided little information on the relative impact and importance of the identified concepts. In this study, we have combined results from previous social science research with results from software engineering research, and thereby identified three underlying concepts with an expected significant impact on software engineers’ attitudes towards organizational change, i.e. their knowledge about the intended change outcome, their understanding of the need for change, and their feelings of participation in the change process. The result of two separate multiple regression analysis, where we used industrial questionnaire data (N=56), showed that the attitude concept openness to change is predicted by all three concepts, while the attitude concept readiness for change is predicted by need for change and participation. Our research provides an empirical baseline to an important area of software engineering and the result can be a starting-point for future organizational change research. In addition, the proposed model prescribes practical directions for software engineering organizations to adopt in improving employees’ responses to change and, thus, increase the probability of a successful change.

Angiography – neurointerventional laboratory procedural safety issues

Interventional Radiology is a rapidly evolving field since its founding. Consecutively, the constant growth of Angiography as a tool for endovascular diagnosis and treatment has further enhanced the need for expertise. Furthermore the introduction of Neuroradiology, a novel specialty revealed additional safety issues which had to be dealt with by Interventional Radiographers. In the past, the responsibilities of a radiographer within the Interventional Imaging team were somewhat limited. However, recent technological advances in diagnostic and therapeutic applications mandate for Radiographer involvement. Interventional procedures such as Angioplasty, Central Nervous System Embolisms have encouraged Radiographers in communicating radiation protection policy and practical tips to other members of the Angiography Team. The collaboration with other medical specialties has also extended the Radiographer’s role, as one often assumes that of the tutor for health professionals unaware or with little knowledge of ionizing radiation safety issues. Finally the growth in the areas of mechanical and software engineering (Biplane Angiographic systems, 3D angiography, Rotational angiography etc.) necessitate for Radiographers to get intensely involved with crucial matters relating to the safe completion of the procedure, such as image manipulation and equipment handling. Radiographers in the angiography suite are an ever changing and involving specialty within Radiology. New procedures and technological breakthroughs initiate for radiographer role expansion in order to adapt to innovation and hence to achieve the optimal outcome safely and timely for both, the patient and staff. Nothing to disclose.

IEEE Software and Professional Development

To become more relevant to both researchers and practitioners, IEEE Software should refocus and become the first place software engineers turn to for professional development in software engineering and related areas.