Evidence-based Software Engineering Research Articles

Experiences from conducting rapid reviews in collaboration with practitioners — Two industrial cases

Context:Evidence-based software engineering (EBSE) aims to improve research utilization in practice. It relies on systematic methods to identify, appraise, and synthesize existing research findings to answer questions of interest for practice. However, the lack of practitioners’ involvement in these studies’ design, execution, and reporting indicates a lack of appreciation for the need for knowledge exchange between researchers and practitioners. The resultant systematic literature studies often lack relevance for practice. Objective:This paper explores the use of Rapid Reviews (RRs), in fostering knowledge exchange between academia and industry. Through the lens of two case studies, we delve into the practical application and experience of conducting RRs. Methods:We analyzed the conduct of two rapid reviews by two different groups of researchers and practitioners. We collected data through interviews, and the documents produced during the review (like review protocols, search results, and presentations). The interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results:We report how the two groups of researchers and practitioners performed the rapid reviews. We observed some benefits, like promoting dialogue and paving the way for future collaborations. We also found that practitioners entrusted the researchers to develop and follow a rigorous approach and were more interested in the applicability of the findings in their context. The problems investigated in these two cases were relevant but not the most immediate ones. Therefore, rapidness was not a priority for the practitioners. Conclusion:The study illustrates that rapid reviews can support researcher-practitioner communication and industry-academia collaboration. Furthermore, the recommendations based on the experiences from the two cases complement the detailed guidelines researchers and practitioners may follow to increase interaction and knowledge exchange.

Exploring a Multidisciplinary Assessment of Organisational Maturity in Business Continuity: A Perspective and Future Research Outlook

In a competitive business landscape heavily reliant on information and communication technology, organisations must be prepared to address disruptions in their business operations. Business continuity management involves effective planning for the swift reestablishment of business processes in the short term. However, there are still obstacles to implementing business continuity plans, which can be justified by various factors. The purpose of this study is to present the perspectives and future research paths based on a systematic literature review from the peer-reviewed literature published from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2021. This systematic literature review adheres to the guidelines established by evidence-based software engineering and leverages the Parsifal online tool. The primary research results identify and establish connections between the common components and activities of business continuity management as defined in international standards and frameworks to identify gaps in the existing knowledge. These findings will contribute to the development of a framework that provides a practical approach applicable to organisations of all sizes, taking into account each aspect of business continuity management, with a particular emphasis on information and communication technology systems. This paper’s contribution lies in offering insights from a systematic literature review regarding the strategic principles for designing and implementing a business continuity plan, along with a comprehensive overview of related research. Furthermore, it presents a path forward to guide future research efforts aimed at addressing the gaps in the literature concerning continuity planning.

Assessing attitudes towards evidence-based software engineering in a government agency

Evidence-based practice (EBP) has allowed several disciplines to become more mature by emphasizing the use of evidence from well-designed and well-conducted research in decision-making. Its application in SE, Evidence-based software engineering (EBSE) can help to bridge the gap between academia and industry by bringing together academic rigor and research of practical relevance. To achieve this, it seems necessary to improve its adoption. We sought both to study the attitudes towards EBSE of stakeholders working in a government agency (GA) and to assess whether knowledge of EBSE would impact their working practices. We conducted a multi-stage field investigation in an Uruguayan national GA that is responsible for digital policies. First, we organized an EBSE awareness lecture and we collected and analyzed participants’ perceptions of the value and limitations of EBSE. Sixteen months later, in a second stage, we contacted the agency and asked participants whether they had made use of the information about EBSE we presented to them. Initially, participants reported that EBSE seemed useful for tackling challenging problems and, in particular, considered its use appropriate given the agency’s responsibilities. Perceived barriers to EBSE adoption were the need for institutional support, the lack of government practice reports, inadequate skills or motivation, the cost of conducting systematic reviews, and the lack of evidence about emerging issues. In the follow-up survey, although the participants were not undertaking systematic reviews themselves, many reported improvements in how they searched for and evaluated information to support their work. Our study presents some insights to better understand EBSE adoption. With the exception of GA-specific issues, perceived value and barriers to adoption were consistent with those reported in software engineering and other disciplines. Our follow-up study confirms the potential value of evidence in the context of IT regulatory and government bodies.

How Should Software Engineering Secondary Studies Include Grey Material?

<italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Context</i> : Recent papers have proposed the use of <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">grey literature</i> (GL) and multivocal reviews. These papers have raised issues about the practices used for systematic reviews (SRs) in software engineering (SE) and suggested that there should be changes to the current SR guidelines. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Objective</i> : To investigate whether current SR guidelines need to be changed to support GL and multivocal reviews. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Method</i> : We discuss the definitions of GL and the importance of GL and of industry-based field studies in SE SRs. We identify properties of SRs that constrain the material used in SRs: a) the nature of primary studies; b) the requirements of SRs to be auditable, traceable, and reproducible; and explain why these requirements restrict the use of blogs in SRs. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results</i> : SR guidelines have always considered GL as a possible source of primary studies and have never supported exclusion of field studies that incorporate the practitioners’ viewpoint. However, the concept of GL, which was meant to refer to documents that were not formally published, is now being extended to information from sources such as blogs/tweets/Q&A posts. Thus, it might seem that SRs do not make full use of GL because they do not include such information. However, the unit of analysis for an SR is the primary study. Thus, it is not the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">source</i> but the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">type</i> of information that is important. Any report describing a rigorous empirical evaluation is a candidate primary study. Whether it is actually included in an SR depends on the SR eligibility criteria. However, any study that cannot be guaranteed to be publicly available in the long term should not be used as a primary study in an SR. This does not prevent such information from being aggregated in surveys of social media and used in the context of evidence-based software engineering (EBSE). <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Conclusions</i> : Current guidelines for SRs do not require extensions, but their scope needs to be better defined. SE researchers require guidelines for analysing social media posts (e.g., blogs, tweets, vlogs), but these should be based on qualitative primary (not secondary) study guidelines. SE researchers can use mixed-methods SRs and/or the fourth step of EBSE to incorporate findings from social media surveys with those from SRs and to develop industry-relevant recommendations.

A Systematic Mapping Study on Quality Attribute Traceability

Quality attribute traceability (QAT), as a sub-discipline of software traceability, ensures that quality attributes are considered in all phases of software development. QAT is one of the most critical and challenging research areas in requirement engineering. In recent years, several studies have been conducted on quality attribute traceability. However, researchers in this field have problems to identifying the research status of this field due to the lack of a comprehensive secondary study that reveals research trends and gaps. Evidence-based software engineering (EBSE) proposes systematic mapping study (SMS) and systematic literature review (SLR) methods for secondary studies on software engineering. In this paper we use the semantically enhanced SMS method in the QAT research area. In order to improve SMS, we introduce a concept classification approach. In this approach by using a QAT domain ontology, the keywords classification process is improved. The most important innovation of this study is the presentation of the QAT research tree. This research tree has been created by gathering research topics identified in this field along with existing gaps. Identified research topics include “QAT Approach,” “QAT Development,” “QAT Model,” “QAT Framework,” and “QAT Algorithm”. The results also indicate that “QAT Frameworks” is a research trend, and most recent studies have focused on this topic. On the other hand, “Trace Maintenance” and “Trace Integrity” are the research gaps in this field. In this article, active researchers, journals, conferences and countries in the field of QAT are also introduced. We also introduce a set of tools that facilitate the SMS process.

Evidence-Based Software Engineering: A Checklist-Based Approach to Assess the Abstracts of Reviews Self-Identifying as Systematic Reviews

A systematic review allows synthesizing the state of knowledge related to a clearly formulated research question as well as understanding the correlations between exposures and outcomes. A systematic review usually leverages explicit, reproducible, and systematic methods that allow reducing the potential bias that may arise when conducting a review. When properly conducted, a systematic review yields reliable findings from which conclusions and decisions can be made. Systematic reviews are increasingly popular and have several stakeholders to whom they allow making recommendations on how to act based on the review findings. They also help support future research prioritization. A systematic review usually has several components. The abstract is one of the most important parts of a review because it usually reflects the content of the review. It may be the only part of the review read by most readers when forming an opinion on a given topic. It may help more motivated readers decide whether the review is worth reading or not. But abstracts are sometimes poorly written and may, therefore, give a misleading and even harmful picture of the review’s contents. To assess the extent to which a review’s abstract is well constructed, we used a checklist-based approach to propose a measure that allows quantifying the systematicity of review abstracts i.e., the extent to which they exhibit good reporting quality. Experiments conducted on 151 reviews published in the software engineering field showed that the abstracts of these reviews had suboptimal systematicity.

Semi-Automatic Mapping Technique Using Snowballing to Support Massive Literature Searches in Software Engineering

Systematic literature reviews represent an important methodology in Evidence-Based Software Engineering. To define the methodological route in these type of studies, in which a review of quantitative and qualitative aspects of primary studies is carried out to summarize the existing information regarding a particular topic, researchers use protocols that guide the construction of knowledge from research questions. This article presents a process that uses forward Snowballing, which identifies the articles cited in the paper under study and the number of citations as inclusion criteria to complement systematic literature reviews. A process that relies on software tools was designed to apply the Snowballing strategy and to identify the most cited works and those who cite them. To validate the process, a review identified in the literature was used. After comparing the results, new works that were not taken into account but made contributions to the subject of study emerged. The citation index represents the number of times a publication has been referenced in other documents and is used as a mechanism to analyze, measure, or quantitatively assess the impact of said publication on the scientific community. The present study showed how applying Snowballing along with other strategies enables the emergence of works that may be relevant for an investigation given the citations rate. That is, implementing this proposal will allow updating or expanding systematic literature studies through the new works evidenced.

How good are my search strings? Reflections on using an existing review as a quasi-gold standard

Background: Systematic literature studies (SLS) have become a core research methodology in Evidence-based Software Engineering (EBSE). Search completeness, i.e., finding all relevant papers on the topic of interest, has been recognized as one of the most commonly discussed validity issues of SLSs. Aim: This study aims at raising awareness on the issues related to search string construction and on search validation using a quasi-gold standard (QGS). Furthermore, we aim at providing guidelines for search string validation. Method: We use a recently completed tertiary study as a case and complement our findings with the observations from other researchers studying and advancing EBSE. Results: We found that the issue of assessing QGS quality has not seen much attention in the literature, and the validation of automated searches in SLSs could be improved. Hence, we propose to extend the current search validation approach by the additional analysis step of the automated search validation results and provide recommendations for the QGS construction. Conclusion: In this paper, we report on new issues which could affect search completeness in SLSs. Furthermore, the proposed guideline and recommendations could help researchers implement a more reliable search strategy in their SLSs.

Software Sustainability: A Systematic Literature Review and Comprehensive Analysis

Software Engineering is a constantly evolving subject area that faces new challenges every day as it tries to automate newer business processes. One of the key challenges to the success of a software solution is attaining sustainability. The inability of numerous software to sustain for the desired time-length is caused by limited consideration given towards sustainability during the stages of software development. This review aims to present a detailed and inclusive study covering both the technical and non-technical challenges and approaches of software sustainability. A systematic and comprehensive literature review was conducted based on 107 relevant studies that were selected using the Evidence-Based Software Engineering (EBSE) technique. The study showed that sustainability can be achieved by conducting specific activities at the technical and non-technical levels. The technical level consists of software design, coding, and user experience attributes. The non-technical level consists of documentation, sustainability manifestos, training of software engineers, funding software projects, and leadership skills of project managers to achieve sustainability. This paper groups the existing research efforts based on the above aspects. Next, how those aspects affect open and closed source software is tabulated. Based on the findings of this review, it is seen that both technical and non-technical sustainability aspects are equally important, taking one into contention and ignoring the other will threaten the sustenance of software products.

Processes, challenges and recommendations of Gray Literature Review: An experience report

Systematic Literature Review (SLR), as a tool of Evidence-Based Software Engineering (EBSE), has been widely used in Software Engineering (SE). However, for certain topics in SE, especially those that are trendy or industry driven, academic literature is generally scarce and consequently Gray Literature (GL) becomes a major source of evidence. In recent years, the adoption of Gray Literature Review (GLR) or Multivocal Literature Review (MLR) is rising steadily to provide the state-of-the-practice of a specific topic where SLR is not a viable option. Although some SLR guidelines recommend the use of GL and several MLR guidelines have already been proposed in SE, researchers still have conflicting views on the value of GL and commonly accepted GLR or MLR studies are generally lacking in terms of publication. This experience report aims to shed some light on GLR through a case study that uses SLR and MLR guidelines to conduct a GLR on an emerging topic in SE to specifically answer the questions related to the reasons of using GL, the processes of conducting GL, and the impacts of GL on review results. We retrospect the review process of conducting a GLR on the topic of DevSecOps with reference to Kitchenham’s SLR and Garousi’s MLR guidelines. We specifically reflect on the processes we had to adapt in order to tackle the challenges we faced. We also compare and contrast our GLR with existing MLRs or GLRs in SE to contextualize our reflections. We distill ten challenges in nine activities of a GLR process. We provide reasons for these challenges and further suggest ways to tackle them during a GLR process. We also discuss the decision process of selecting a suitable review methodology among SLR, MLR and GLR and elaborate the impacts of GL on our review results. Although our experience on GLR is mainly derived from a specific case study on DevSecOps, we conjecture that it is relevant and would be beneficial to other GLR or MLR studies. We also expect our experience would contribute to future GLR or MLR guidelines, in a way similar to how SLR guidelines learned from the SLR experience report a dozen years ago. In addition, other researchers may find our decision making process useful before they conduct their own reviews.

Training students in evidence-based software engineering and systematic reviews: a systematic review and empirical study

Although influential in academia, evidence-based software engineering (EBSE) has had little impact on industry practice. We found that other disciplines have identified lack of training as a significant barrier to Evidence-Based Practice. To build and assess an EBSE training proposal suitable for students with more than 3 years of computer science/software engineering university-level training. We performed a systematic literature review (SLR) of EBSE teaching initiatives and used the SLR results to help us to develop and evaluate an EBSE training proposal. The course was based on the theory of learning outcomes and incorporated a large practical content related to performing an SLR. We ran the course with 10 students and based course evaluation on student performance and opinions of both students and teachers. We assessed knowledge of EBSE principles from the mid-term and final tests, as well as evaluating the SLRs produced by the student teams. We solicited student opinions about the course and its value via a student survey, a team survey, and a focus group. The teachers’ viewpoint was collected in a debriefing meeting. Our SLR identified 14 relevant primary studies. The primary studies emphasized the importance of practical examples (usually based on the SLR process) and used a variety of evaluation methods, but lacked any formal education methodology. We identified 54 learning outcomes covering aspects of EBSE and the SLR method. All 10 students passed the course. Our course evaluation showed that a large percentage of the learning outcomes established for training were accomplished. The course proved suitable for students to understand the EBSE paradigm and to be able to apply it to a limited-scope practical assignment. Our learning outcomes, course structure, and course evaluation process should help to improve the effectiveness and comparability of future studies of EBSE training. However, future courses should increase EBSE training related to the use of SLR results.

Global and Latin American female participation in evidence-based software engineering: a systematic mapping study

ContextWhile the digital economy requires a new generation of technology for scientists and practitioners, the software engineering (SE) field faces a gender crisis. SE research is a global enterprise that requires the participation of both genders for the advancement of science and evidence-based practice. However, women across the world tend to be significantly underrepresented in such research, receiving less funding and less participation, frequently, than men as authors in research publications. Data about this phenomenon is still sparse and incomplete; particularly in evidence-based software engineering (EBSE), there are no studies that analyze the participation of women in this research area.ObjectiveThe objective of this work is to present the results of a systematic mapping study (SM) conducted to collect and evaluate evidence on female researchers who have contributed to the area of EBSE.MethodOur SM was performed by manually searching studies in the major conferences and journals of EBSE. We identified 981 studies and 183 were authored/co-authored by women and, therefore, included.ResultsContributions from women in secondary studies have globally increased over the years, but it is still concentrated in European countries. Additionally, collaboration among research groups is still fragile, based on a few women as a bridge. Latin American researchers contribute a great deal to the field, despite they do not collaborate as much within their region.ConclusionsThe findings from this study are expected to be aggregated to the existing knowledge with respect to women’s contribution to the EBSE area. We expect that our results bring up a reflection on the gender issue and motivate actions and policies to attract female researchers to this area.

Migration of existing software systems to mobile computing platforms: a systematic mapping study

Mobile computing has fast emerged as a pervasive technology to replace the old computing paradigms with portable computation and context-aware communication. Existing software systems can be migrated (while preserving their data and logic) to mobile computing platforms that support portability, context-sensitivity, and enhanced usability. In recent years, some research and development efforts have focused on a systematic migration of existing software systems to mobile computing platforms. To investigate the research state-of-the-art on the migration of existing software systems to mobile computing platforms. We aim to analyze the progression and impacts of existing research, highlight challenges and solutions that reflect dimensions of emerging and futuristic research. We followed evidence-based software engineering (EBSE) method to conduct a systematic mapping study (SMS) of the existing research that has progressed over more than a decade (25 studies published from 1996–2017). We have derived a taxonomical classification and a holistic mapping of the existing research to investigate its progress, impacts, and potential areas of futuristic research and development. The SMS has identified three types of migration namely Static, Dynamic, and State-based Migration of existing software systems to mobile computing platforms. Migration to mobile computing platforms enables existing software systems to achieve portability, context-sensitivity,and high connectivity. However, mobile systems may face some challenges such as resource poverty, data security, and privacy. The emerging and futuristic research aims to support patterns and tool support to automate the migration process. The results of this SMS can benefit researchers and practitioners-by highlighting challenges, solutions, and tools, etc., -to conceptualize the state-of-the-art and futuristic trends that support migration of existing software to mobile computing.

A systematic literature review on the usage of eye-tracking in understanding process models

PurposeBusiness process modeling can involve multiple stakeholders, so it is natural that problems may occur during the designing and understanding processes. One way to perceive these problems is to evaluate the comprehension of business process models through the collection of data related to the readers' eye movement via an eye-tracking device. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of the use of eye-trackers in understanding process models and to offer a research roadmap to challenge the community to address the identified limitations and open issues that require further investigation.Design/methodology/approachTo achieve this goal, Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was performed following good practices from the Evidence-Based Software Engineering's (EBSE) field.FindingsThis study resulted in 10 primary studies selected for analysis and data extraction, from the 1,482 initially retrieved. The major findings indicate that the business process community still benefits little from the use of eye-tracking, e.g. not offering sufficient support for inexperienced designers and not having an explicit standardization in its use. These and other findings are synthesized in a research roadmap which results would benefit researchers and practitioners.Originality/valueIn the studies found, the methods used to explore eyes' movement in process models' comprehension analysis were presented as an advantage of the current study. Additionally, another aspect presented in this SRL as an originality is presenting a set of open questions, suggesting valuable topics for future research through a research script (research roadmap).

Ubiquitous healthcare: a systematic mapping study

Ubiquitous healthcare is an emerging area that employs ubiquitous technologies to enable technology oriented environment for healthcare professionals for provision of efficient and effective healthcare services. In past years, research community has proposed various technological solutions in different healthcare areas such as chronic disease monitoring, gait analysis, mood and fall detection, neuropathic monitoring, physiological and vital signs monitoring, pulmonogical monitoring, etc. However, in-depth analysis of these proposed solutions is required to analyze the form of proposed ubiquitous healthcare solutions; the extent ubiquitous technologies are integrated in these solutions; the type of real problem addressed; and how far these solutions are evaluated in real world settings? The addressal of these questions is critical to understand and evaluate the progress made in the area of ubiquitous healthcare and identify the challenges that are hindering the progress in this area. Therefore, in this research, a systematic research technique in the form of mapping study (also known as scoping study) is employed for in-depth analysis of evidences available on ubiquitous healthcare. The mapping study adopts a systematic approach to construct chain of evidences related to a particular topic and is a well-defined research technique in evidence based software engineering. This study identified a total of 103 primary studies, published between 2007 and 2018, for analysis of area under investigation. The study findings reveal that research trend in ubiquitous healthcare is horizontally spread by involving broad range of healthcare areas. The proposed solutions largely fall under the category of validation studies where experiments are conducted in laboratory settings rather real world environment. Another interesting finding is the lack of involvement of relevant healthcare community in proposed solution design. The challenges such as context awareness, data ownership, privacy and security, usability and trust are limiting the adoption of proposed solutions. Therefore, more extensive studies are required to first evaluate the applicability of proposed solutions in their respective environment, second, engagement and ownership of relevant community in solution design need to be considered. Third, the broad coverage of healthcare areas does not provide significant clusters of similar research in any particular area therefore future research should focus on strengthening these areas by conducting evaluation based longitudinal studies. In this way, the effects of proposed solutions can only be measured objectively and can be added to the body of knowledge. Finally, this research provides a thorough insight into the research on ubiquitous healthcare and offers an opportunity to conduct further research in this area.

Aprendizaje de un segundo idioma apoyado en tecnologías digitales: una revisión sistemática

En este artículo se realiza una revisión sistemática con el objetivo de identificar las evidencias existentes sobre la implementación y las ventajas del uso de diferentes tecnologías digitales en los programas educativos que contribuyen a la adquisición de un segundo idioma. Esta revisión sistemática sigue la metodología según las recomendaciones proporcionadas por el método Evidence-based Software Engineering, la lista de control de The Critical Appraisal Skill Programme para evaluar la calidad de los artículos seleccionados y Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and MetaAnalysis para la elaboración del informe. Las bases de datos utilizadas fueron Web Of Science y Scopus. Se seleccionan 8 artículos que se ajustan a los criterios de inclusión y exlusión. Entre los principales resultados obtenidos destacamos que en los estudios que utilizan las herramientas de la Web 2.0 se integran las competencias sociales de lenguaje, en concreto, la de comunicación e interacción con propósitos de producción y de integración social del estudiante en un nuevo idioma. Por lo tanto, las herramientas Web 2.0 contribuyen a una enseñanza más dinámica de un idioma, generando una mayor interacción que ayuda a la adquisición de este. De otro lado, en las investigaciones que usan las herramientas de Computer Based Learning se evalúa al individuo en temas específicos, como la producción fonética y gramatical.

Classification and Mapping of Adaptive Security for Mobile Computing

Context: Mobile computing has emerged as a disruptive technology that has empowered its users with portable, connected and context-aware computation. However, issues such as resource poverty, energy efficiency and specifically data security and privacy represents the critical challenges for mobile computing. Objective: The objective of this work is to systematically identify, taxonomically classify and map the state-of-research on adaptive security (a.k.a. self-protection) for mobile computing. Methodology: We followed evidence based software engineering method to conduct a systematic mapping study of 43 qualitatively selected studies-published from 2003 to 2017-on adaptive security for mobile computing. Results and Conclusions: Classification and mapping of the research highlights three prominent themes that support adaptive security for (i) Mobile Device Data and Resources, (ii) Mobile to Mobile Communication, and (iii) Mobile to Server Communication. Mapping analysis suggests that security of mobile device data and resources is the most researched theme. The mapping study highlights that active and futuristic research trends are primarily focused on security as a service, whereas; the frequent research challenges relate to self-protecting mobile devices, user-driven privacy decisions and context-aware security. The results of the mapping study facilitate knowledge transfer that can benefit researchers and practitioners to understand the role of adaptive and context-aware security in mobile computing environments.

Software Architecture for Mobile Cloud Computing Systems

Mobile cloud computing (MCC) has recently emerged as a state-of-the-art technology for mobile systems. MCC enables portable and context-aware computation via mobile devices by exploiting virtually unlimited hardware and software resources offered by cloud computing servers. Software architecture helps to abstract the complexities of system design, development, and evolution phases to implement MCC systems effectively and efficiently. This paper aims to identify, taxonomically classify, and systematically map the state of the art on architecting MCC-based software. We have used an evidence-based software engineering (EBSE) approach to conduct a systematic mapping study (SMS) based on 121 qualitatively selected research studies published from 2006 to 2019. The results of the SMS highlight that architectural solutions for MCC systems are mainly focused on supporting (i) software as a service for mobile computing, (ii) off-loading mobile device data to cloud-servers, (iii) internet of things, edge, and fog computing along with various aspects like (iv) security and privacy of mobile device data. The emerging research focuses on the existing and futuristic challenges that relate to MCC-based internet of things (IoTs), mobile-cloud edge systems, along with green and energy-efficient computing. The results of the SMS facilitate knowledge transfer that could benefit researchers and practitioners to understand the role of software architecture to develop the next generation of mobile-cloud systems to support internet-driven computing.

Educational value of Systematic Mapping Studies: A replication study.

Contribution: The goal of this study is to validate the results of a prior study on the educational value of systematic mapping studies (SMS) and evaluate the possibility of generalizing those results to similar contexts. Background: since the inception of the Evidence Based Software Engineering (EBSE) paradigm in 2004, few studies have aimed at evaluating their impact in the academic field, and the educational values that SMS can offer to the students. In 2010, three renowned researchers presented an article on this subject at ICSE'10. The study made interesting contributions. We believe that, after 8 years, a replication of that study can be useful to assess the original findings and to guide future educational interventions. Research Questions: What educational value does a SMS provide? Methodology: a replication of a multi-case holistic study. Findings: This replication confirms all but two of the results from the original work. The differences may be due to slight variations in the context. The experience of undertaking an SMS provided the students with both research skills and a broad understanding of a research area. We encourage other researchers to replicate this study, to gain further insights into the educational value of this method.

Evidencias de Accesibilidad Web en la generación de sitios. Propuesta de un método

En la Informática los estudios empíricos generan el conocimiento en torno a una realidad, así como las prácticas que de ellos derivan. La Ingeniería del Software Basada en la Evidencia se fundamenta en leyes naturales, resultados experimentales y fórmulas empíricas para proponer y respaldar soluciones a los problemas identificados. El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo integrar en una etapa de la Ingeniería del Software Basada en la Evidencia un método para evaluar la Accesibilidad Web. En primera instancia se contextualiza el marco teórico en que se encuadra la propuesta y se expone el método para el logro de los objetivos. El enfoque contribuye a la consolidación de una sociedad de conocimiento que prima la importancia de las tecnologías orientadas a los sujetos. La validación y aplicación del método diseñado proporcionó información empírica vinculada a la generación de estrategias innovadoras orientadas a asegurar el acceso universal a los contenidos digitales y con miras a asegurar la inclusión de los e-ciudadanos. Además, generó información valiosa que desde ámbitos académicos redundará en la definición de acciones enmarcadas en la Industria del Software, que evolucionó aún algunos aspectos de la calidad del producto software requieren de un continuo trabajo, en este caso centrado en asegurar el acceso universal a los contenidos en la web