Impact Of Software Engineering Research Research Articles

Impact of Software Engineering Research in Practice: A Patent and Author Survey Analysis

Existing work on the practical impact of software engineering (SE) research examines industrial relevance rather than adoption of study results, hence the question of how results have been practically applied remains open. To answer this and investigate the outcomes of impactful research, we performed a quantitative and qualitative analysis of 4,354 SE patents citing 1,690 SE papers published in four leading SE venues between 1975-2017. Moreover, we conducted a survey on 475 authors of 593 top-cited and awarded publications, achieving 26% response rate. Overall, researchers have equipped practitioners with various tools, processes, and methods, and improved many existing products. SE practice values knowledge-seeking research and is impacted by diverse cross-disciplinary SE areas. Practitioner-oriented publication venues appear more impactful than researcher-oriented ones, while industry-related tracks in conferences could enhance their impact. Some research works did not reach a wide footprint due to limited funding resources or unfavorable cost-benefit trade-off of the proposed solutions. The need for higher SE research funding could be corroborated through a dedicated empirical study. In general, the assessment of impact is subject to its definition. Therefore, academia and industry could jointly agree on a formal description to set a common ground for subsequent research on the topic.

Investigating acceptance behavior in software engineering—Theoretical perspectives

Background:Software engineering research aims to establish software development practice on a scientific basis. However, the evidence of the efficacy of technology is insufficient to ensure its uptake in industry. In the absence of a theoretical frame of reference, we mainly rely on best practices and expert judgment from industry-academia collaboration and software process improvement research to improve the acceptance of the proposed technology. Objective:To identify acceptance models and theories and discuss their applicability in the research of acceptance behavior related to software development. Method:We analyzed literature reviews within an interdisciplinary team to identify models and theories relevant to software engineering research. We further discuss acceptance behavior from the human information processing perspective of automatic and affect-driven processes (“fast” system 1 thinking) and rational and rule-governed processes (“slow” system 2 thinking). Results:We identified 30 potentially relevant models and theories. Several of them have been used in researching acceptance behavior in contexts related to software development, but few have been validated in such contexts.They use constructs that capture aspects of (automatic) system 1 and (rational) system 2 oriented processes. However, their operationalizations focus on system 2 oriented processes indicating a rational view of behavior, thus overlooking important psychological processes underpinning behavior. Conclusions:Software engineering research may use acceptance behavior models and theories more extensively to understand and predict practice adoption in the industry. Such theoretical foundations will help improve the impact of software engineering research. However, more consideration should be given to their validation, overlap, construct operationalization, and employed data collection mechanisms when using these models and theories.

Industry–Academia Research Collaboration and Knowledge Co-creation: Patterns and Anti-patterns

Increasing the impact of software engineering research in the software industry and the society at large has long been a concern of high priority for the software engineering community. The problem of two cultures, research conducted in a vacuum (disconnected from the real world), or misaligned time horizons are just some of the many complex challenges standing in the way of successful industry–academia collaborations. This article reports on the experience of research collaboration and knowledge co-creation between industry and academia in software engineering as a way to bridge the research–practice collaboration gap. Our experience spans 14 years of collaboration between researchers in software engineering and the European and Norwegian software and IT industry. Using the participant observation and interview methods, we have collected and afterwards analyzed an extensive record of qualitative data. Drawing upon the findings made and the experience gained, we provide a set of 14 patterns and 14 anti-patterns for industry–academia collaborations, aimed to support other researchers and practitioners in establishing and running research collaboration projects in software engineering.

Successful Engagement of Practitioners and Software Engineering Researchers: Evidence From 26 International Industry–Academia Collaborative Projects

There has been a push to increase the practical relevance and impact of software engineering research. Although many practitioners and researchers agree that this change is desirable, thus far, only a few concrete actions have been taken by the community. In this article, we present our experiences with a large number of collaborative research projects that have had a practical (industrial) impact.

An experience report on applying software testing academic results in industry: we need usable automated test generation

What is the impact of software engineering research on current practices in industry? In this paper, I report on my direct experience as a PhD/post-doc working in software engineering research projects, and then spending the following five years as an engineer in two different companies (the first one being the same I worked in collaboration with during my post-doc). Given a background in software engineering research, what cutting-edge techniques and tools from academia did I use in my daily work when developing and testing the systems of these companies? Regarding validation and verification (my main area of research), the answer is rather short: as far as I can tell, only FindBugs. In this paper, I report on why this was the case, and discuss all the challenging, complex open problems we face in industry and which somehow are “neglected” in the academic circles. In particular, I will first discuss what actual tools I could use in my daily work, such as JaCoCo and Selenium. Then, I will discuss the main open problems I faced, particularly related to environment simulators, unit and web testing. After that, popular topics in academia are presented, such as UML, regression and mutation testing. Their lack of impact on the type of projects I worked on in industry is then discussed. Finally, from this industrial experience, I provide my opinions about how this situation can be improved, in particular related to how academics are evaluated, and advocate for a greater involvement into open-source projects.

Impact of research on practice in the field of inspections, reviews and walkthroughs

Software inspections, reviews, and walkthroughs have become a standard process component in many software development domains. Maturity level 3 of the CMM-I requires establishment of peer reviews [12] and substantial sustained improvements in quality and productivity have been reported as a result of using reviews ([16], [21], [22], [27]). The NSF Impact project identifies the degree to which these industrial success cases have been instigated and improved by research in software engineering. This research identifies that there is widespread adoption of inspections, reviews or walkthroughs but that companies do not generally exploit their full potential. However there exist sustained industrial success cases with respect to the wide-spread and measurably successful application of them. It also identifies research in software engineering that can be credibly documented as having influenced the industrial success cases. Credible documentation may exist in the form of publications or documented reports by witnesses. Due to the semi-formal nature of inspections, reviews, and walkthroughs, a specific focus is given to empirical research results as motivators for adoption. Through the examination of one detailed case study, it is shown that software engineering research has had a significant impact on practice and that the impact can be traced in this case from research to that practice. The case study chosen provides evidence of both success and failure regarding sustained application in practice. Thus the analysis of historic impact chains of research reveals a clear impact of software engineering research on sustained industrial success for inspections, reviews and walkthroughs. More importantly, in impact chains where the empirical results have not been established, we conclude that success has not been achieved or has not been sustained. The paper closes with (1) lessons learned for creating the sustained use and impact of semi-formal software engineering processes, (2) a request for researchers and practitioners to further consider how their work can improve the effectiveness of research and practice, and (3) a request to contribute additional success cases and impact factors to the authors database for future enhancements of this paper.

Determining the Impact of Software Engineering Research on Practice

The impact project provides a solid and scholarly assessment of the impact software engineering research has had on software engineering practice. The assessment takes the form of a series of studies and briefings, each involving literature searches and, where possible, personal interviews.

The impact of software engineering research on modern programming languages

Software engineering research and programming language design have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship, with traceable impacts since the 1970s, when these areas were first distinguished from one another. This report documents this relationship by focusing on several major features of current programming languages: data and procedural abstraction, types, concurrency, exceptions, and visual programming mechanisms. The influences are determined by tracing references in publications in both fields, obtaining oral histories from language designers delineating influences on them, and tracking cotemporal research trends and ideas as demonstrated by workshop topics, special issue publications, and invited talks in the two fields. In some cases there is conclusive data supporting influence. In other cases, there are circumstantial arguments (i.e., cotemporal ideas) that indicate influence. Using this approach, this study provides evidence of the impact of software engineering research on modern programming language design and documents the close relationship between these two fields.

Impact of software engineering research on the practice of software configuration management

Software Configuration Management (SCM) is an important discipline in professional software development and maintenance. The importance of SCM has increased as programs have become larger, more long lasting, and more mission and life critical. This article discusses the evolution of SCM technology from the early days of software development to the present, with a particular emphasis on the impact that university and industrial research has had along the way. Based on an analysis of the publication history and evolution in functionality of the available SCM systems, we trace the critical ideas in the field from their early inception to their eventual maturation in commercially and freely available SCM systems. In doing so, this article creates a detailed record of the critical value of SCM research and illustrates how research results have shaped the functionality of today's SCM systems.

Influences on the design of exception handling ACM SIGSOFT project on the impact of software engineering research on programming language design

There has long been a close association between research in software engineering and the design of programming languages. Part of the IMPACT project involves an exploration of the interrelations of these two fields and documentation in a report of how fundamental research in software engineering has been a valuable resource for programming language features commonly used today. The resulting report investigates the relationship by considering features in currently used languages, including exceptions, control and data abstractions, types, inheritance, concurrency and visualization mechanisms.This paper, exerpted from the report, focuses on the influence of software engineering research on the development of exceptions. The paper demonstrates that there is a symbiotic relationship between software engineering research and the design of exception handing in programming languages. Publication of these partial results is aimed at soliciting feedback and comments from both the programming languages and software engineering communities.