A variety of research methods and techniques are available to SE researchers, and while several overviews exist, there is consistency neither in the research methods covered nor in the terminology used. Furthermore, research is sometimes critically reviewed for characteristics inherent to the methods. We adopt a taxonomy from the social sciences, termed here the ABC framework for SE research, which offers a holistic view of eight archetypal research strategies. ABC refers to the research goal that strives for generalizability over Actors (A) and precise measurement of their Behavior (B), in a realistic Context (C). The ABC framework uses two dimensions widely considered to be key in research design: the level of obtrusiveness of the research and the generalizability of research findings. We discuss metaphors for each strategy and their inherent limitations and potential strengths. We illustrate these research strategies in two key SE domains, global software engineering and requirements engineering, and apply the framework on a sample of 75 articles. Finally, we discuss six ways in which the framework can advance SE research.
Wed 29 MayDisplayed time zone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) change
16:00 - 18:00 | SE Datasets, Research Infrastructure, and MethodologyJournal-First Papers / New Ideas and Emerging Results / Demonstrations / Papers / Technical Track at Viger Chair(s): Rashina Hoda The University of Auckland | ||
16:00 20mTalk | BugSwarm: Mining and Continuously Growing a Dataset of Reproducible Failures and FixesTechnical Track Technical Track Naji Dmeiri University of California, Davis, David A Tomassi University of California, Davis, Yichen Wang University of California, Davis, Antara Bhowmick University of California, Davis, Yen-Chuan Liu University of California, Davis, Prem Devanbu University of California, Bogdan Vasilescu Carnegie Mellon University, Cindy Rubio-González University of California, Davis Pre-print | ||
16:20 20mTalk | DefeXts: A Curated Dataset of Reproducible Real-World Bugs for Modern JVM LanguagesDemos Demonstrations Samuel Benton The University of Texas at Dallas, Ali Ghanbari The University of Texas at Dallas, Lingming Zhang | ||
16:40 10mTalk | Open Collaborative Data – using OSS principles to share data in SW engineeringNIER New Ideas and Emerging Results Per Runeson Lund University | ||
16:50 10mTalk | Leveraging Small Software Engineering Data Sets with Pre-trained Neural NetworksNIER New Ideas and Emerging Results | ||
17:00 20mTalk | ActionNet: Vision-based Workflow Action Recognition From Programming ScreencastsTechnical Track Technical Track Dehai Zhao , Zhenchang Xing Australia National University, Chunyang Chen Monash University, Xin Xia Monash University, Guoqiang Li Shanghai Jiao Tong University | ||
17:20 10mTalk | The ABC of Software Engineering ResearchJournal-First Journal-First Papers Klaas-Jan Stol University College Cork and Lero, Ireland, Brian Fitzgerald Lero - The Irish Software Research Centre and University of Limerick Link to publication DOI | ||
17:30 10mTalk | Mining Plausible Hypotheses from the Literature via Meta-AnalysisNIER New Ideas and Emerging Results Vladimir Ivanov , Giancarlo Succi Innopolis University, Jooyong Yi UNIST (Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology) | ||
17:40 10mTalk | Analyzing Families of Experiments in SE: a Systematic Mapping StudyJournal-First Journal-First Papers Adrian Santos Parrilla , Omar Gomez Escuela Superior Politecnica de Chimborazo Riobamba, Natalia Juristo Universidad Politecnica de Madrid | ||
17:50 10mTalk | Discussion Period Papers | ||