Guide to Advanced Empirical Software Engineering

Empirical studies have become an important part of software engineering research and practice. Ten years ago, it was rare to see a conference or journal article about a software development tool or process that had empirical data to back up the claims. Today, in contrast, it is becoming more and more common that software engineering conferences and journals are not only publishing, but eliciting, articles that describe a study or evaluation. Moreover, a very successful conference (International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement), journal (Empirical Software Engineering), and organization (International Software Engineering Research Network) have all evolved in the last 10 years that focus solely on this area. As a further illustration of the growth of empirical software engineering, a search in the articles of 10 software engineering journals showed that the proportion of articles that used the term "empirical software engineering" d- bled from about 6% in 1997 to about 12% in 2006. While empirical software engineering has seen such substantial growth, there is not yet a reference book that describes advanced techniques for running studies and their application. This book aims to fill that gap. The chapters are written by some of the top international empirical software engineering researchers and focus on the practical knowledge necessary for conducting, reporting, and using empirical methods in software engineering. The book is intended to serve as a standard reference.

List of contents

Research Methods and Techniques.- Software Engineering Data Collection for Field Studies.- Qualitative Methods.- Personal Opinion Surveys.- The Focus Group Method as an Empirical Tool in Software Engineering.- Simulation Methods.- Practical Foundations.- Statistical Methods and Measurement.- Missing Data in Software Engineering.- Reporting Experiments in Software Engineering.- A Practical Guide to Ethical Research Involving Humans.- The Management of University-Industry Collaborations Involving Empirical Studies of Software Enginee.- Knowledge Creation.- Selecting Empirical Methods for Software Engineering Research.- Building Theories in Software Engineering.- Building Theories from Multiple Evidence Sources.- Replication's Role in Software Engineering.

About the author

Dag I. K. Sjoeberg received the MSc degree in computer science from the University of Oslo in 1987 and the PhD degree in computing science from the University of Glasgow in 1993. He has five years of industry experience as a consultant and group leader. He is now research director of the Department of Software Engineering, Simula Research Laboratory, and a professor of software engineering in the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo. Among his research interests are research methods in empirical software engineering, software process improvement, software effort estimation, and object-oriented analysis and design.

Summary

Empirical studies have become an important part of software engineering research and practice. Ten years ago, it was rare to see a conference or journal article about a software development tool or process that had empirical data to back up the claims. Today, in contrast, it is becoming more and more common that software engineering conferences and journals are not only publishing, but eliciting, articles that describe a study or evaluation. Moreover, a very successful conference (International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement), journal (Empirical Software Engineering), and organization (International Software Engineering Research Network) have all evolved in the last 10 years that focus solely on this area. As a further illustration of the growth of empirical software engineering, a search in the articles of 10 software engineering journals showed that the proportion of articles that used the term “empirical software engineering” d- bled from about 6% in 1997 to about 12% in 2006. While empirical software engineering has seen such substantial growth, there is not yet a reference book that describes advanced techniques for running studies and their application. This book aims to fill that gap. The chapters are written by some of the top international empirical software engineering researchers and focus on the practical knowledge necessary for conducting, reporting, and using empirical methods in software engineering. The book is intended to serve as a standard reference.

Additional text

"the book does a good job of minimizing the usual problems in a collection of papers by different authors. …There are ample references in each chapter, as well as a bibliography. This is indeed a guide, as it often just points to other sources. It should be very useful to graduate students and researchers engaged in empirical software engineering research."
(Andrew R. Huber, ACM Computing Reviews, February 2009)

Report

"the book does a good job of minimizing the usual problems in a collection of papers by different authors. ...There are ample references in each chapter, as well as a bibliography. This is indeed a guide, as it often just points to other sources. It should be very useful to graduate students and researchers engaged in empirical software engineering research."
(Andrew R. Huber, ACM Computing Reviews, February 2009)

Product details

• Assisted by: Dag I K Sjøberg (Editor), Forrest Shull (Editor), Janic Singer (Editor), Janice Singer (Editor), Dag I. K. Sjoberg (Editor), Dag I K Sjøberg (Editor), Dag I. K. Sjøberg (Editor), Dag I. K. Sjoeberg (Editor)
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 19.05.2008
• EAN: 9781848000438
• ISBN: 978-1-84800-043-8
• No. of pages: 388
• Weight: 710 g
• Illustrations: XI, 388 p.
• Subject: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > IT, data processing > IT