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Towards a decision-making structure for selecting a research design in empirical software engineering
Several factors make empirical research in software engineering particularly challenging as it requires studying not only technology but its stakeholders’ activities while drawing concepts and theories from social science. Researchers, in general, agree that selecting a research design in empirical software engineering research is challenging, because the implications of using individual research methods are not well recorded. The main objective of this article is to make researchers aware and support them in their research design, by providing a foundation of knowledge about empirical software engineering research decisions, in order to ensure that researchers make well-founded and informed decisions about their research designs. This article provides a decision-making structure containing a number of decision points, each one of them representing a specific aspect on empirical software engineering research. The article provides an introduction to each decision point and its constituents, as well as to the relationships between the different parts in the decision-making structure. The intention is the structure should act as a starting point for the research design before going into the details of the research design chosen. The article provides an in-depth discussion of decision points in relation to the research design when conducting empirical research.
Journal Article
Foundational Competencies and Responsibilities of a Research Software Engineer
The term Research Software Engineer, or RSE, emerged a little over 10 years ago as a way to represent individuals working in the research community but focusing on software development. The term has been widely adopted and there are a number of high-level definitions of what an RSE is. However, the roles of RSEs vary depending on the institutional context they work in. At one end of the spectrum, RSE roles may look similar to a traditional research role. At the other extreme, they resemble that of a software engineer in industry. Most RSE roles inhabit the space between these two extremes. Therefore, providing a straightforward, comprehensive definition of what an RSE does and what experience, skills and competencies are required to become one is challenging. In this community paper we define the broad notion of what an RSE is, explore the different types of work they undertake, and define a list of foundational competencies as well as values that outline the general profile of an RSE. Further research and training can build upon this foundation of skills and focus on various aspects in greater detail. We expect that graduates and practitioners will have a larger and more diverse set of skills than outlined here. On this basis, we elaborate on the progression of these skills along different dimensions. We look at specific types of RSE roles, propose recommendations for organisations, give examples of future specialisations, and detail how existing curricula fit into this framework.
Journal Article
Using grounded theory to study the experience of software development
Grounded Theory is a research method that generates theory from data and is useful for understanding how people resolve problems that are of concern to them. Although the method looks deceptively simple in concept, implementing Grounded Theory research can often be confusing in practice. Furthermore, despite many papers in the social science disciplines and nursing describing the use of Grounded Theory, there are very few examples and relevant guides for the software engineering researcher. This paper describes our experience using classical (i.e., Glaserian) Grounded Theory in a software engineering context and attempts to interpret the canons of classical Grounded Theory in a manner that is relevant to software engineers. We provide model to help the software engineering researchers interpret the often fuzzy definitions found in Grounded Theory texts and share our experience and lessons learned during our research. We summarize these lessons learned in a set of fifteen guidelines.
Journal Article
Foundational Competencies and Responsibilities of a Research Software Engineer: Current State and Suggestions for Future Directions
The term Research Software Engineer, or RSE, emerged a little over 10 years ago as a way to represent individuals working in the research community but focusing on software development. The term has been widely adopted and there are a number of high-level definitions of what an RSE is. However, the roles of RSEs vary depending on the institutional context they work in. At one end of the spectrum, RSE roles may look similar to a traditional research role. At the other extreme, they resemble that of a software engineer in industry. Most RSE roles inhabit the space between these two extremes. Therefore, providing a straightforward, comprehensive definition of what an RSE does and what experience, skills and competencies are required to become one is challenging. In this community paper we define the broad notion of what an RSE is, explore the different types of work they undertake, and define a list of foundational competencies as well as values that outline the general profile of an RSE. These foundational skills are encountered to a large extent within the skill sets of current RSEs in Germany and beyond, and we propose them as a starting point for aspiring RSEs to shape their technical profile. Further research and training can build upon this foundation of skills and focus on various aspects in greater detail. We expect that graduates and practitioners will have a larger and more diverse set of skills than outlined here. On this basis, we elaborate on the progression of these skills along different dimensions. We look at specific types of RSE roles, propose recommendations for organisations, give examples of future specialisations, and detail how existing curricula fit into this framework.
Journal Article
Scaling up : a research agenda for software engineering
Large and growing opportunity costs are resulting from the inability to produce sophisticated, reliable software in a timely manner. Software engineering presents stubborn problems, but in this book, a group of experts suggest several constructive directions for research. Together, they support the need for greater interaction between researchers and practitioners and more aggressive efforts to share and reuse software engineering knowledge.
eBook
Where is all the research software? An analysis of software in UK academic repositories
This research examines the prevalence of research software as independent records of output within UK academic institutional repositories (IRs). There has been a steep decline in numbers of research software submissions to the UK’s Research Excellence Framework from 2008 to 2021, but there has been no investigation into whether and how the official academic IRs have affected the low return rates. In what we believe to be the first such census of its kind, we queried the 182 online repositories of 157 UK universities. Our findings show that the prevalence of software within UK Academic IRs is incredibly low. Fewer than 28% contain software as recognised academic output. Of greater concern, we found that over 63% of repositories do not currently record software as a type of research output and that several Universities appeared to have removed software as a defined type from default settings of their repository. We also explored potential correlations, such as being a member of the Russell group, but found no correlation between these metadata and prevalence of records of software. Finally, we discuss the implications of these findings with regards to the lack of recognition of software as a discrete research output in institutions, despite the opposite being mandated by funders, and we make recommendations for changes in policies and operating procedures.
Journal Article
The challenges of theory-software translation version 1; peer review: 2 approved, 1 approved with reservations
Background: Software is now ubiquitous within research. In addition to the general challenges common to all software development projects, research software must also represent, manipulate, and provide data for complex theoretical constructs. Ensuring this process of theory-software translation is robust is essential to maintaining the integrity of the science resulting from it, and yet there has been little formal recognition or exploration of the challenges associated with it.
Methods: We thematically analyse the outputs of the discussion sessions at the Theory-Software Translation Workshop 2019, where academic researchers and research software engineers from a variety of domains, and with particular expertise in high performance computing, explored the process of translating between scientific theory and software.
Results: We identify a wide range of challenges to implementing scientific theory in research software and using the resulting data and models for the advancement of knowledge. We categorise these within the emergent themes of design, infrastructure, and culture, and map them to associated research questions.
Conclusions: Systematically investigating how software is constructed and its outputs used within science has the potential to improve the robustness of research software and accelerate progress in its development. We propose that this issue be examined within a new research area of theory-software translation, which would aim to significantly advance both knowledge and scientific practice.
Journal Article
Critical Code
Critical Code contemplates Department of Defense (DoD) needs and priorities for software research and suggests a research agenda and related actions. Building on two prior books- Summary of a Workshop on Software Intensive Systems and Uncertainty at Scale and Preliminary Observations on DoD Software Research Needs and Priorities -the present volume assesses the nature of the national investment in software research and, in particular, considers ways to revitalize the knowledge base needed to design, produce, and employ software-intensive systems for tomorrow's defense needs.
Critical Code discusses four sets of questions:
To what extent is software capability significant for the DoD? Is it becoming more or less significant and strategic in systems development?
Will the advances in software producibility needed by the DoD emerge unaided from industry at a pace sufficient to meet evolving defense requirements?
What are the opportunities for the DoD to make more effective use of emerging technology to improve software capability and software producibility?
In which technology areas should the DoD invest in research to advance defense software capability and producibility?
eBook