当前位置: X-MOL 学术Inf. Softw. Technol. › 论文详情
Our official English website, www.x-mol.net, welcomes your feedback! (Note: you will need to create a separate account there.)
Grey Literature in Software Engineering: A critical review
Information and Software Technology ( IF 3.9 ) Pub Date : 2021-05-29 , DOI: 10.1016/j.infsof.2021.106609
Fernando Kamei , Igor Wiese , Crescencio Lima , Ivanilton Polato , Vilmar Nepomuceno , Waldemar Ferreira , Márcio Ribeiro , Carolline Pena , Bruno Cartaxo , Gustavo Pinto , Sérgio Soares

Context:

Grey Literature (GL) recently has grown in Software Engineering (SE) research since the increased use of online communication channels by software engineers. However, there is still a limited understanding of how SE research is taking advantage of GL.

Objective:

This research aimed to understand how SE researchers use GL in their secondary studies.

Methods:

We conducted a tertiary study of studies published between 2011 and 2018 in high-quality software engineering conferences and journals. We then applied qualitative and quantitative analysis to investigate 446 potential studies.

Results:

From the 446 selected studies, 126 studies cited GL but only 95 of those used GL to answer a specific research question representing almost 21% of all the 446 secondary studies. Interestingly, we identified that few studies employed specific search mechanisms and used additional criteria for assessing GL. Moreover, by the time we conducted this research, 49% of the GL URLs are not working anymore. Based on our findings, we discuss some challenges in using GL and potential mitigation plans.

Conclusion:

In this paper, we summarized the last 10 years of software engineering research that uses GL, showing that GL has been essential for bringing practical new perspectives that are scarce in traditional literature. By drawing the current landscape of use, we also raise some awareness of related challenges (and strategies to deal with them).



中文翻译:

软件工程中的灰色文献:批判性评论

语境:

自从软件工程师越来越多地使用在线交流渠道以来,格雷文学 (GL) 最近在软件工程 (SE) 研究方面有所发展。然而,对 SE 研究如何利用 GL 的理解仍然有限。

客观的:

这项研究旨在了解 SE 研究人员如何在他们的二级研究中使用 GL。

方法:

我们对 2011 年至 2018 年间发表在高质量软件工程会议和期刊上的研究进行了第三次研究。然后,我们应用定性和定量分析来调查 446 项潜在研究。

结果:

在 446 项选定研究中,126 项研究引用了 GL,但只有 95 项使用 GL 来回答特定研究问题,占所有 446 项二级研究的近 21%。有趣的是,我们发现很少有研究采用特定的搜索机制并使用额外的标准来评估 GL。此外,到我们进行这项研究时,49% 的 GL URL 不再有效。根据我们的发现,我们讨论了使用 GL 和潜在缓解计划的一些挑战。

结论:

在本文中,我们总结了过去 10 年使用 GL 的软件工程研究,表明 GL 对于带来传统文献中缺乏的实用新观点至关重要。通过绘制当前的使用情况,我们还提高了对相关挑战(以及应对策略)的认识。

更新日期:2021-06-03
down
wechat
bug