Evidence-Based Software Engineering
Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Software Engineering
Evidence-Based Software Engineering for Practitioners
IEEE Software
Requirements engineering paper classification and evaluation criteria: a proposal and a discussion
Requirements Engineering
Journal of Systems and Software
ESEM '09 Proceedings of the 2009 3rd International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement
Context in industrial software engineering research
ESEM '09 Proceedings of the 2009 3rd International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement
Agile Practices in Global Software Engineering - A Systematic Map
ICGSE '10 Proceedings of the 2010 5th IEEE International Conference on Global Software Engineering
How Reliable Are Systematic Reviews in Empirical Software Engineering?
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
Identifying relevant studies in software engineering
Information and Software Technology
A method for evaluating rigor and industrial relevance of technology evaluations
Empirical Software Engineering
Reference-based search strategies in systematic reviews
EASE'09 Proceedings of the 13th international conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering
Systematic mapping studies in software engineering
EASE'08 Proceedings of the 12th international conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering
Editorial: Systematic literature reviews in software engineering
Information and Software Technology
RAMANI: Uma Ferramenta de Apoio à Colaboração durante a Execução de Estudos Sistemáticos
Proceedings of the X Brazilian Symposium in Collaborative Systems
Information and Software Technology
Considering rigor and relevance when evaluating test driven development: A systematic review
Information and Software Technology
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Systematic studies of the literature can be done in different ways. In particular, different guidelines propose different first steps in their recommendations, e.g. start with search strings in different databases or start with the reference lists of a starting set of papers. In software engineering, the main recommended first step is using search strings in a number of databases, while in information systems, snowballing has been recommended as the first step. This paper compares the two different search approaches for conducting literature review studies. The comparison is conducted by searching for articles addressing "Agile practices in global software engineering". The focus of the paper is on evaluating the two different search approaches. Despite the differences in the included papers, the conclusions and the patterns found in both studies are quite similar. The strengths and weaknesses of each first step are discussed separately and in comparison with each other. It is concluded that none of the first steps is outperforming the other, and the choice of guideline to follow, and hence the first step, may be context-specific, i.e. depending on the area of study.