Knowledge-Sharing Issues in Experimental Software Engineering

  • Authors:

  • Forrest Shull;Manoel G. Mendoncça;Victor Basili;Jeffrey Carver;José C. Maldonado;Sandra Fabbri;Guilherme Horta Travassos;Maria Cristina Ferreira

  • Affiliations:

  • Fraunhofer Center for Experimental Software Engineering, 4321 Hartwick Road, Suite 500, College Park, MD 20740 fshull@fc-md.umd.edu;Computer Networks Research Group (NUPERC), Salvador University (UNIFACS), Rua Ponciano de Oliveira, 126 Salvador, BA 41950-275, Brazil mgmn@unifacs.br;Fraunhofer Center for Experimental Software Engineering, Department of Computer Science, A.V. Williams Building, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 basili@fc-md.umd.educarver@cs.umd.edu;Instituto de Ciências Matemáticas e de Computacção, Departmento de Ciências da Computacção e Estatística, Av. Trabalhador São-Carlense, 400 – Cen ...;Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Departamento de Computacção, Rodovia Washington Luiz, km235, Caixa Postal 676, 13565-905 São Carlos, SP, Brazil sfabbri@dc.ufscar.br ...;Rua Primeiros Sonhos 101/304, Jardim Guanabara – Ilha do Governador, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil, 21941-240 ght@cos.ufrj.br;Instituto de Ciências Matemáticas e de Computacção, Departamento de Ciências da Computacção e Estatística, Av. Trabalhador São-Carlense, 400 – Ce ...

  • Venue:
  • Empirical Software Engineering
  • Year:
  • 2004

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Abstract

Recently the awareness of the importance of replicating studies has been growing in the empirical software engineering community. The results of any one study cannot simply be extrapolated to all environments because there are many uncontrollable sources of variation between different environments.In our work, we have reasoned that the availability of laboratory packages for experiments can encourage better replications and complementary studies. However, even with effectively specified laboratory packages, transfer of experimental know-how can still be difficult. In this paper, we discuss the collaboration structures we have been using in the Readers’ Project, a bilateral project supported by the Brazilian and American national science agencies that is investigating replications and transfer of experimental know-how issues. In particular, we discuss how these structures map to the Nonaka–Takeuchi knowledge sharing model, a well-known paradigm used in the knowledge management literature. We describe an instantiation of the Nonaka–Takeuchi Model for software engineering experimentation, establishing a framework for discussing knowledge sharing issues related to experimental software engineering. We use two replications to illustrate some of the knowledge sharing issues we have faced and discuss the mechanisms we are using to tackle those issues in Readers’ Project.