Marcela Fabiana Genero Bocco, Jeremías P. Contell

Abstract: The last two decades have witnessed an exponential increase in the number of systematic literature reviews (SLRs) in Computer Science in general, and Software Engineering in particular. SLRs require a huge amount of effort for researchers, PhD candidates, etc.

An increasing effort is being made for SLRs to be rigorous and relevant. Several proposals have examined in depth how to improve the quality and rigor of the SLRs. However, we believe that there is another very important aspect that must also be addressed: the resonance that the SLR itself has and that makes it truly useful to the community. In fact, the usefulness of SLRs is sometimes questioned and it seems that they are more of an "end" than a "means" to improve the knowledge of software engineering. To this end, we developed the Resonace Schema for categorizing SLR contributions [1]. Moreover, we proposed actionable interventions to promote the use of the Resonace Schema for different stakeholders: reviewers, producers and consumers.

Session Goals:

To analyze, within the ISERN community, the utility of the Resonance Schema for different stakeholders.

Development of the Session: (How will the session be conducted? How much interaction?)

• The Co-Chairs introduce and motivate the topic addressed, presenting the Resonance Schema illustrating its use with appropriate examples. Moreover, they introduce the potential use of the resonance schema for different stakeholders (reviewers, producers, and consumers) (30 min).

• ISERN community fills a questionnaire to evaluate the utility of the resonance schema for different stakeholders (20 min).

• Group discussion: Open discussion to gather feedback in a dynamic way about the perception of the ISERN community on Resonace Schema and discuss the potential actions to be adopted to promote its use within this community (30 min).

What means for interaction will be used or required?

Only an Internet connection.

Background and recommended reading

We strongly encourage participants to read this paper:

[1] Oscar Díaz, Marcela Genero, Jeremías P. Contell, Mario Piattini. Adding Relevance to Rigor: Assessing the Contributions of SLRs in Software Engineering through Citation Context Analysis. Computer Science Review. (IN PRESS) (2024).

Expected Outcomes and Plan for Continuing the Work beyond ISERN:

The expected outcome is to collect feedback from the ISERN community about the utility of the Resonance Schema and to make the obtained results visible through a publication. In addition, we intend to promote collaboration within this community to achieve the goal of expanding the use of the Resonance Schema in the near future.

Benefits:

Benefits for reviewers:

• It can be useful for conferences and journals to decide whether to accept SLRs according to the type of contribution.

Benefits for SLR producers:

• Claim the potential of SLRs and have your effort valued.

• In the future, using the proposed framework, the contributions made in the SLRs can be improved.

Benefits for SLR consumers:

• Reflect as a community the contribution and use of the SLR.

• It could be used, in the same way that the structured abstract is currently used in some journals, to define a template that allows the type of SLR contribution to be clearly identified.

• Easily identify the value that each SLR brings.

• Obtain a clear and agreed classification of the contributions of the SLRs, reflected in a template.