Supporting Knowledge Transfer From Secondary Studies to Software Engineering Practice

Abstract

Researchers have been arguing that there is a lack of connection between Secondary Studies (SSs) and Software Engi-neering (SE) practice. The medical eld has faced the same prob-lem, and recently introduced the concept of brie ngs/summaries, and Rapid Reviews as alternatives to transfer knowledge to prac-tice.Goal: The overarching goal of this research is to investigate, pro-pose, and evaluate strategies to support researchers to transfer knowledge from SSs to SE practice.Method: First, we investigated how SSs in SE cover practition-ers» issues reported in StackExchange, a leading Question & An-swer platform. Second, we generated Evidence Brie ngs based on those SSs in order to propose a medium to transfer knowledge to practice. Third, we are planning to conduct an action research, with close collaboration with practitioners, in order explore and evaluate the applicability of Rapid Reviews in SE practice. Preliminary Results: Among 424 practitioners» issues on Stack Exchange, that were considered as related to a set o selected SSs, the SSs could successfully cover 14.1% (60) of them. Based on a qualitative techniques, we identi ed 45 recurrent issues spread in many SE topics. Additionally, both practitioners and researchers positively evaluated the content and format of 12 Evidence Brief-ings that we created based on SSs.Conclusions: Our results until now corroborate with claims that SSs lack connection with practice. On the other side, the good reception of the Evidence Brie ngs shows a possible route toward an e ective knowledge transfer from SSs to practice.

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