Database of SLRs, Systematic Mapping Studies, and Tertiary Studies

This section of the EBSE Web site provides a searchable database of Systematic Literature Reviews (SLRs) on software engineering topics, which will be updated as new SLRs are published or made available.

The database has initially been populated with a set of 43 SLRs identified from the following paper:

Budgen, D. and Drummond, S. and Brereton, P. and Holland, N. (2012) 'What scope is there for adopting evidence-informed teaching in software engineering ?', 34th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), Zurich, Switzerland, 2-9 June 2012.

How is our database organised?

We have employed a small number of classification schemes to help organise the material provided in this database, mainly to assist our users with searching for information about its contents.  This page briefly explains each of these and how they were determined.

Classification by Research Topic

Each entry (corresponding to a published SLR) has been categorised using a set of general topic headings.  The chosen set are broadly based upon the headings used in two documents from IEEE/ACM.  The first of these is the Software Engineering Education Knowledge (SEEK) knowledge areas used in the IEEE/ACM Software Engineering Curriculum Guidelines, while the second is the structure used for the first edition of the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK).  The categories we have used are as follows:

• Professional Practices
• Requirements Elicitation and Specification
• Design
• Construction
• Validation & Verification
• Maintenance/Evolution
• Software Development Processes
• Software Quality
• Software Management
• Methods & Tools

To help with searching, and since SLRs do not always fall neatly into one of these categories and may span more than one, SLRs are classified using multiple categories where appropriate.

Classification by the Type of SLR

While there are many types of SLR, we have used a rather simplified set of categories for these, based loosely on the much more detailed set provided in Chapter Two of the book Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review by Andrew Booth, Diana Papaioannou and Anthea Sutton.  Our categories are:

• Mapping Study (any sort of review that identifies 'what is there', usually with some form of categorisation of the primary studies)
• Systematic Literature Review (a fuller review that involves some form of synthesis of the data from the primary studies)
• Tertiary Study (an SLR that surveys SLRs -- a broad tertiary study identifies 'what is there' whereas a focused one addresses SLRs that meet some criterion)
• Meta-Analysis (an SLR that involves a rigorous statistical form of synthesis)

Classification by Form of Synthesis

The form of synthesis used to aggregate the data from the primary studies included in an SLR has implications for the quality of the resulting evidence.  We have based our categories upon those employed in the paper Research Synthesis in Software Engineering: A Tertiary Study, by Daniela S Cruzes and Tore Dybå, Information & Software Technology 53, pp440-455, 2011.  Where these authors have categorised one of the SLRs in this database, we have used their values, otherwise we have performed the classification ourselves.  Categories used are:

• Classification -- grouping of primary studies according to some classification scheme (used in mapping studies)
• Thematic Synthesis -- used for "identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within data"
• Narrative Synthesis  -- using a narrative summary, possibly with tabulation
  
• Comparative Analysis -- using boolean logic to analyse "complex causal connections", and possibly using vote-counting
• Meta-analysis -- employing statistical forms of synthesis
• Case Survey -- used to systematically code data from a large number of case studies to enable the use of quantitative analysis
• Meta-ethnography  -- essentially qualitative  in form, seeking to "identify concepts that go beyond individual accounts to produce a new interpretation"
• Not Explicitly Described

Again, since different types of primary study may be synthesised using different forms, we have allowed for the possibility that a study could be classified using multiple categories.

SLR Database search

You can search the database using the following link:

• Search the SLR database

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Page last updated - August 2012.