-------- Forwarded Message --------
Call for Papers (CfP) – Special Issue (SI) on: Grey literature and
Multivocal Literature Reviews (MLRs) in Software Engineering
A Special Issue in the Information and Software Technology (IST)
journal
Details and more info:
http://bit.ly/SI-GL-MLR-in-SE
Email address for guest editors:
gl.mlr.in.se@gmail.com<mailto:gl.mlr.in.se@gmail.com>
Special message for scholars in information systems
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Whilst the Call for Papers explicitly refers to Software
Engineering, we seek a diversity of perspectives on the inclusion
of grey literature in research, one approach being the multivocal
literature review. We therefore encourage submissions from
scholars of Information Systems that contribute to the topics
identified in the CfP.
Introduction to the Special Issue:
-------------------------------------------
Grey Literature (GL) is defined as “... literature that is not
formally published in sources such as books or journal articles”
[1]. Given the scale of software engineering (SE) activities in
practice and the large number of SE practitioners world-wide (some
estimates are around 27 million), a great scale of
knowledge/experience produced by SE practitioners is shared in the
GL, e.g., as blog posts, videos, discussion on question-answer
sites (such as StackOverflow), and white papers. Consequently
there is a considerable opportunity for SE researchers to benefit
from GL knowledge and data by using it rigorously in their
research.
Systematic literature studies in the form of Systematic Literature
Review (SLR) and Systematic Literature Mapping (SLM), also called
Systematic Mapping (SM), are well-established in SE. The principal
reference (guideline) for SLRs - the technical report by
Kitchenham and Charters - recognizes GL as a source of evidence
for an SLR. We and many researchers share the opinion that: “[if]
used with care, grey literature can open up valuable additional
sources of information for researchers” [2]. One way to utilize
and benefit from GL in SE research is to conduct Multivocal
Literature Reviews (MLRs) [3, 4]. An MLR is a form of a Systematic
Literature Review (SLR) which includes the GL (e.g., blog posts,
videos and white papers) in addition to the peer-reviewed academic
literature (e.g., journal and conference papers). MLRs are useful
for both researchers and practitioners since they provide
summaries of both the state–of–the art and the state–of–practice
in a given area. MLRs are popular in other fields, e.g., medicine
and social science.
Guidelines for MLRs and Grey Literature Reviews (GLRs) [4], as
well as studies conducting MLRs and GLRs, are beginning to emerge
in SE. According to Garousi et al. [4], at least 10 MLR/GLR papers
were published in different areas of SE between 2013-2018, most of
which have been published more recently.
At the same time, there are risks and concerns relating to the
credibility of the GL used in MLRs and GLRs, and about the
credibility of GL in general. For these reasons, we believe it is
timely for the SE research community to look carefully at the
value of GL to SE research, and to examine the methodological
issues as well as the path forward in this important area. This
Special Issue on GL, MLRs and GLRs in SE will provide the
opportunity for the SE community to publicly debate this issue.
More specifically, amongst other benefits, the Special Issue will:
-Help the SE research community recognize both the general and the
specific benefits, challenges and research directions of GL, MLRs
and GLRs, and appreciate the value of MLRs and GLRs for the SE
research community
-Help the SE research community agree standards of quality for
MLRs and GLRs and for the types of ‘data’ and evidence used in
MLRs and GLRs.
-Encourage the SE research community to engage with a diversity of
types of GL for MLRs and GLRs, e.g., video, tweets, blogs,
whitepapers etc.
Topics of interest in the Special Issue:
-----------------------------------------
This CfP is seeking contributions on research, practice, and
compelling new ideas pertaining, but not limited, to the following
topics:
-MLRs / GLRs in different sub-disciplines of SE. Any submitted
MLR/GLR paper should include at least one section that reports
experience, challenges and/or lessons learned in the MLR / GLR
process
-Papers focusing on the methodological issues in studying GL
-Studies assessing the value and benefit of GL, MLRs and GLRs to
practitioners and/or to researchers, e.g., [3]
-Studies that examine how research using MLRs and GLRs can help
close the gap between industry and academia in software
engineering.
-Studies investigating the rationale and nature of information
needs and knowledge sources for practitioners and researchers, as
these two communities mainly tend to refer to GL and to academic
literature, respectively
-Papers that examine how to interconnect GL and academic
literature more closely: discussing the implications of and risks
arising from the current situation in which practitioners and
researchers write and disseminate knowledge in separate venues and
channels, either in GL or academic literature, respectively. The
current situation further leads to the disconnect between industry
and academia. Why do the sources in GL and academic literature
cite the sources in the other community, very sparsely? How can
we, as the SE community, improve the situation?
-Tool-support for collecting, storing and analyzing GL, and for
designing, conducting and disseminating MLRs and GLRs. Tool papers
should also include an empirical evaluation or detailed
demonstration of the real application of the tool/s
-Studies examining the effectiveness of the existing MLR
guidelines, e.g., [4]. This could, for example, be undertaken
using opinion surveys, studying the effectiveness of the existing
MLR guidelines, with subsequent suggestions and proposals to
revise and improve guidelines. As an indicative example of such
studies, a recent study [5] conducted an opinion survey on the
effectiveness of guidelines for “replications” in SE
Timetable:
--------------
Paper submission deadline: June 1, 2020
Notifications to the authors (initial round): October 1, 2020
Deadline to submit revised papers: December 1, 2020
Notifications to the authors (final outcome): February 15, 2021
Submission of camera-ready papers: March 30, 2021
Submissions instructions:
-------------------------
Manuscripts should be submitted through the EVISE system via
following link:
http://www.evise.com/evise/faces/pages/navigation/NavController.jspx?JRNL_ACR=INFSOF
. Authors must choose the “VSI:Multi-Vocal-Reviews” from the
“Issue” dropdown list when submitting the submission, and follow
the instructions in the system.
Word limit of submissions: As per the IST’s author guidelines,
please also note that the maximum length for a research paper is
15,000 words with the exception for systematic literature review
or systematic mapping studies where the maximum length is 20,000
words. Also, notice that figures and tables count 200 words each.
More information:
https://www.journals.elsevier.com/information-and-software-technology/call-for-papers/grey-literature-and-multivocal-literature-reviews
Guest editors:
---------------
Vahid Garousi, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, Northern
Ireland, UK,
v.garousi@qub.ac.uk<mailto:v.garousi@qub.ac.uk>
Austen Rainer, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, Northern
Ireland, UK,
a.rainer@qub.ac.uk<mailto:a.rainer@qub.ac.uk>
Michael Felderer, University of Innsbruck, Austria & Blekinge
Institute of Tech., Sweden,
michael.felderer@uibk.ac.at<mailto:michael.felderer@uibk.ac.at>
Mika V. Mäntylä, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland,
mika.mantyla@oulu.fi<mailto:mika.mantyla@oulu.fi>
References:
-----------
[1] C Lefebvre, E Manheimer, and J Glanville, "Searching for
studies," in Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of
interventions, J. P. T. Higgins and S. Green Eds.: Chichester:
Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.
[2] Cindy Elliott, "Jinfo Blog: Garner Additional Research Sources
with Grey Literature,"
https://web.jinfo.com/go/blog/70203, 2019.
[3] Vahid Garousi, Michael Felderer, Mika V Mäntylä, and Austen
Rainer, "Benefitting from the grey literature in software
engineering research," A book chapter of “Contemporary Empirical
Methods in Software Engineering”, In Press, 2020
[4] Vahid Garousi, Michael Felderer, and Mika V. Mäntylä,
"Guidelines for including grey literature and conducting
multivocal literature reviews in software engineering,"
Information and Software Technology, vol. 106, pp. 101-121, 2019.
[5] Jeffrey C. Carver, Natalia Juristo, Maria Teresa Baldassarre,
and Sira Vegas, "Replications of software engineering
experiments," Empirical Software Engineering, vol. 19, no. 2, pp.
267-276, 2014.
--
Austen Rainer | Professor | School of Electronics, Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science (EEECS) | Queens University
Belfast |
Email:
a.rainer@qub.ac.uk<mailto:a.rainer@qub.ac.uk> |
Phone: +44 (0)28 9097 6795
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