André F. R. Cordeiro

The Open Science (OS) movement, primarily led by UNESCO, advocates for making research and its outcomes accessible to everyone. This movement has explored various issues across different fields, including reproducibility, experimentation, design science methodologies, and education, to provide access to research resources and discoveries. While the adoption of OS principles and practices in Software Engineering (SE) is increasing, it is still in its early stages, prompting further investigation into the topic. This paper aims to identify OS concepts, practices, and challenges related to their implementation in SE. To achieve this, we performed a Scoping Review Study of the literature. The main findings highlighted several OS-related practices in SE, categorized into Open Data, Open Platforms, Open Review, Open Access, Artifact Sharing, and Open Source. Additionally, challenges were noted in applying these practices. These findings culminated in a series of observations intended to support the adoption of OS in SE.

Metadata consists of elements that describe specific data content. When structured according to standards, metadata improves data interoperability. In this context, it is understood that adopting metadata could contribute to describing experiments in Software Engineering. Furthermore, the use of tools can help in the management. Considering the context, this study includes a Systematic Mapping to identify solutions for the computational processing of metadata in SE experiments. Following the execution of the search strategy, a total of 31 studies were reviewed. The mapping did not achieve satisfactory results. Consequently, a Non-Systematic Review was conducted. In this case, a set of solutions were found.

Metadata is defined as data about data. Metadata Standards represent structures for recording in order to promote data interoperability. This study focuses on investigating the Utility and Feasibility of the Dublin Core Standard for recording metadata associated with Software Engineering Experiments. A Survey was conducted with professionals and researchers who have experience. Eleven answers were collected. The observed results suggest positive research prospects.

Metadata consists of elements that describe specific content of data. When structured according to standards, they contribute to data interoperability. This study presents a secondary study, a Systematic Mapping (SM), to search for metadata patterns that can be used in the field of Computer Science (CS), especially in the subjects of Software Engineering (SE) and Information Systems (IS). At the end of the search string execution, 43 studies were analyzed. Of these, 23 studies were selected. Based on the observed results, a promising research area is identified, focusing on the adoption of metadata standards in various activities within the context of CS, SE, and IS.

Metadata represents descriptive information about data. They facilitate data retrieval and ensure data interoperability. Metadata can be expressed with metadata standards. In this study, we investigated using metadata standards to express metadata of Software Engineering (SE) Experiments. We compared five different standards. The Dublin Core Standard presented better results based on the documentation criteria, automated processing, and the possibility of application in an SE experimentation context. We provide examples of how to use Dublin Core. In a future study, a tool will be developed to perform metadata specifications in Dublin Core toward promoting open science practices for SE experiments.

Experimentation in Software Engineering has increased in the last decades as a way to provide evidence on theories and technologies. In a controlled experiment life cycle, several artifacts are used/reused and even produced. Such artifacts are mostly in the form of data, which should favor the reproducibility of such experiments. In this context, reproducibility can be defined as the ability to reproduce a study. Different benefits, such as methodology and data reuse, can be achieved from this ability. Despite the recognized benefits, several challenges have been faced by researchers regarding the experiments’ reproducibility capability. To overcome them, we understand that Open Science practices, related to provenance, preservation, and curation, might aid in improving such a capability. Therefore, in this paper, we present the proposal for an open science-based Framework to deal with controlled experiment research artifacts towards making such experiments de facto reproducible. To do so, different models associated with open science practices are planned to be integrated into the Framework.