IASESE Advanced School

International Advanced School on Empirical Software Engineering (IASESE)

Presenting and assessing research contributions in software engineering – a design science perspective

Software engineering research aims to improve real-world practices in design, implementing, evolving, and testing software systems/applications. However, when trying to publish such research, it is sometimes questioned whether this is novel enough or general enough – “it is only one case”.

In this advanced software engineering school, we use the design science paradigm as a frame for articulating and communicating prescriptive software engineering research contributions. Design science embraces problem conceptualisation, solution (or artefact) design, and validation of solution proposals, with recommendations for practice phrased as technological rules.

The school will elaborate the constructs of design science for software engineering and provide examples of possible research methods. We outline how the assessment of research contributions, industry-academia communication and theoretical knowledge building may be supported by the design science paradigm. Finally, the school will practice to present software engineering research through a design science lens.

IASESE Co-Chairs