Using empirical study to do technology transfer
Transfer of software engineering research results is often hampered by lack of empirical evidence regarding their potential benefits and risks. This lecture discusses the needs for empirical evidence for technology transfer, presents some real world examples, and out-lines the empirical guidelines available to computer science and software engineering researchers so they can benefit from using empirical studies to enhance their research results. The potential benefits are discussed from a researcher's perspective as well as a practitioner's perspective. The researcher is interested to get his/her results used by other researchers. The practitioner wants to judge the potential benefits and risks before introducing a new technology. The practical examples include the area of software inspections, software product lines, and object-oriented development. They are being described in terms of studies performed, empirical results derived, and industrial transfer achieved. Finally, a set of guide-lines is summarized for formulating research hypotheses, cooperating with empirical researchers in conducting experiments (or performing them yourselves), and publishing.