Towards a Platform for Empirical Software Design Studies

Abstract

The process of empirical research is founded on careful study design, sound instantiation and planning of the study, and the systematic collection and processing of data. These activities require extensive expertise and know-how, are repetitive, laborious and error-prone, and adequate tool support is currently lacking, particularly in support of empirical software engineering research. In this paper, we outline our vision of an integrated end-to-end tool platform that supports these activities and we elaborate on what it would take for such a platform to become a (re)usable platform for the research community.