Foreword of the Thematic Track: Evidence-Based Software Quality Engineering

Evidence-based approaches are expected to play an important role on increasing the quality awareness of our community as a whole, by raising evidence on what works, when and where. One of its most important instruments is the systematic literature review (SLR), a secondary study technique derived from medicine practice, which seeks to obtain accurate data by analyzing primary studies, eliminating possible bias that these studies may suffer. Mapping studies and quasi-systematic literature reviews are a kind of SLR aimed at identifying breaches in the corresponding set of primary studies, where further primary studies are required, as well as clumps that can be the target of more focused SLRs. However, we cannot forget that the building pieces of evidence-based approaches are primary studies, which can range from observational studies to controlled experiments, either applying quantitative or qualitative techniques.