It gives me great pleasure to welcome all of you to the IEEE Software Blog. The goal of the blog is to present recent advances in the different research areas of software engineering via sharp, to-the-point, easily accessible blog posts. Furthermore, we will strive to not use our typical academic jargon, but distill the important takeaway messages from the research projects we are blogging about.
Since most academic journals are not open access, it becomes nontrivial for practitioners to get their hands on the latest research, so this blog will discuss some of the great content in IEEE Software. Readers will also be able to discuss each post in the comments section. At the end of the day, we want practitioners to be able to easily access and apply the latest research advancements. Additionally, we will blog on well-informed opinions, new and disruptive ideas, book reviews, and future directions. We will also disseminate the posts via our social media accounts.
Since most academic journals are not open access, it becomes nontrivial for practitioners to get their hands on the latest research, so this blog will discuss some of the great content in IEEE Software. Readers will also be able to discuss each post in the comments section. At the end of the day, we want practitioners to be able to easily access and apply the latest research advancements. Additionally, we will blog on well-informed opinions, new and disruptive ideas, book reviews, and future directions. We will also disseminate the posts via our social media accounts.
To this end, I have assembled a diverse, international team of young and upcoming researchers in different software engineering areas:
- Programming languages and paradigms — Rishabh Singh, MSR, Redmond, USA
- Mobile applications and systems — Federica Sarro, UCL, London, UK
- Software engineering processes, models and methods — Abram Hindle, Univ. of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
- Software maintenance — Sonia Haiduc, FSU, Tallahassee, USA
- Design/Architecture and Requirements — Mehdi Mirakhorli, RIT, Rochester, USA
- Software testing and quality assurance — William Halfond, USC, Los Angeles, USA
- Cloud, Distributed and Enterprise Software Systems — Jack Jiang, York University, Toronto, Canada
- Open source software systems — Stefano Zacchiroli, Université Paris Diderot, Paris, France
- Mining software repositories — Alberto Bacchelli, TU Delft, Delft, The Netherlands
- Human Factors — Christoph Treude, IME/USP, São Paulo, Brazil
- Software release and configuration management — Sarah Nadi, TU Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
- Social software development — Bogdan Vasilescu, UC Davis, Davis, USA
- New initiatives — Mei Nagappan, RIT, Rochester, USA
This team of blog editors will not only blog themselves but will also reach out to researchers and practitioners to solicit articles in their corresponding areas of expertise. The current plan is to have at least 6 blog posts every month, each in a different area of software engineering research.
So, if you have a new research finding or an opinion about some existing idea, please contact the appropriate blog editor above. Also, if you have feedback on how we can improve the blog please drop me a note. This blog cannot succeed without your participation!
Mei Nagappan
Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Software Blog
Mei Nagappan
Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Software Blog
I've made the point on my own blow that it seemed to be impossible to leave comments on articles so was delighted to see a tweet announcing the arrival of the IEEE Software blog.
ReplyDeleteThe aim, as stated is to publicise research to practitioners:
"At the end of the day, we want practitioners to be able to easily access and apply the latest research advancements…"
This is all very well but, with 30-odd years as a researcher who has always worked with practitioners, the problem is not simply that practitioners don’t access research. There are two other issues that are at least as important:
The best practice in industry is, in my view, far beyond what’s going on the research labs and practitioners have no idea about that.
A very high proportion of researchers simply do not understand good industrial practice and this is one reason why a great deal of software engineering research has no practical impact.
We need a lot more articles about leading edge industry work as well as research. We need blog posts from practitioners as well as researchers (only one of the contributors was from industry and he was from an industrial research lab).
It's also a pity that there isn't a more even gender balance amongst the contributors. I know this is hard to do but unless leaders like IEEE Software set an example, things will not change.
So, as well as communicating academic research to industry, IEEE Software should also be about communicating best practice and to informing researchers about the realities of good practice.
A blog for IEEE Software is something that’s definitely a step forward but its instantiation has a long way to go.