Towards Multi-Criteria Prioritization of Best Practices in Research Artifact Sharing
This addresses the need for standardized artifact evaluation in software engineering research, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing methodologies.
The paper tackles the problem of inconsistent and subjective expectations in research artifact sharing by proposing a framework based on quality management principles and the Analytic Hierarchy Process to establish common guidelines, aiming to foster research software sustainability.
Research artifact sharing is known to strengthen the transparency of scientific studies. However, in the lack of common discipline-specific guidelines for artifacts evaluation, subjective and conflicting expectations may happen and threaten artifact quality. In this paper, we discuss our preliminary ideas for a framework based on quality management principles (5W2H) that can aid in the establishment of common guidelines for artifact evaluation and sharing. Also, using the Analytic Hierarchy Process, we discuss how research communities could join efforts to aid the guidelines' adequacy to research priorities. These combined methodologies constitute a novelty for software engineering research which can foster research software sustainability.