Wohlin C. "An analysis of the most cited articles in software engineering journals - 1999 " Information & Software Technology 47(15): 957-964, Dec 2005

[Eugene Garfield]

E-mail Address :
Claes Wohlin : claes.wohlin at bth.se


I reproduce below an interesting short editorial and provide a link to the
actual analysis ...Wohlin, C. "An analysis of the most cited articles in
software engineering journals - 1999" Information & Software Technology 47
(15): 957-964, December 2005... published by Elsevier B.V.



With the permission of the publisher...
doi:10.1016/j.infsof.2005.09.001   Copyright © 2005 Published by Elsevier

Information and Software Technology
Volume 47, Issue 15, December 2005, Page 955


Editorial

Most cited journal articles in software engineering

C. Wohlin
Department of Systems and Software Engineering, School of Engineering,
Blekinge Institute of Technology, Box 520, SE-372 25 Ronneby, Sweden

Available online 17 October 2005.



Citations are important to position an investigators' research, to
retrospectively evaluate research performance, to detect scientific trends,
and to acknowledge the contribution of others. In this context, the most
cited articles are of particular importance, since a high citation count is
an indication of high impact on the research community.

Based on the above, Information and Software Technology has decided to
launch an annual special issue presenting the most cited articles in
software engineering five years previously, in order to provide a picture
of which research is most influential and which areas attract most
attention. The annual special issue will be the final issue of the journal
each year.

The current special issue includes an analysis and report of the most cited
journal articles in software engineering with publication dates in 1999 and
five invited articles. The analysis is conducted using the ISI Web of
Science, which is the same database as is used to determine impact factors
for different journals in different research disciplines. This tool was
chosen for several other reasons too, including possibility for automation
and also to make the study replicable to a certain degree (limitations
include that the citation count is done a specific date). The analysis also
includes a comparison between 1999 and 1994 in terms of topics and research
methods for the most cited articles.

Five authors ranked highly on the list emerging from the analysis were
invited to contribute with a new article as part of this special issue. The
five articles are as follows with invited authors in italics:

• “Engineering a Software Tool for Gene Structure Prediction in Higher
Organisms” by G. Gremme, V. Brendel, M. E. Sparks and S. Kurtz

• “A Measurement Framework for Object-Oriented Software Testability” by S.
Mouchawrab, L. C. Briand and Y. Labiche

• “British Petroleum's Multi-Enterprise Asset Management System” by C. P.
Holland, D. R. Shaw and P. Kawalek

• “Software Project Management Using PROMPT: a Hybrid Metrics, Modeling and
Utility Framework” by D. Raffo

• “Simulating Families of Studies to Build Confidence in Defect Hypotheses”
by F. Shull, D. Cruzes, V. Basili and M.Mendonça

On behalf of Information and Software Technology

Claes Wohlin (e-mail: claes.wohlin at bth.se)

Sebastian Elbaum (e-mail: elbaum at cse.unl.edu)

Martin Shepperd (e-mail: martin.shepperd at brunel.ac.uk)

-------------------------------------------------------


FULL TEXT OF THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE AVAILABLE AT
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/525444/descript
ion#description


Title: An analysis of the most cited articles in software engineering
journals - 1999

Author(s): Wohlin C

Source: INFORMATION AND SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY 47 (15): 957-964 DEC 2005

Document Type: Article    Language: English
Cited References: 11      Times Cited: 0

Abstract: Citations and related work are crucial in any research to
position the work and to build on the work of others. A high citation count
is an indication of the influence of specific articles. The importance of
citations means that it is interesting to analyze which articles are cited
the most. Such an analysis has been conducted using the ISI Web of Science
to identify the most cited software engineering journal articles published
in 1999. The objective of the analysis is to identify and list the articles
that have influenced others the most as measured by citation count. An
understanding of which research is viewed as most valuable to build upon
may provide valuable insights into what research to focus on now and in the
future. Based on the analysis, a list of the 20 most cited articles is
presented here. The intention of the analysis is twofold. First, to
actually show the most cited articles, and second, to invite the authors of
the most cited articles in 1999 to contribute to a special issue of
Information and Software Technology. Five invited authors have accepted the
invitation and their articles are appearing in this special issue.
Moreover, the research topics and methods of the most cited articles in
1999 are compared with those from the most cited articles in 1994 to
provide a picture of similarities and differences between the years. (c)
2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Addresses: Wohlin C (reprint author), Blekinge Inst Technol, Sch Engn, Dept
Syst & Software Engn, POB 520, Ronneby, S-37225 Sweden
Blekinge Inst Technol, Sch Engn, Dept Syst & Software Engn, Ronneby, S-
37225 Sweden

E-mail Addresses: claes.wohlin at bth.se

Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, PO BOX 211, 1000 AE AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS
Subject Category: COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS; COMPUTER SCIENCE,
SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
IDS Number: 998MH

ISSN: 0950-5849

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