Review Report
to
“An Analysis of Software Evolvability Assessment”

Arun Vasavan Rayar Udayar Krishna (avruk@kth.se)

Personal Number: 830608-7795

Course: Scientific Communication and Research Methodology (FMVEK/IC2003)

Course Leader: Harko Verhagen

Submission date: 2010-01-14

Department of Computer Systems and Science

Stockholm University / Royal University of Technology
Summary of the Original Report:
Software Evolvability is the ability of a system to evolve itself against changes in the user
requirement, software environment or the technology. The most expensive phase of a
software product life cycle is Evolution. To sustain in this competitive world, software
products should be easily evolvable and adaptable to new system requirements. This emerges
Evolvability as software quality attribute.

In this paper, the author discussed about the factors affecting Software Evolvability,
Assessment techniques and also theoretically evaluated using Expert Assessment approach.
From an organization view, if a software is more evolvable means it will lead to less
maintenance cost. There is a close relation between Software Evolvability and Software
Maintenance that is more the evolvability, lesser the maintenance cost. The results are
analyzed and discussed. The author has also provided suggestions for future works in this
research area.
Review Comments for the Original Report:
The research paper has been reviewed based on the following criteria:

1. Title
The content talks about software evolvability, basic assessment methods and how it has been
evaluated using Expert Assessment. The title is appropriate and contains the necessary
descriptor to the content of the research, but if it could be narrowed down means it will
anticipate the reader. It can be suggested as “An Analysis of Software Evolvability using
Expert Assessment Technique”.

 
2. Introduction
Introduction gives an idea about the background of the research, but it does not give a brief
idea for the reader. It would be good if it contains problems faced, current status before this
research and how it is managed in a detailed manner. This will enable the reader to
understand, why this research has been initiated and will excite him to read further. The
author tried to explain the research problem in the background itself, but it may distract the
continuity of the reader.

  
It identifies the purpose of the research by outlining the topics to be discussed in advance. It
shows the knowledge gathered during empirical studies. ‘Goal and Audience’ section talks
about the audience but it failed to say about the goal of this research. The criteria for goal
fulfillment also not described. It identifies interested audiences but lacks to be more specific
to people who may experiment it. It can be like Software Engineers, Maintenance Engineers,
etc. This will make the research paper to be more targeted and attracts domain specific
professionals.

 
Further, there is no scientific research method used to execute this research paper. A research
method is a must, which will answer the research question. A correctly followed research
method will give a correct result. So lack of research method may worry the reader about the
research results.

 
 3. Presentation of Data
Data collection method has not been explicitly mentioned but almost all the data are collected
for the research. The author could have used Literature Review method. It will help to collect
the data in a systematic way. Presented data is arranged well and discussed in an organized
way. It starts with an introduction about Software Evolvability, factors affecting it and major
assessment techniques. And finally an acceptable theoretical evaluation has been done using
Expert Assessment approach. Data Analysis method has not been identified. According to the
work presented, it could have followed Qualitative Analysis method. Interestingly, there is no
argument for lack of data availability or difficulties during data analysis and data collection.

 
Under ‘Analysis of the Results’ section author mentioned “Most assessment techniques just
emphasize on the individual characteristics….” and in the next line the author mentioned
“The experiment methodology provided by us is also evaluating the individual characteristics
of software...” This shows the work done in this research is already existed. Reader will get
disappointed as there is no effective result.

 
This paper has reasonable support in arguing the purpose of the research. It provides an
evidence of a basic analysis about Software Evolvability. Reader gains some insight
information about Software Evolvability from the data presented.

 
4. Report Format
The report followed the prescribed format except three mistakes. First, labeling the figure is
missing in section ‘4.4 Experimental Methodology for Expert Assessment’ of page 12.
Second in the first line of background, starting double quotes is missing. It should be ‘“’
before the word ‘Maintenance’. Third complete reference article detail provided in the
context under section ‘3.7 Quality Sub-Factors’ of page 7. It contains “another article written
by David A. Sunday in 1989 titled “Software Maintainability-A New ‘ility’.”” It should have
added in the list of references and referred here.

 
5. Language Usage and Grammar
Pronoun ‘We’ is used in several occasions of this research paper. This implies subjectivity
rather than objectivity. A passive voice should be used in these places. For example, section
‘1.2 Description’ of the research area contains ‘We would try to analyze all the factors
affecting software evolvability’. This could be written as Factors affecting software
evolvability have been discussed.

Grammar part is executed well in most of the places except one or two. For example, see
section ‘4.4 Experimental Methodology for Expert Assessment’. The first line of the second
paragraph has “assess a software’s evolvability”. In this it is plural already so ‘a’ should be
removed.

  
6. Conclusions
The author discussed the conclusion of the paper based on the results. Following it a
Discussion and future work also organized under section ‘6 Conclusions and Discussion’.

It would be very good, if author could have explained it clearly about the future work. As the
goal is not mentioned, the author has not discussed about the level of achievement.
Alternative ways also had not been discussed. This would be interesting for readers to try in
different ways.

 
7. Use of References: and Quality of References
References are used appropriately except reference number 15, which has been not used
anywhere in the context of the paper. The quality of the references is good as it is taken IEEE
and peer reviewed papers and literature books.

 
Pros and Cons of the Research Paper
Pros can be the organization of the report, no complex words used.

Cons can be the lack of goal, method and some extent of grammar mistakes.

 
Recommendations
The report looks well structured, but it would have been better if they are focused on
‘Analysis of Results’ as it lacks proper result. The report is more theoretical, it would be
interesting for the readers if is practically evaluated in software systems. Finally, a method is
a must for any research work. So, qualitative method is recommended for this paper as the
data collected through literature study.