A PRISMA-Driven Bibliometric Analysis of the Scientific Literature on Assurance Case Patterns

TL;DR

This paper conducts a bibliometric analysis of 92 studies over two decades to understand the evolution of assurance case patterns, highlighting new patterns supporting ML-enabled systems with evolving requirements like cybersecurity and ethics.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive bibliometric overview of assurance case pattern research, revealing emerging trends and new patterns for ML-enabled systems.

Findings

Emergence of new assurance case patterns for ML systems

Increasing focus on cybersecurity and ethics in assurance cases

Bibliometric analysis reveals research evolution over two decades

Abstract

Justifying the correct implementation of the non-functional requirements (e.g., safety, security) of mission-critical systems is crucial to prevent system failure. The later could have severe consequences such as the death of people and financial losses. Assurance cases can be used to prevent system failure, They are structured arguments that allow arguing and relaying various safety-critical systems' requirements extensively as well as checking the compliance of such systems with industrial standards to support their certification. Still, the creation of assurance cases is usually manual, error-prone, and time-consuming. Besides, it may involve numerous alterations as the system evolves. To overcome the bottlenecks in creating assurance cases, existing approaches usually promote the reuse of common structured evidence-based arguments (i.e. patterns) to aid the creation of assurance cases. To gain insights into the advancements of the research on assurance case patterns, we relied on SEGRESS to conduct a bibliometric analysis of 92 primary studies published within the past two decades. This allows capturing the evolutionary trends and patterns characterizing the research in that field. Our findings notably indicate the emergence of new assurance case patterns to support the assurance of ML-enabled systems that are characterized by their evolving requirements (e.g., cybersecurity and ethics).