Bridging the Gap: Adapting Evidence to Decision Frameworks to support the link between Software Engineering academia and industry

TL;DR

This paper explores how Evidence to Decision frameworks from health sciences can be adapted to bridge the gap between software engineering research and industry practice by providing structured, criteria-based recommendations.

Contribution

It introduces the application of Evidence to Decision frameworks to software engineering, offering a new approach to translating research evidence into actionable industry recommendations.

Findings

Demonstrated a worked example based on an SE systematic literature review

Identified challenges in adopting EtD frameworks in SE community

Highlighted the need for comprehensive criteria in recommendations

Abstract

Over twenty years ago, the Software Engineering (SE) research community have been involved with Evidence-Based Software Engineering (EBSE). EBSE aims to inform industrial practice with the best evidence from rigorous research, preferably from systematic literature reviews (SLRs). Since then, SE researchers have conducted many SLRs, perfected their SLR procedures, proposed alternative ways of presenting their results (such as Evidence Briefings), and profusely discussed how to conduct research that impacts practice. Nevertheless, there is still a feeling that SLRs' results are not reaching practitioners. Something is missing. In this vision paper, we introduce Evidence to Decision (EtD) frameworks from the health sciences, which propose gathering experts in panels to assess the existing best evidence about the impact of an intervention in all relevant outcomes and make structured recommendations based on them. The insight we can leverage from EtD frameworks is not their structure per se but all the relevant criteria for making recommendations to practitioners from SLRs. Furthermore, we provide a worked example based on an SE SLR. We also discuss the challenges the SE research and practice community may face when adopting EtD frameworks, highlighting the need for more comprehensive criteria in our recommendations to industry practitioners.