Research Information System
The 21st International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering, Karlskrona, Sweden, 15 - 16 June 2017, pp.2-11, (Full Text)
Software process assessment (SPA) is the foundation step for
software process improvement. ISO/IEC 15504 defines the term
process assessment as “the systematic evaluation of an
organization’s processes against a process reference model
(PRM)”. In process assessment, there is a need to set and maintain
a mapping between an organization’s processes and a PRM,
where process experts transform the gap between the two into
opportunities for process improvement. To maintain such a
mapping requires a continuous tracking and alignment between
the organization’s processes and the PRM(s). The use of
ontologies might be a suitable solution to provide computerized
tool support for SPA that becomes erroneous and time-consuming
if done manually. With an aim to understand the use and
usefulness of ontologies in SPA, in this study, we have performed
a systematic literature review (SLR). We have searched the most
known digital libraries and selected 14 studies out of 54 initially
selected and 571 initially retrieved. We analyzed the selected
studies with respect to a number of research questions that
address; contribution facet, targeted software processes, research
facet, process improvement model used, process assessment
model used, ontology representation language, purpose of
ontology use, qualitative and quantitative benefits reported, and
challenges faced. As a result, we synthesized a conceptual model
of ontology-based support in SPA. We hope the results of our
work will be useful for researchers and practitioners to direct their
future studies on the use of ontologies for SPA.