Investigating reputation in collaborative software maintenance: a study based on systematic mapping

Abstract

[Background] Reputation systems have attracted the attention of researchers when it comes to collaborative systems. In the context of collaborative software maintenance, systems of this type are employed to facilitate the collection, aggregation and distribution of reputation information about a participant. GiveMe Infra is an infrastructure that supports collaborative software maintenance performed both by co-located and geographically distributed teams. In this last case, reputation is one of the factors that influence collaboration. Despite this recognized relevance, to the best of our knowledge, there is a shortage of tools providing reputation functionalities in the context of collaborative software maintenance. [Objective] However, GiveMe Infra needs to identify and correlate metrics, measures, criteria and factors (called parameters) that are used in defining the value of reputation of an entity. These parameters, used to determine the degree of reputation, can provide evidence of parameters to be used in the context of software maintenance and evolution. [Method] In order to achieve this goal, a systematic mapping was performed. Both the established protocol and the process adopted during the mapping are shown in this article. The parameters identified, as well as how to apply them in the context of software maintenance are demonstrated through an analysis scenario. [Results] Our goal has been achieved since the systematic mapping allowed the identification of the parameters used in defining reputation and even parameters that would not allow a correlation with the context of collaborative software maintenance. The contribution of this research is threefold, in its investigation carried out, the list of identified parameters and also the application in the collaborative software maintenance context.