An assessment of systems and software engineering scholars and institutions (1995–1999)
Introduction
Who are the most published scholars in the field of Systems and Software Engineering (SSE)? Which are the most published institutions?
This paper is the seventh in an annual series whose goal is to answer those questions. The first such paper was (Glass, 1994); subsequently such studies have been published each year, in a fall issue of this journal (when the journal was published 12 times per year, the study findings were published in the October issue; now that it is published 15 times per year, they are published in the 12th issue). This is the third year in which the study has included five years’ worth of data (in the previous years, 1, 2, 3, and 4 years were covered). In future years, the study will continue to cover the most recent five-year period. This paper reports on the top scholars and institutions for the five-year period 1995–1999.
The methodology of the study and its limitations will be discussed later in this article. It is important to note two things at the outset, however:
- 1.
The study findings are based on frequency of publication in the leading journals in the SSE field.
- 2.
The study focuses on the field of SSE, and not, for example, on computer science or information systems.
Here are the findings.
Section snippets
Leading scholars
The leading scholars in the field are shown in Table 1. To be included in the table, scholars must have achieved a score of 4.1 or more during the years covered by this study. (The scoring scheme is discussed under the topic “Study Methodology”, but a 4.1 roughly represents participation in somewhat more than four published papers during the study period.) The table lists 15 such scholars, with scores ranging from 4.1 to 13.3. Note that because of the sliding time period used, authors can
Leading institutions
The leading institutions in the field are shown in Table 2. To be included in this table, institutions must have achieved a score of 10.9 or more during the years covered by the study. The institutional scoring scheme is similar but not identical to that for authors; the scheme and its differences are discussed under the study methodology section below. There are 15 leading institutions, with scorings ranging from 10.9 to 29.0.
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) once again tops the list this year,
Other rankings
Recall that this study is specific to the field of Systems and Software Engineering (SSE). There are similar studies for the related fields of Computer Science (CS) and Information Systems (IS).
Regarding CS, the best and latest such study is (Geist et al., 1996). That study examines CS research institutions only (not individual authors), and restricts itself to academic institutions (none from industry) in the US (none from outside the US). (The authors of this study tell us, however, that
Study methodology
In this seventh year of our study findings, only papers published during the calendar years 1995 through 1999 were tallied. We have achieved the goal set at the beginning of this study, to aggregate five years’ worth of data in order to provide credible and stable ranking of the top scholars and institutions. Beginning last year, only the most recent five years of publications were included in the study. Next year, for example, we will add data from the year 2000, but drop that from 1995. There
Study limitations
There are practical limitations to the number of journals that can be studied for such a survey. This study is limited to six journals (the CS study included 17 journals, but only examined institutions and not scholars).
The publishers of JSS, Elsevier, believed at the outset of this study that it was important to limit the number of journals included. That turns out to have been a wise consideration. The conduct of this survey is extremely time-consuming, and in fact it went through three false
Conclusions
This study is one in an ongoing series whose goal is to identify the top scholars and institutions in the field of SSE. Similar studies in related fields (CS and IS) convince us that such a study is meaningful and worthwhile.
By now, at the end of seven years of conducting the study, we believe we can identify with some confidence those top scholars and institutions:
Top Scholars.
- 1.
Richard Lai of La Trobe University.
- 2.
Johnny S.K. Wong of Iowa State University.
- 3.
Kassem Saleh of Kuwait University.
- 4.
Victor
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