Abstract
This empirical research demonstrates the effectiveness of content analysis to map
the research literature of the software engineering discipline. The results suggest
that certain research themes in software engineering have remained constant, but
with changing thrusts. Others themes have arisen, matured and then faded as major
research topics, while still others seem trasient or immature. Co-word analysis is the
specific technique used. This methodology identifies associations among publication
descriptors (indexing terms) from the ACM Computing Classification System and produces
networks of descriptors that reveal these underlying patterns.
The methodology is applicable to other domains with a supporting corpus of textual data.
While this study utilizes index terms from a fixed taxonomy, that restriction is not
inherent; the descriptors can be generated from the corpus. Hence, co-word analysis
and the supporting software tools employed here can provide unique insights into any
discipline's evolution.
