Introduction To Section Most Cited Journal Articles In Software Engineering

摘要

Citations are important to position an investigators' research, to retrospectively evaluate research performance, to detect scientific trends, and to acknowledge the contribution of others. In this context, the most cited articles are of particular importance, since a high citation count is an indication of high impact on the research community.rnBased on the above, and since 2005, Information and Software Technology yearly presents an analysis of the most cited articles in software engineering, in order to provide a picture of which research is most influential and which areas attract most attention.rnThe current special section includes an analysis and report of the most cited journal articles in software engineering with publication dates in 2002 and six invited articles. The analysis is conducted using the IS1 Web of Science, which is the same database as is used to determine impact factors for different journals in different research disciplines. This tool was chosen for several other reasons too, including possibility for automation and also to increase the replicability of the study.