Identifying practitioners' arguments and evidence in blogs: Insights from a pilot study

Ashley Williams; Austen Rainer

doi:10.1109/APSEC.2016.056

Identifying practitioners' arguments and evidence in blogs: Insights from a pilot study

Ashley Williams, Austen Rainer

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

6 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Background: researchers have a limited understanding of how practitioners conceive of and use evidence. Objective: to investigate how to automatically identify practitioner arguments and evidence in a corpus of practitioner documents, and identify insights for further work. Method: we develop, apply and evaluate a preliminary process to identify practitioner arguments and factual stories, based on the presence of specific words, using a sample of 1,022 blog posts from a software practitioner's blog. Results: we identify unanswered questions relating to the process: selecting and scraping data, cleansing data, parsing components of arguments and stories, selecting the 'right' cases, and validating and interpreting the results. Conclusion: our work provides a foundation for more substantive research on identifying practitioners' evidence and arguments that, in turn, can support research in other areas e.g. evidence informed software practice.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings - 23rd Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference, APSEC 2016
Editors	Gail C. Murphy, Steve Reeves, Alex Potanin, Jens Dietrich
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages	345-348
Number of pages	4
ISBN (Electronic)	9781509055753
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/APSEC.2016.056
Publication status	Published - 30 Mar 2017
Externally published	Yes
Event	23rd Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference, APSEC 2016 - Hamilton, New Zealand Duration: 06 Dec 2016 → 09 Dec 2016

Conference

Conference	23rd Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference, APSEC 2016
Country/Territory	New Zealand
City	Hamilton
Period	06/12/2016 → 09/12/2016

Keywords

Argument
Data mining
Evidence
Software practice

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Software

Access to Document

10.1109/APSEC.2016.056

Cite this

Williams, A., & Rainer, A. (2017). Identifying practitioners' arguments and evidence in blogs: Insights from a pilot study. In G. C. Murphy, S. Reeves, A. Potanin, & J. Dietrich (Eds.), Proceedings - 23rd Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference, APSEC 2016 (pp. 345-348). Article 7890608 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.. https://doi.org/10.1109/APSEC.2016.056

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abstract = "Background: researchers have a limited understanding of how practitioners conceive of and use evidence. Objective: to investigate how to automatically identify practitioner arguments and evidence in a corpus of practitioner documents, and identify insights for further work. Method: we develop, apply and evaluate a preliminary process to identify practitioner arguments and factual stories, based on the presence of specific words, using a sample of 1,022 blog posts from a software practitioner's blog. Results: we identify unanswered questions relating to the process: selecting and scraping data, cleansing data, parsing components of arguments and stories, selecting the 'right' cases, and validating and interpreting the results. Conclusion: our work provides a foundation for more substantive research on identifying practitioners' evidence and arguments that, in turn, can support research in other areas e.g. evidence informed software practice.",

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Williams, A & Rainer, A 2017, Identifying practitioners' arguments and evidence in blogs: Insights from a pilot study. in GC Murphy, S Reeves, A Potanin & J Dietrich (eds), Proceedings - 23rd Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference, APSEC 2016., 7890608, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., pp. 345-348, 23rd Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference, APSEC 2016, Hamilton, New Zealand, 06/12/2016. https://doi.org/10.1109/APSEC.2016.056

Identifying practitioners' arguments and evidence in blogs: Insights from a pilot study. / Williams, Ashley; Rainer, Austen.
Proceedings - 23rd Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference, APSEC 2016. ed. / Gail C. Murphy; Steve Reeves; Alex Potanin; Jens Dietrich. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2017. p. 345-348 7890608.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

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N2 - Background: researchers have a limited understanding of how practitioners conceive of and use evidence. Objective: to investigate how to automatically identify practitioner arguments and evidence in a corpus of practitioner documents, and identify insights for further work. Method: we develop, apply and evaluate a preliminary process to identify practitioner arguments and factual stories, based on the presence of specific words, using a sample of 1,022 blog posts from a software practitioner's blog. Results: we identify unanswered questions relating to the process: selecting and scraping data, cleansing data, parsing components of arguments and stories, selecting the 'right' cases, and validating and interpreting the results. Conclusion: our work provides a foundation for more substantive research on identifying practitioners' evidence and arguments that, in turn, can support research in other areas e.g. evidence informed software practice.

AB - Background: researchers have a limited understanding of how practitioners conceive of and use evidence. Objective: to investigate how to automatically identify practitioner arguments and evidence in a corpus of practitioner documents, and identify insights for further work. Method: we develop, apply and evaluate a preliminary process to identify practitioner arguments and factual stories, based on the presence of specific words, using a sample of 1,022 blog posts from a software practitioner's blog. Results: we identify unanswered questions relating to the process: selecting and scraping data, cleansing data, parsing components of arguments and stories, selecting the 'right' cases, and validating and interpreting the results. Conclusion: our work provides a foundation for more substantive research on identifying practitioners' evidence and arguments that, in turn, can support research in other areas e.g. evidence informed software practice.

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Identifying practitioners' arguments and evidence in blogs: Insights from a pilot study

Abstract

Conference

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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