Packaging controlled experiments using an evolutionary approach based on ontology

Abstract

A body of knowledge in Software Engineering requires experiments replications. The knowledge generated by a study is registered in the so-called lab package, which, must be reviewed by an eventual research group with the intention to replicate it. However, researchers face difficulties reviewing the lab package, what leads to problems in share knowledge among research groups. Besides that, the lack of standardization is an obstacle to the integration of the knowledge from an isolated study in a common body of knowledge. In this sense, ontologies can be applied, since they can be seen as a standard that promotes the shared understanding of the experiment information structure. In this paper, we present a workflow to generate lab packages based on EXPEiiQntology, an ontology of controlled experiments domain. In addition, by means of lab packages instantiation, it is possible to evolve the ontology, in order to deal with new concepts that may appear in different lab packages. The iterative ontology evolution aims at achieve a standard that is able to accommodate different lab packages and, hence, facilitate to review and understand their content.