Empirical study on the maintainability of Web applications: Model-driven Engineering vs Code-centric

Model-driven Engineering (MDE) approaches are often acknowledged to improve the maintainability of the resulting applications. However, there is a scarcity of empirical evidence that backs their claimed benefits and limitations with respect to code-centric approaches. The purpose of this paper is to compare the performance and satisfaction of junior software maintainers while executing maintainability tasks on Web applications with two different development approaches, one being OOH4RIA, a model-driven approach, and the other being a code-centric approach based on Visual Studio .NET and the Agile Unified Process. We have conducted a quasi-experiment with 27 graduated students from the University of Alicante. They were randomly divided into two groups, and each group was assigned to a different Web application on which they performed a set of maintainability tasks. The results show that maintaining Web applications with OOH4RIA clearly improves the performance of subjects. It also tips the satisfaction balance in favor of OOH4RIA, although not significantly. Model-driven development methods seem to improve both the developers’ objective performance and subjective opinions on ease of use of the method. This notwithstanding, further experimentation is needed to be able to generalize the results to different populations, methods, languages and tools, different domains and different application sizes.

Evidence-based editing: factors influencing the number of citations in a national journal

Purpose: Citations received by papers published within a journal serve to increase its bibliometric impact. The objective of this paper was to assess the influence of publication language, article type, number of authors, and year of publication on the citations received by papers published in Gaceta Sanitaria, a Spanish-language journal of public health. Methods: The information sources were the journal website and the Web of Knowledge, of the Institute of Scientific Information. The period analyzed was from 2007 to 2010. We included original articles, brief original articles, and reviews published within that period. We extracted manually information regarding the variables analyzed and we also differentiated among total citations and self-citations. We constructed logistic regression models to analyze the probability of a Gaceta Sanitaria paper to be cited or not, taking into account the aforementioned independent variables. We also analyzed the probability of receiving citations from non-Spanish authors. Results: Two hundred forty papers fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The included papers received a total of 287 citations, which became 202 when excluding self-citations. The only variable influencing the probability of being cited was the publication year. After excluding never cited papers, time since publication and review papers had the highest probabilities of being cited. Papers in English and review articles had a higher probability of citation from non-Spanish authors. Conclusions: Publication language has no influence on the citations received by a national, non-English journal. Reviews in English have the highest probability of citation from abroad. Editors should decide how to manage this information when deciding policies to raise the bibliometric impact factor of their journals.