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Citation for published version (APA): Li, Z., Liang, P., & Avgeriou, P. (2013). Application of knowledge-based approaches in software architecture: A systematic mapping study. Information and Software Technology, 55(5), 777-794. DOI: 10.1016777-794. DOI: 10. /j.infsof.2012 Copyright Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons).Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Context: Knowledge management technologies have been employed across software engineering activities for more than two decades. Knowledge-based approaches can be used to facilitate software architecting activities (e.g., architectural evaluation). However, there is no comprehensive understanding on how various knowledge-based approaches (e.g., knowledge reuse) are employed in software architecture. Objective: This work aims to collect studies on the application of knowledge-based approaches in software architecture and make a classification and thematic analysis on these studies, in order to identify the gaps in the existing application of knowledge-based approaches to various architecting activities, and promising research directions. Method: A systematic mapping study is conducted for identifying and analyzing the application of knowledge-based approaches in software architecture, covering the papers from major databases, journals, conferences, and workshops, published between January 2000 and March 2011. Results: Fifty-five studies were selected and classified according to the architecting activities they contribute to and the knowledge-based approaches employed. Knowledge capture and representation (e.g., using an ontology to describe architectural elements and their relationships) is the most popular approach employed in architecting activities. Knowledge recovery (e.g., documenting past architectural design decisions) is an ignored approach that is seldom used in software architecture. Knowledge-based approaches are mostly used in architectural evaluation, while receive the least attention in architecture impact analysis and architectural implementation. Conclusions: The study results show an increased interest in the application of knowledge-based approaches in software architecture in recent years. A number of knowledge-based approaches, including knowledge capture and representation, reuse, sharing, recovery, and reasoning, have been employed in a spectrum of architecting activities. Knowledge-based approaches have been applied to a wide range of application domains, among which ''Embedded software'' has received the most attention.

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Architectural technical debt (ATD) is incurred by design decisions that consciously or unconsciously compromise system-wide quality attributes, particularly maintainability and evolvability. ATD needs to be identified and measured, so that it can be monitored and eventually repaid, when appropriate. In practice, ATD is difficult to identify and measure, since ATD does not yield observable behaviors to end users. One indicator of ATD, is the average number of modified components per commit (ANMCC): a higher ANMCC indicates more ATD in a software system. However, it is difficult and sometimes impossible to calculate ANMCC, because the data (i.e., the log of commits) are not always available. In this work, we propose to use software modularity metrics, which can be directly calculated based on source code, as a substitute of ANMCC to indicate ATD. We validate the correlation between ANMCC and modularity metrics through a holistic multiple case study on thirteen open source software projects. The results of this study suggest that two modularity metrics, namely Index of Package Changing Impact (IPCI) and Index of Package Goal Focus (IPGF), have significant correlation with ANMCC, and therefore can be used as alternative ATD indicators.

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