iKeyCriteria: A Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis Method to Infer Key Criteria since a Systematic Literature Review for the Computing Domain

Abstract

A systematic literature review is a synthesis of the available evidence, in which a review of quantitative and qualitative aspects of primary studies is carried out, to summarize the existing information regarding a particular topic. The researchers extract key criteria from papers collected about their study area, answering research questions and conducting document analysis. Nonetheless, in some cases, these criteria are improperly justified, unknowing their true level of importance in the study subject. Hence, an additional study is necessary to explain the criteria relevance in the papers studied using qualitative and quantitative premises. The correct identification of these key criteria is a critical factor in prioritizing and achieving appropriate results in any scientific research work. In our paper, a new method to determine key criteria from a literature review is proposed, composed of three components: input-process-output. First, the inputs are a set of criteria to evaluate and a set of documents to analyze. Next, the process component examines the document set to indicate whether the criteria to be analyzed are found. The process component produces a Boolean matrix, which is the input of the mathematical logic process that will get the key criteria considered necessary and sufficient as the output component. The iKeyCriteria method has been applied in different computing domains, particularly for serious games design and virtual organizations, giving positive results in each context. Finally, we developed an online tool that provides global support to the execution of our method.