A Quantitative Assessment of Requirements Engineering Publications – 1963-2008

[Context and motivation]

Two years ago, the authors conducted an extensive meta-analysis of the requirements engineering (RE) literature and reported a demographic analysis by date, type, outlet, author, and author affi liation for just over 4,000 RE publications. We have now added two more years and 1,200 more publications.

[Question/ problem]

The current paper continues this analysis to see if the same publication trends in RE continue or if unique new trends are emerging. It explores the past ten years in more depth, and separately analyzes the trends in journals.

[Principal ideas/results]

The study uncovers some continuing trends: (1) European Union countries continue to be the leaders in publishing RE papers, (2) the UK continues to surpass most countries in annual production, (3) the USA continues to lose market share, and (4) the same institutions lead the effort. But some new trends emerge as well: (1) total production of papers in RE has decreased since its high in 2005, (2) the average number of authors per paper has increased, (3) non-RE-specific conferences and non-RE-specific conferences have published fewer RE papers, and (4) some institutions strong in RE paper production in general are not as productive with respect to journal articles, and vice versa.

[Contribution]

This paper enables RE researchers to understand where RE research is being conducted and where results are being published. Although we report some interesting trends, the data cannot help us understand causes of these trends.