A Systematic Mapping Study on the Use and Development of Research Software

Modern research depends on software, and it is developed specifically for and during research. Moreover, a growing number of researchers develop and use software to conduct or support their research. However, an overall understanding of research software is still needed. Our goal is to characterize the publication landscape on research software use and development that have been used in the context of software outlining research contributions and contemporary gaps for future research. We conducted a systematic mapping study and identified 20 studies published in the last 15 years. We found several types of contributions, in which there is an emphasis on analysis and some trends in the type of research evaluation, and the main type of empirical evaluation is a survey. Our results suggest that there are opportunities for solution proposals to address gaps concerning factors that influence research software success in an academic context, providing guidelines, checklists, and models.