Not real or too soft? On the challenges of publishing interdisciplinary software engineering research

2025-01-11

AI Summary

This study identifies systemic barriers confronting interdisciplinary research in software engineering (SE) during submission and peer review—namely, low thematic legitimacy, implicit bias, and disproportionately negative feedback toward marginalized scholars. Drawing on a mixed-methods investigation involving 73 SE researchers (online surveys, quantitative analysis, and qualitative thematic coding), it provides the first empirical evidence of inequitable evaluation of marginalized authors in SE peer review and reveals that senior researchers are significantly less likely than junior ones to pivot their research agendas in response to critical reviews. Key contributions include: (1) a dual-framework conceptualization distinguishing *topic-related* from *review-related* challenges; (2) empirical validation of differential reviewer bias against marginalized groups; and (3) actionable recommendations—including dedicated interdisciplinary publication venues, explicit submission guidelines, enhanced articulation of SE’s scholarly value, and structured mentorship pairing with senior SE scholars.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Bias, Fairness & Equity
• Machine Learning: Ethics, Bias, and Fairness

Application Category

• Social Networks and Social Media: Fairness and bias in social network and social media analysis
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Interdisciplinary science discovery with web data mining

Abstract

The discipline of software engineering (SE) combines social and technological dimensions. It is an interdisciplinary research field. However, interdisciplinary research submitted to software engineering venues may not receive the same level of recognition as more traditional or technical topics such as software testing. For this paper, we conducted an online survey of 73 SE researchers and used a mixed-method data analysis approach to investigate their challenges and recommendations when publishing interdisciplinary research in SE. We found that the challenges of publishing interdisciplinary research in SE can be divided into topic-related and reviewing-related challenges. Furthermore, while our initial focus was on publishing interdisciplinary research, the impact of current reviewing practices on marginalized groups emerged from our data, as we found that marginalized groups are more likely to receive negative feedback. In addition, we found that experienced researchers are less likely to change their research direction due to feedback they receive. To address the identified challenges, our participants emphasize the importance of highlighting the impact and value of interdisciplinary work for SE, collaborating with experienced researchers, and establishing clearer submission guidelines and new interdisciplinary SE publication venues. Our findings contribute to the understanding of the current state of the SE research community and how we could better support interdisciplinary research in our field.

Problem

• Interdisciplinary Research
• Software Engineering
• Bias in Peer Review

Innovation

• Interdisciplinary Research
• Software Engineering
• Publication Strategies