Ten simple rules for writing a comparative software review

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1 Department of Computer Science, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom
2 School of Media, Arts and Design, University of Westminster, London, United Kingdom
3 Software Sustainability Institute, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
4 Comparative Biomedical Sciences, Royal Veterinary College, London, United Kingdom
5 Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
6 Geography & Environment, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.2221v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Computer Aided Design, Scientific Computing and Simulation, Software Engineering
Keywords
software review, gap analysis, how-to guide, ten simple rules, objective writing
Copyright
© 2016 Beeston et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Beeston A, Blazic L, Chue Hong N, Domander R, Mounce R, Wilson RT. 2016. Ten simple rules for writing a comparative software review. PeerJ Preprints 4:e2221v1

Abstract

We provide the following set of rules as a framework for researchers in any domain to undertake a comparative software review and determine the best software for their task.

Rule 1: State your credentials and motivation

Rule 2: Define and justify your scope

Rule 3: Perform a comprehensive search

Rule 4: Make your longlist data available to others

Rule 5: Summarise your software shortlist

Rule 6: Define the software quality criteria

Rule 7: Define the task suitability criteria

Rule 8: Mind the gaps

Rule 9: Summarise the findings as clearly as possible

Rule 10: Involve your community

Author Comment

Contributing to this draft: The authors encourage the community to contribute to the ongoing development of this paper. People can suggest additions and changes, or provide comments via the Google Doc at http://bit.ly/compsoftrev - please identify your contributions if you want them to be acknowledged. This work emerged from the Sustainable Software Institute Collaborations Workshop 2016, in Edinburgh, UK (23/03/2016). After a one or two-week period of the preprint being publicly available for comment, we intend to submit it to an open access journal to undergo formal peer-review.