Towards Supporting Systematic Mappings Studies: An Automatic Snowballing Approach

Systematic mapping is a secondary research method that aims to summarize and synthesize the current state of an area, providing a general map of the field. It is a technique that requires the execution of a series of steps, many of them repetitive, which makes this technique time-consuming and error-prone. To address these issues, this paper presents an algorithm for automatic selection of references based on both backward snowballing (from the list of references) and forward snowballing (finding citations to the papers). Our algorithm is especially useful for supporting the selection phase of a systematic mapping study, therefore it represents an effort towards a tool for facilitating systematic mapping research. In order to assess its efficacy and efficiency, we evaluated the algorithm in a set of experiments using data collected from a semester-long graduate course about Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).