Page 50 - IJSA, Vol. 4, No 2, 2021

International Journal of Science Annals, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2021
рrint ISSN: 2617-2682; online ISSN: 2707-3637; DOI:10.26697/ijsa

At this point, the students decide with which problem or results obtained, and finally the result will be a set of
situation they want to analyse and understand. By doing publications that fulfil the requirements and answer the
this, they move out from the words of the ideas to research questions.
drafting them. This process takes time and requires Once we finish downloading and answering the
reflection, and also decisions should be made to set up questions, it is time to analyse the results: comparative
the limits (system border) and the components – and analysis and graphs are easy to make and to show the
relations between them – of the problem under study. state of the art of any given topic. Studies that using the
When doing this conceptualization process, the system traditional methods could take ages, using this tool is
is developed with a specific objective and if the possible to be done in just minutes.
objective changes, the system will also do. The fourth step is applying the information and data
Once the system is ready, the third step is to look for quality tools; since the information obtained could be
information in a structured way. In this methodological validated using the information quality techniques, and
sequence, the mapping studies technique will be applied. in this way, it is possible to evaluate its properties
With the information obtained here it is possible to (Espona & Fisher, 2015). In this sense, experts at the
prepare the State of the art of any thesis or research Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
proposal. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA) developed an
There are many ways to do it, here we will do a information quality method. Lately, professionals from
systematic literature review (or systematic mapping other universities and countries expanded and added
studies) designed by Kitchencham et al. (2010) from more elements to it.
Keele University. Also, Genero et al. (2015) from the Wang and Strong (1996) developed a framework to
Alarcos Group (University of Castilla La Mancha – evaluate and hierarchically organize information. To
UCLM – Spain) are leading the field in Spanish- create this method, they sent a survey to information
speaking countries. consumers and master’s in business administration
The outstanding feature of this tools is that to select the (MBA) students asking about the most critical attributes
different articles when searching in any searching that information should have. The result was a list of 179
engine, the selection is made if the article answers or not attributes. After that, they performed a second survey to
to a research question, it doesn’t matter how it does but learn and understand the importance of the attributes
if. In this way, we are sure that all the possible options identified. Finally, they come out with a list of 15
are registered. dimensions, grouped into four categories:
The methodology includes three phases: planning the - Intrinsic (accuracy, believability, objectivity, and
review, executing it and writing the report. reputation);
In the first phase, many tasks will take place. First, the - Contextual (value-added, relevancy, timeliness,
need for a review must be identified. It is important to completeness, and amount of data);
note that by doing this review, it is possible to - Representational (interpretability, ease of
summarize all the information on a topic, in a format that understanding, representational consistency and
resembles a database. representation conciseness);
To begin with the practical steps of this tool, the research - Accessibility (access and security).
questions formulation is the next step. These research It is important to point out that these dimensions could
questions will be the tool to select the publications, be evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively. And
considering whether they answer or not to them, and not that the clear definition of all of them contribute to the
how they do (this is important for the later analysis of evaluation, understanding and communication in the
the results). This way of selecting the publications helps field of knowledge and in the organization in which the
to minimize the impact of our cognitive bias, allowing research is taking place.
us to have the whole set of possible answers, and not The fifth step is competing hypothesis. This tool was
only the ones we like. developed by Heuer (1999), an intelligence analysis
Before performing the search, a protocol must be expert from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
developed. This plan includes: the identification of the during the Cold War, and a few years later was provided
search terms (plus synonyms and other alternative to the public.
terms, and the use OR and AND, or other Boolean This tool is especially useful in cases of complex
operators is recommended); the sources of information problems, with many possible scenarios and a lot of
must be chosen and specified (use virtual libraries, evidence to analyse. It allows to study simultaneously
Google or other search engines); inclusion and exclusion all likely hypothesis and verify them with all the
criteria; and the design of a form to transfer the selected available information simultaneously. In the case of a
publications and the research questions, usually an thesis maybe is not always useful, but yes in the case of
Excel sheet. a research where more hypotheses are on the table.
In the second phase, the review takes place, and all is Also, all the evidence already gathered in the mapping
executed according to the plan. Now, it is important to studies could be considered the evidences in this
check all the results, one by one, and the publications method, saving a lot of time and creating a positive
that answer the research questions will be transferred to synergy. The outcome will be a table including the
the Excel file and the different fields will be completed. evidence and the hypotheses and the results of the
The inclusion and exclusion criteria will help to filter the evaluation performed (Table 1).

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