Using the 5W+1H Model in Reporting Systematic Literature Review: A Case Study on Software Testing for Cloud Computing

This paper documents a case study of using the 5W+1H model for reporting systematic literature review on software testing for cloud computing. To our knowledge, this is the first systematic literature review that applies the 5W+1H model, which is widely used in the journalism domain, to report the full picture of the research area in both software engineering and services computing. Existing guidelines on systematic literature review heavily rely on the researcher to pose the right research questions, and the review results are tightly focused on these research questions. For researchers new to a field, defining the right research questions that are effective in revealing the critical issues in the field can be challenging. Our case study demonstrates that the 5W+1H model provides an easy aid for the researcher to get over such initial challenges. As the researcher becomes more familiar with the field, he/she may then refine the research questions by adding more topic-specific contexts. In this way, the 5W+1H model serves to provide an exploratory framework to shape a systematic literature review. Applying to software testing for cloud computing, we are able to synthesize a comprehensive picture of recent researches on the field, including publication pattern, article citation immediacy, research topic diversity, research ideas for addressing testing challenges at different cloud service architectural layers. Based on the case study, we summarize the lessons learned on using the 5W+1H model in reporting systematic literature review.