Empirical-WebGen: a web-based environment for the automatic generation of surveys and experiments

Empirical studies in Software Engineering are essential for the validation of various methods, techniques, tools, etc. and human resources playa fundamental role in carrying out these studies successfully. These studies have captured the attention of the scientific community in Software Engineering over the last years, and are those which are most commonly used in controlled experiments, case studies and surveys. Traditionally, these studies have been undertaken in laboratories, bringing their experimental subjects together in one time and space. Due to the limitations caused by this during experimentation, the necessity of providing an open and distributed environment arises. Such an environment would permit the configuration of the parameters of an experiment or survey, depending on the characteristics of the people to whom they are directed and, furthermore resolving the problems of time and space thanks to the possibility of their being carried out via the Web. This paper describes the Empirical-WebGen software tool. This tool makes the design of surveys and experiments possible and supports both their later realization and the analysis of the results obtained. The tool has been used to carry out both a survey and an experiment on line which have allowed us to obtain some preliminary validation results.