What is a Survey?
A survey or systematic literature review is a text of a scholarly paper, which includes the current knowledge including substantive findings, as well as theoretical and methodological contributions to a particular topic. Literature reviews use secondary sources, and do not report new or original experimental work [1].
A systematic review is a literature review focused on a research question, trying to identify, appraise, select and synthesize all high quality research evidence and arguments relevant to that question. Moreover, a literature review is comprehensive, exhaustive and repeatable, that is, the readers can replicate or verify the review.
Steps to perform a survey
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Select two independent reviewers
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Look for related/existing surveys
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If it exists, see how long back it was done. If it was 10 years ago, you can go ahead and update it.
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Formulate research questions
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Devise eligibility criteria
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Define search strategy – keywords, journals, conferences, workshops to search in
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Retrieve further potential article using search strategy and also directly contacting top researchers in the field
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Compare chosen articles among reviewers and decide a core set of papers to be included in the survey
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Perform Qualitatively and Quantitatively on the selected set of papers
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Report on the results
Advantages of writing a survey
There are several benefits/advantages of conducting a survey, such as:
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A survey is the best way to get an idea of the state-of-the-art technologies, algorithms, tools etc. in a particular field
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One can get a clear birds-eye overview of the current state of that field
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It can serve as a great starting point for a student or any researcher thinking of venturing into that particular field/area of research
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One can easily acquire updated information of a subject by referring to a review
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It gives researchers the opportunity to formalize different concepts of a particular field
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It allows one to identify challenges and gaps that are unanswered and crucial for that subject
Limitations of a survey
However, there are a few limitations that must be considered before undertaking a survey such as:
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Surveys can tend to be biased, thus it is necessary to have two researchers, who perform the systematic search for the articles independently
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It is quite challenging to unify concepts, especially when there are different ideas referring to the same concepts developed over several years
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Indeed, conducting a survey and getting the article published is a long process
Surveys conducted by members of the AKSW group
In our group, three students conducted comprehensive literature reviews on three different topics:
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Linked Data Quality: The survey covers 30 core papers, which focus on providing quality assessment methodologies for Linked Data specifically. A total of 18 data quality dimensions along with their definitions and 69 metrics are provided. Additionally, the survey contributes a comparison of 12 tools, which perform quality assessment of Linked Data [2].
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Ubiquitous Semantic Applications: The survey presents a thorough analysis of 48 primary studies out of 172 initially retrieved papers. The results consist of a comprehensive set of quality attributes for Ubiquitous Semantic Applications together with corresponding application features suggested for their realization. The quality attributes include aspects such as mobility, usability, heterogeneity, collaboration, customizability and evolvability. The proposed quality attributes facilitate the evaluation of existing approaches and the development of novel, more effective and intuitive Ubiquitous Semantic Applications [3].
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User interfaces for semantic authoring of textual content: The survey covers a thorough analysis of 31 primary studies out of 175 initially retrieved papers. The results consist of a comprehensive set of quality attributes for SCA systems together with corresponding user interface features suggested for their realization. The quality attributes include aspects such as usability, automation, generalizability, collaboration, customizability and evolvability. The proposed quality attributes and UI features facilitate the evaluation of existing approaches and the development of novel more effective and intuitive semantic authoring interfaces [4].
Also, here is a presentation on “Systematic Literature Reviews”: http://slidewiki.org/deck/57_systematic-literature-review.
References
[1] Lisa A. Baglione (2012) Writing a Research Paper in Political Science. Thousand Oaks: CQ Press.
[2] Amrapali Zaveri, Anisa Rula, Andrea Maurino, Ricardo Pietrobon, Jens Lehmann and Sören Auer (2015), ‘Quality Assessment for Linked Data: A Survey’, Semantic Web Journal. http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/content/quality-assessment-linked-data-survey
[3] Timofey Ermilov, Ali Khalili, and Sören Auer (2014). ;Ubiquitous Semantic Applications: A Systematic Literature Review’. Int. J. Semant. Web Inf. Syst. 10, 1 (January 2014), 66-99. DOI=10.4018/ijswis.2014010103 http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/ijswis.2014010103
[4] Ali Khalili and Sören Auer (2013). ‘User interfaces for semantic authoring of textual content: A systematic literature review’, Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide Web, Volume 22, October 2013, Pages 1-18 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570826813000498
