Scopus İndeksli Yayınlar Koleksiyonu / Scopus Indexed Publications Collection
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11147/7148
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Conference Object Measuring the Size of Change Requests in Microservice-Based Software Projects(Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH, 2026) Yenel, M.; Ünlu, H.; Demirors, O.Accurately estimating the effort required for implementing change requests remains a critical challenge in software engineering, especially in microservice-based software architectures (MSSA). Traditional functional size measurement methods often fail to capture the distinct characteristics of MSSAs. To address this limitation, we propose a change size measurement method based on MicroM, a size measurement approach specifically developed for MSSAs. The proposed method counts added, deleted, and modified events across functional, architectural, and algorithmic levels, and includes the number of affected initial requirements. We conducted an exploratory case study with 18 change requests and built four regression-based effort estimation models. The results show that combining event counts with the number of affected requirements improves estimation accuracy. Our method provides a more precise and context-aware way to estimate change-related effort in MSSA projects. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.Article An Alternative Software Benchmarking Dataset: Effort Estimation With Machine Learning(Elsevier Science Inc, 2026) Yurum, Ozan Rasit; Unlu, Huseyin; Demirors, OnurEffort estimation plays a vital role in software project planning, as accurate estimates of required human resources are essential for success. Traditional estimation models often depend on historical size and effort data, yet organizations frequently struggle to access reliable effort records. Public benchmarking datasets like ISBSG offer useful data but may lack coverage or involve licensing fees. To address this issue, we previously introduced a free, extendable benchmarking dataset that integrates functional size and effort data extracted from 18 studies. In this study, we examine the effectiveness of our dataset for predictive effort estimation and compare it with the widely used ISBSG dataset. Our analysis includes 337 records from our dataset and 732 ISBSG projects, focusing on those with COSMIC size data. We first developed and compared models using linear regression and nine machine learning algorithms - Bayesian Ridge, Ridge Regression, Decision Tree, Random Forest, XGBoost, LightGBM, k-Nearest Neighbors, Multi-Layer Perceptron, and Support Vector Regression. Then, we selected the best-performing models and applied them to an unseen evaluation dataset to assess their generalization performance. The results show that machine learning performance varies based on evaluation method and dataset characteristics. Despite having fewer records, our dataset enabled more accurate predictions than ISBSG in most cases, highlighting its potential for effort estimation. This study demonstrates the viability of our dataset for building predictive models and supports the use of machine learning in improving estimation accuracy. Expanding this dataset could offer a valuable, open-access resource for organizations seeking effective and lowcost estimation solutions.Conference Object Citation - WoS: 1Citation - Scopus: 1Towards the Construction of a Software Benchmarking Dataset Via Systematic Literature Review(IEEE, 2024) Yurum, Ozan Rasit; Unlu, Huseyin; Demirors, OnurEffort estimation is a fundamental task during the planning of software projects. Prediction models usually rely on two essential factors: software size and effort data. Measuring the size of the software can be done at various stages of the project with desired accuracy. Nevertheless, the industry faces challenges when it comes to collecting reliable actual effort data. Consequently, organizations encounter difficulties in establishing effort prediction models. Benchmarking datasets are available, but, in most cases, they have huge variances that make them less useful for effort prediction. In this study, we aimed to answer whether creating a software benchmarking dataset is possible by gathering the data from the literature. To the best of our knowledge, a comprehensive dataset that gathers the functional size and effort data of the studies from the literature is unavailable. For this purpose, we performed a systematic literature review to find studies that include projects measured with the COSMIC Functional Size Measurement (FSM) method and the related effort. As a result, we formed a dataset including 337 records from 18 studies that shared the corresponding size and effort data. Although we performed a limited search, we created a larger dataset than many datasets in the literature. In light of our review, we obtained that most studies did not share their dataset, and many lacked case details such as implementation environment and the scope of software development life cycle activities included in the effort data. We also compared the dataset with the ISBSG repository and found that our dataset has less variation in productivity. Our review showed the applicability of creating a software benchmarking dataset is possible by gathering the data from the literature. In conclusion, this study addresses gaps in the literature through a cost-free and easily extendable dataset.Conference Object Citation - Scopus: 3Predicting Software Size and Effort From Code Using Natural Language Processing(CEUR-WS, 2024) Tenekeci, S.; Demirörs, Onur; Ünlü, H.; Dikenelli, E.; Selçuk, U.; Kılınç Soylu, G.; Demirörs, O.Software Size Measurement (SSM) holds a crucial role in software project management by facilitating the acquisition of software size, which serves as the primary input for development effort and schedule estimation. However, many small and medium-sized companies encounter challenges in conducting objective SSM and Software Effort Estimation (SEE) due to resource constraints and a lack of expert workforce. This often leads to inaccurate estimates and projects exceeding planned time and budget. Hence, organizations need to perform objective SSM and SEE with minimal resources and without relying on an expert workforce. In this research, we introduce two exploratory case studies aimed at predicting the functional size (COSMIC and Event-based size) and effort of software projects from the code using a deep-learning-based NLP model: CodeBERT. For this purpose, we collected and annotated two datasets consisting of 4800 Python and 1100 C# functions. Then, we trained a classification model to predict COSMIC data movements (entry, exit, read, write) and four regression models to predict Event-based size (interaction, communication, process) and effort. Despite utilizing a relatively small dataset for model training, we achieved promising results with an 84.5% accuracy for the COSMIC size, 0.13 normalized mean absolute error (NMAE) for the Event-based size, and 0.18 NMAE for the effort. These findings are particularly insightful as they demonstrate the practical utility of language models in SSM and SEE. © 2024 Copyright for this paper by its authors.Conference Object Citation - Scopus: 8An Exploratory Case Study on Effort Estimation in Microservices(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2023) Unlu,H.; Hacaloglu,T.; Omural,N.K.; Caliskanel,N.; Leblebici,O.; Demirors,O.Software project management plays an important role in producing high-quality software, and effort estimation can be considered as a backbone for successful project management. Size is a very significant attribute of software by being the only input to perform early effort estimation. Even though functional size measurement methods showed successful results in effort estimation of traditional data-centric architectures such as monoliths, they were not designed for today's architectures which are more service-based and decentralized such as microservices. In these new systems, the event concept is highly used specifically for communication among different services. By being motivated by this fact, in this study, we looked for more microservice-compatible ways of sizing microservices using events and developed a method accordingly. Then, we conducted an exploratory case study in an organization using agile methods and measured the size of 17 Product Backlog Items (PBIs) to assess how this proposed method can be useful in effort estimation in microservices. The implication from the case study is that despite performing a more accurate effort estimation using the proposed size measurement than COSMIC, we were unable to significantly outperform using the total number of events. However, our suggested approach demonstrated to us a different way to use software size in terms of events, namely, to determine the coupling complexity of the project. This finding can be beneficial specifically when evaluating the change requests. © 2023 IEEE.Article Citation - WoS: 9Citation - Scopus: 13Microservice-Based Projects in Agile World: a Structured Interview(Elsevier, 2024) Unlu, Huseyin; Kennouche, Dhia Eddine; Soylu, Gorkem Kiling; Demirors, OnurContext: During the last decade, Microservice-based software architecture (MSSA) has been a preferred design paradigm for a growing number of companies. MSSA, specifically in the form of reactive systems, has substantial differences from the more conventional design paradigms, such as object-oriented analysis and design. Therefore, adaptation demands software organizations to transform their culture. However, there is a lack of research studies that explore common practices utilized by software companies that implement MSSAs.Objective: In this study, our goal is to get an insight into how practices such as an agile methodology, software analysis, design, test, size measurement, and effort estimation are performed in software projects which embrace the Microservice-based software architecture paradigm. Together with the identification of practices utilized for the MSSA paradigm, we aim to determine the challenges organizations face to adopt microservice-based software architectures.Method: We performed a structured interview with participants coming from 20 different organizations over different roles, domains, and countries to collect information on their views, experience, and the challenges faced.Results: Our results reveal that organizations find agile development compatible with microservices. In general, they continue to use traditional object-oriented modeling notations for analysis and design in an abstract way. They continue to use the same subjective size measurement and effort estimation approaches that they were using previously in traditional architectures. However, they face unique challenges in developing microservices.Conclusion: Although organizations face challenges, practitioners continue to use familiar techniques that they have been using for traditional architectures. The results provide a snapshot of the software industry that utilizes microservices.Conference Object Citation - WoS: 2Citation - Scopus: 2Effort Prediction With Limited Data: a Case Study for Data Warehouse Projects(IEEE, 2022) Unlu, Huseyin; Yildiz, Ali; Demirors, OnurOrganizations may create a sustainable competitive advantage against competitors by using data warehouse systems with which they can assess the current status of their operations at any moment. They can analyze trends and connections using up-to-date data. However, data warehouse projects tend to fail more often than other projects as it can be tough to estimate the effort required to build a data warehouse system. Functional size measurement is one of the methods used as an input for estimating the amount of work in a software project. In this study, we formed a measurement basis for DWH projects in an organization based on the COSMIC Functional Size Measurement Method. We mapped COSMIC rules on two different architectures used for DWH projects in the organization and measured the size of the projects. We calculated the productivity of the projects and compared them with the organization's previous projects and DWH projects in the ISBSG repository. We could not create an organization-wide effort estimation model as we had a limited number of projects. As an alternative, we evaluated the success of effort estimation using DWH projects in the ISBSG repository. We also reported the challenges we faced during the size measurement process.
