An analysis of the most cited articles in software engineering journals - 2000

Citations and related work are crucial in any research to position the work and to build on the work of others. A high citation count is an indication of the influence of specific articles. The importance of citations means that it is interesting to analyze which articles are cited the most. Such an analysis has been conducted using the ISI Web of Science to identify the most cited software engineering journal articles published in 2000. The objective of the analysis is to identify and list the articles that have influenced others the most as measured by citation count. An understanding of which research is viewed by the research community as most valuable to build upon may provide valuable insights into what research to focus on now and in the future. Based on the analysis, a list of the 20 most cited articles is presented here. The intention of the analysis is twofold. First, to identify the most cited articles, and second, to invite the authors of the most cited articles in 2000 to contribute to a special issue of Information and Software Technology. Five authors have accepted the invitation and their articles appear in this special issue. Moreover, an analysis of the most cited software engineering journal articles in the last 20 years is presented. The presentation includes both the most cited articles in absolute numbers and the most cited articles when looking at the average number of citations per year. The article describing the SPIN model checker by G.J. Holzmann published in 1997 is first on both these lists. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.