[Context] With the increasing industrial demands for seamless exchange of data and services among information systems, architectural solutions are a promising research direction which supports high levels of interoperability at early development stages. [Objectives] This research aims at identifying the architectural problems and before-release solutions of interoperability on its different levels in information systems, and exploring the interoperability metrics and research methods used to evaluate identified solutions. [Methods] We performed a scoping study in 5 digital libraries and descriptively analyzed the results of the selected studies. [Results] From the 22 studies included, we present a list of the addressed interoperability architectural problems and solutions along with a statement about the solutions’ evaluation status. [Conclusions] Progress has been made in the software architecture research area to solve interoperability problems. Nevertheless, more researches need to be spent on solutions for the higher levels of interoperability accompanied with proper empirical evaluation for their effectiveness and usefulness for researchers and practitioners.
@inproceedings{taibi_107,
title = { Interoperability-related architectural problems and solutions in information systems: A scoping study},
booktitle = {Software Architecture},
year = {2014},
month = {08/2014},
publisher = {Springer},
organization = {Springer},
address = {Vienna},
abstract = {<p>[Context] With the increasing industrial demands for seamless exchange of data and services among information systems, architectural solutions are a promising research direction which supports high levels of interoperability at early development stages. [Objectives] This research aims at identifying the architectural problems and before-release solutions of interoperability on its different levels in information systems, and exploring the interoperability metrics and research methods used to evaluate identified solutions. [Methods] We performed a scoping study in 5 digital libraries and descriptively analyzed the results of the selected studies. [Results] From the 22 studies included, we present a list of the addressed interoperability architectural problems and solutions along with a statement about the solutions\’ evaluation status. [Conclusions] Progress has been made in the software architecture research area to solve interoperability problems. Nevertheless, more researches need to be spent on solutions for the higher levels of interoperability accompanied with proper empirical evaluation for their effectiveness and usefulness for researchers and practitioners.</p>},
author = {Hadil Abukwaik and Dieter Rombach and Davide Taibi}
}