BSc(UoG), MSc, PhD(AUT)
Senior Lecturer
Room 7.03, Otago Business School
Tel +64 3 479 8319
Email sherlock.licorish@otago.ac.nz
Linkedin Sherlock Licorish
Background and interests
Dr Sherlock Licorish is a Senior Lecturer whose current research focuses on:
- Modelling the software development process and evaluating the use of software methodologies, and particularly agile approaches.
Modelling sample paper (PDF) - Exploring and evaluating software teams’ behaviour and performance under various conditions, or in addressing various forms of software activities (e.g. resolving defects or building new features, gathering software requirements, or performing software maintenance tasks).
Behaviour sample paper (PDF) - The development and provision of software tools to aid software developers and enhance end-users’ involvement in the feedback processes. Dr Licorish is also interested in topics considered under market-driven (and crowd-sourced) requirements engineering.
Software tools sample paper (PDF)
Crowdsourcing sample paper (PDF) - Empirical software engineering and analytics, covering global software development, open source software (OSS) development and virtual communities.
Global development sample paper (PDF)
OSS sample paper (PDF)
Dr Licorish’s analytics research involves the use of data mining, data visualization, statistical analysis and other quantitative methods (e.g. social network analysis, linguistic and sentiment analysis, natural language processing (NLP) and probabilistic modelling techniques).
He has also used qualitative methods in his research, including qualitative forms of content analysis and dilemma analysis. These techniques (both quantitative and qualitative) are often applied to large repositories and software artefacts.
Dr Licorish serves as a reviewer for several top conferences and journals.
Dr Licorish is involved in the research group:
Information Systems and Software Engineering
Papers
Supervision
Dr Licorish has been the recipient of a Supervisor Award.
Available postgraduate research opportunities:
Source Code analysis (fully funded PhD scholarship)
Currently supervising
- Saurabh Malgaonkar
- Elijah Zoldouarrati
- Chathrie Wimalasooriya
- Pascal Omondiagbe
Currently co-supervising
- Priyanka Patel
- Nuzla Ismail
- Adriaan Lotter
Publications
Savarimuthu, B. T. R., Licorish, S. A., Devananda, M., Greenheld, G., Dignum, V., & Dignum, F. (2021). Developers' responses to app review feedback: A study of communication norms in app development. In A. Aler Tubella, S. Cranefield, C. Frantz, F. Meneguzzi & W. Vasconcelos (Eds.), Coordination, organizations, institutions, norms, and ethics for governance of multi-agent systems XIII: Lecture notes in artificial intelligence (Vol. 12298). (pp. 27-75). Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-72376-7_4
Tahir, A., Dietrich, J., Counsell, S., Licorish, S., & Yamashita, A. (2020). A large scale study on how developers discuss code smells and anti-pattern in Stack Exchange sites. Information & Software Technology, 125, 106333. doi: 10.1016/j.infsof.2020.106333
Meldrum, S., Licorish, S. A., Owen, C. A., & Savarimuthu, B. T. R. (2020). Understanding stack overflow code quality: A recommendation of caution. Science of Computer Programming, 199, 102516. doi: 10.1016/j.scico.2020.102516
Owen, H. E., & Licorish, S. A. (2020). Game-based student response system: The effectiveness of Kahoot! on junior and senior information science students' learning. Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, 19, 511-553. doi: 10.28945/4608
Malgaonkar, S., Licorish, S. A., & Savarimuthu, B. T. R. (2020). Understanding requirements prioritisation: Literature survey and critical evaluation. IET Software, 14(6), 607-622. doi: 10.1049/iet-sen.2019.0215
Chapter in Book - Research
Savarimuthu, B. T. R., Licorish, S. A., Devananda, M., Greenheld, G., Dignum, V., & Dignum, F. (2021). Developers' responses to app review feedback: A study of communication norms in app development. In A. Aler Tubella, S. Cranefield, C. Frantz, F. Meneguzzi & W. Vasconcelos (Eds.), Coordination, organizations, institutions, norms, and ethics for governance of multi-agent systems XIII: Lecture notes in artificial intelligence (Vol. 12298). (pp. 27-75). Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-72376-7_4
Journal - Research Article
Tahir, A., Dietrich, J., Counsell, S., Licorish, S., & Yamashita, A. (2020). A large scale study on how developers discuss code smells and anti-pattern in Stack Exchange sites. Information & Software Technology, 125, 106333. doi: 10.1016/j.infsof.2020.106333
Owen, H. E., & Licorish, S. A. (2020). Game-based student response system: The effectiveness of Kahoot! on junior and senior information science students' learning. Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, 19, 511-553. doi: 10.28945/4608
Meldrum, S., Licorish, S. A., Owen, C. A., & Savarimuthu, B. T. R. (2020). Understanding stack overflow code quality: A recommendation of caution. Science of Computer Programming, 199, 102516. doi: 10.1016/j.scico.2020.102516
Licorish, S. A., Owen, H. E., Daniel, B., & George, J. L. (2018). Students’ perception of Kahoot!’s influence on teaching and learning. Research & Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 13, 9. doi: 10.1186/s41039-018-0078-8
Licorish, S. A., & MacDonell, S. G. (2018). Exploring the links between software development task type, team attitudes and task completion performance: Insights from the Jazz repository. Information & Software Technology, 97, 10-25. doi: 10.1016/j.infsof.2017.12.005
Holvitie, J., Licorish, S. A., Spínola, R. O., Hyrynsalmi, S., MacDonell, S. G., Mendes, T. S., … Leppänen, V. (2018). Technical debt and agile software development practices and processes: An industry practitioner survey. Information & Software Technology, 96, 141-160. doi: 10.1016/j.infsof.2017.11.015
Licorish, S. A., & MacDonell, S. G. (2017). Exploring software developers’ work practices: Task differences, participation, engagement, and speed of task resolution. Information & Management, 54(3), 364-382. doi: 10.1016/j.im.2016.09.005
Meldrum, S., Savarimuthu, B. T. R., Licorish, S., Tahir, A., Bosu, M., & Jayakaran, P. (2017). Is knee pain information on YouTube videos perceived to be helpful? An analysis of user comments and implications for dissemination on social media. Digital Health, 3. doi: 10.1177/2055207617698908
Licorish, S. A. (2016). Exploring the prevalence and evolution of android concerns: A community viewpoint. Journal of Software, 11(9), 848-869. doi: 10.17706/jsw.11.9.848-869
Licorish, S. A., & MacDonell, S. G. (2015). Communication and personality profiles of global software developers. Information & Software Technology, 64, 113-131. doi: 10.1016/j.infsof.2015.02.004
Licorish, S. A., & MacDonell, S. G. (2014). Understanding the attitudes, knowledge sharing behaviors and task performance of core developers: A longitudinal study. Information & Software Technology, 56(12), 1578-1596. doi: 10.1016/j.infsof.2014.02.004
Journal - Research Other
Malgaonkar, S., Licorish, S. A., & Savarimuthu, B. T. R. (2020). Understanding requirements prioritisation: Literature survey and critical evaluation. IET Software, 14(6), 607-622. doi: 10.1049/iet-sen.2019.0215
Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Full paper
Malgaonkar, S., Licorish, S. A., & Savarimuthu, B. T. R. (2020). Towards automated taxonomy generation for grouping app reviews: A preliminary empirical study. Proceedings of the Communications in Computer and Information Science (QUATIC). (pp. 120-134). Cham, Switzerland: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-58793-2_10
Klünder, J., Hebig, R., Tell, P., Kuhrmann, M., Nakatumba-Nabende, J., Heldal, R., … Licorish, S. A., … MacDonell, S. G. (2019). Catching up with method and process practice: An industry-informed baseline for researchers. Proceedings of the 41st Software Engineering International Conference: Software Engineering in Practice (ICSE-SEIP). (pp. 255-264). IEEE. doi: 10.1109/ICSE-SEIP.2019.00036
Omondiagbe, O. P., Licorish, S. A., & MacDonell, S. G. (2019). Features that predict the acceptability of Java and JavaScript answers on Stack Overflow. Proceedings of the Evaluation and Assessment on Software Engineering (EASE). (pp. 101-110). ACM. doi: 10.1145/3319008.3319024
Ismail, F. N., Woodford, B. J., & Licorish, S. A. (2019). Evaluating the boundaries of big data environments for machine learning. In J. Liu & J. Bailey (Eds.), Advances in artificial intelligence: Lecture notes in artificial intelligence (Vol. 11919). (pp. 253-264). Cham, Switzerland: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-35288-2_21
Caires, V. C., Rios, N., Holvitie, J., Leppänen, V., Licorish, S. A., MacDonell, S. G., … Spínola, R. O. (2019). Processos e práticas ágeis sensíveis à dívida técnica: Comparação dos resultados de um survey executadao no Brasil, Finlândia e Nova Zelândia [Agile processes and practices sensitive to technical debt: Comparison of results of a survey executed in Brazil, Finland, and New Zealand]. Proceedings of the 25th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS). 151731. Retrieved from https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2019/spanish_portuguese_latin_america/spanish_portuguese_latin_america/30/
Tahir, A., Yamashita, A., Licorish, S., Dietrich, J., & Counsell, S. (2018). Can you tell me if it smells? A study on how developers discuss code smells and anti-patterns in Stack Overflow. Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE). (pp. 68-78). New York, NY: ACM. doi: 10.1145/3210459.3210466
Tell, P., MacDonell, S., & Licorish, S. A. (2018). 3rd workshop on hybrid development approaches in software system development. In M. Kuhrmann, K. Schneider, D. Pfahl, S. Amasaki, M. Ciolkowski, R. Hebig, … S. Küpper (Eds.), Product-Focused Software Process Improvement (PROFES): Lecture notes in computer science (Vol. 11271). (pp. 433-440). Cham, Switzerland: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-03673-7_34
Licorish, S. A., Zolduoarrati, E., & Stanger, N. (2018). Linking user requests, developer responses and code changes: Android OS case study. Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering. (pp. 79-89). ACM. doi: 10.1145/3210459.3210467
Lotter, A., Licorish, S. A., Savarimuthu, B. T. R., & Meldrum, S. (2018). Code reuse in stack overflow and popular open source Java projects. Proceedings of the 25th Australasian Software Engineering Conference (ASWEC). (pp. 141-150). IEEE. doi: 10.1109/ASWEC.2018.00027
Greenheld, G., Savarimuthu, B. T. R., & Licorish, S. A. (2018). Automating developers' responses to app reviews. Proceedings of the 25th Australasian Software Engineering Conference (ASWEC). (pp. 66-70). IEEE. doi: 10.1109/ASWEC.2018.00017
Yasir, M., Michael, K., Savarimuthu, B. T. R., & Licorish, S. A. (2018). Formal in the informal: A multi-level analysis of core python developers' tweets. Proceedings of the 25th Australasian Software Engineering Conference (ASWEC). (pp. 151-160). IEEE. doi: 10.1109/ASWEC.2018.00028
Diebold, P., Galster, M., Rainer, A., & Licorish, S. A. (2017). Interactive posters: An alternative to collect practitioners' experience. Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE). (pp. 230-235). New York, NY: ACM. doi: 10.1145/3084226.3084272
Licorish, S. A., Savarimuthu, B. T. R., & Keertipati, S. (2017). Attributes that predict which features to fix: Lessons for App Store mining. Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE). (pp. 108-117). New York, NY: ACM. doi: 10.1145/3084226.3084246
Su'a, T., Licorish, S. A., Savarimuthu, B. T. R., & Langlotz, T. (2017). QuickReview: A novel data-driven mobile user interface for reporting problematic app features. Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI). (pp. 517-522). New York, NY: ACM. doi: 10.1145/3025171.3025178
Licorish, S. A., George, J. L., Owen, H. E., & Daniel, B. (2017). “Go Kahoot!” enriching classroom engagement, motivation and learning experience with games. Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Computers in Education (ICCE). (pp. 755-764). Retrieved from http://icce2017.canterbury.ac.nz
Sharma, P., Savarimuthu, B. T. R., Stanger, N., Licorish, S. A., & Rainer, A. (2017). Investigating developers' email discussions during decision-making in Python language evolution. Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE). (pp. 286-291). New York, NY: ACM. doi: 10.1145/3084226.3084271
Meldrum, S., Licorish, S. A., & Savarimuthu, B. T. R. (2017). Crowdsourced knowledge on stack overflow: A systematic mapping study. Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE). (pp. 180-185). New York, NY: ACM. doi: 10.1145/3084226.3084267
Keertipati, S., Licorish, S., & Savarimuthu, B. T. R. (2016). Exploring decision-making processes in Python. Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE). 43. New York: ACM. doi: 10.1145/2915970.2915993
Holvitie, J., Licorish, S. A., Martini, A., & Leppänen, V. (2016). Co-existence of the 'technical debt' and 'software legacy' concepts. In H. Lichter, K. Fögen, T. Sunetnanta, T. Anwar, A. Yamashita, L. Moonen, … A. Sureka (Eds.), Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Quantitative Approaches to Software Quality (QuASoQ) and the 1st International Workshop on Technical Debt Analysis (TDA). (pp. 80-83). Retrieved from http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1771/
Savarimuthu, T., Dam, H. K., Licorish, S. A., Keertipati, S., Avery, D., & Ghose, A. K. (2016). Process compliance in open source software development: A study of Python Enhancement Proposals (PEPS). Proceedings of the 24th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS). 48. Retrieved from http://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2016_rp/48
Lee, C. W., Licorish, S. A., Savarimuthu, B. T. R., & MacDonell, S. G. (2016). Augmenting text mining approaches with social network analysis to understand the complex relationships among users’ requests: A case study of the android operating system. In T. X. Bui & R. H. Sprague (Eds.), Proceedings of the 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). (pp. 1144-1153). IEEE. doi: 10.1109/HICSS.2016.145
Keertipati, S., Savarimuthu, B. T. R., & Licorish, S. A. (2016). Approaches for prioritizing feature improvements extracted from app reviews. Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE). 33. New York: ACM. doi: 10.1145/2915970.2916003
Holvitie, J., Licorish, S. A., & Leppänen, V. (2016). Modelling propagation of technical debt. Proceedings of the 42nd Euromicro Conference Series on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA). (pp. 54-58). IEEE. doi: 10.1109/SEAA.2016.53
Patel, P., Licorish, S., Savarimuthu, B. T. R., & MacDonell, S. (2016). Studying expectation violations in socio-technical systems: A case study of the mobile app community. Proceedings of the 24th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS). 14. Retrieved from http://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2016_rp/14
Licorish, S. A., Holvitie, J., Hyrynsalmi, S., Leppänen, V., Spínola, R. O., Mendes, T. S., MacDonell, S. G., & Buchan, J. (2016). Adoption and suitability of software development methods and practices. Proceedings of the 23rd Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC). (pp. 369-372). IEEE. doi: 10.1109/APSEC.2016.062
Licorish, S. A., Tahir, A., Bosu, M. F., & MacDonell, S. G. (2015). On satisfying the Android OS community: User feedback still central to developers' portfolios. Proceedings of the 24th Australasian Software Engineering Conference (ASWEC). (pp. 78-87). IEEE. doi: 10.1109/aswec.2015.19
Licorish, S. A., Lee, C. W., Savarimuthu, B. T. R., Patel, P., & MacDonell, S. G. (2015). They’ll know it when they see it: Analyzing post-release feedback from the android community. Proceedings of the 21st Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS). Retrieved from http://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1407&context=amcis2015
Licorish, S. A., MacDonell, S. G., & Clear, T. (2015). Analyzing confidentiality and privacy concerns: Insights from Android issue logs. Proceedings of the 19th Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE) International Conference. 18. New York: ACM. doi: 10.1145/2745802.2745819
Licorish, S., & MacDonell, S. (2014). Relating IS developers’ attitudes to engagement. Proceedings of the 25th Australasian Conference on Information Systems (ACIS). Retrieved from http://aut.researchgateway.ac.nz/handle/10292/7977
Licorish, S. A., & MacDonell, S. G. (2014). Combining text mining and visualization techniques to study teams' behavioral processes. Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Mining Unstructured Data (MUD). (pp. 16-20). IEEE. doi: 10.1109/MUD.2014.10
Licorish, S. A., & MacDonell, S. G. (2014). Personality profiles of global software developers. Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE). 45. New York: ACM. doi: 10.1145/2601248.2601265
Licorish, S. A., & MacDonell, S. G. (2013). How do globally distributed agile teams self-organise? Initial insights from a case study. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering (ENASE). (pp. 157-164). Angers, France: SCITEPRESS. doi: 10.5220/0004437001570164
Licorish, S. A., & MacDonell, S. G. (2013). The true role of active communicators: An empirical study of Jazz core developers. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE). (pp. 228-239). New York: ACM. doi: 10.1145/2460999.2461034
Licorish, S., & MacDonell, S. (2013). Self-organising roles in agile globally distributed teams. Proceedings of the 24th Australasian Conference on Information Systems (ACIS). Retrieved from http://researchbank.rmit.edu.au/view/rmit:161006
Licorish, S. A., & MacDonell, S. G. (2013). Differences in Jazz project leaders' competencies and behaviors: A preliminary empirical investigation. Proceedings of the 6th Cooperative & Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE) International Workshop. IEEE. doi: 10.1109/CHASE.2013.6614725
Licorish, S. A., & MacDonell, S. G. (2013). What can developers' messages tell us? A psycholinguistic analysis of Jazz teams' attitudes and behavior patterns. Proceedings of the 22nd Australian Software Engineering Conference (ASWEC). (pp. 107-116). IEEE. doi: 10.1109/ASWEC.2013.22
Licorish, S. A., & MacDonell, S. G. (2013). Adopting softer approaches in the study of repository data: A comparative analysis. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE). (pp. 240-245). New York: ACM. doi: 10.1145/2460999.2461035
