Software Engineering in Saudi Arabia: A Bibliometric Assessment

This paper presents a bibliometric assessment of the Software Engineering (SE) community in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The assessment was based on the number of SE papers published by KSA-based SE researchers in SE-related venues and indexed in Scopus between years 1984-2019. The assessment aimed to measure the volume of research contribution produced by KSA-based researchers and institutions to the SE field. 802 SE papers were published by KSA-based SE researchers and the top active institution in the domain is King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) and the top active researcher is Mohammad Alshayeb who is affiliated to KFUPM. The results estimated that KSA produced around %0.62 of the world-wide SE knowledge which indicates that KSA SE community needs to increase the volume of its publications to be more active in the worldwide SE community. The results also show that from 2007 onwards, the annual publication trend of KSA SE community has been growing in a healthy rate reaching 113 published papers in 2019. Additionally, 56% of the papers were internationally-authored and the highest international collaborations were with researchers from the USA, Tunisia and the UK respectively. In general, KSA is performing well comparing to three of its neighboring countries (UAE, Jordan and Egypt) in terms of the quantity of the published SE papers and received citations. However, in comparison to developed countries, the results suggest that more work on the quantity, quality and visibility of the SE papers authored by KSA-based researchers is needed.

Automated summary

This study assessed the research output of the Software Engineering community in Saudi Arabia between 1984-2019, with 802 papers published. The results showed that KSA contributes around 0.62% of the worldwide SE knowledge, emphasizing the need for increased research output. Collaborations were primarily with the USA, Tunisia, and the UK, highlighting the international reach of KSA's SE community.