Software changes, but its documentation does not always keep up. How can development teams recognize documentation decay before valuable knowledge is lost? In this master’s thesis, you will investigate what causes documentation decay and how software teams can identify and address it.
Documentation plays an important role in software development by capturing knowledge about systems, processes and decisions. Over time, however, software systems continue to evolve while documentation is often updated less frequently. As a result, documentation may become outdated, incomplete or unreliable, making it harder for development teams to find and trust the information they need.
Although this phenomenon is widely recognized in practice, questions remain about how documentation loses value over time, which factors contribute to this process, and how organizations can recognize and address documentation decay effectively.
The Assignment
In this assignment, you will investigate the phenomenon of documentation decay in software systems. You will explore how documentation evolves alongside software, which factors influence its long-term usefulness, and how organizations can maintain valuable documentation as systems change.
Previous research provides several starting points for investigating documentation decay. Studies have explored detecting outdated code references in documentation, analyzing changes to code and docstrings and classifying documentation issues reported by developers. These approaches offer potential ways to investigate documentation decay using data from open-source projects.
Based on your research, you will develop and evaluate an approach that helps organizations gain insight into documentation decay and its causes. Depending on your findings, this may result in a model, framework, method or prototype that supports software teams in maintaining valuable and trustworthy documentation over time. The outcome should provide practical insights that help software teams preserve knowledge in long-lived software systems.
About Info Support
Info Support specializes in custom software, data/AI solutions, management, and training and is active in the Finance, Industry, Agriculture, Food & Retail, Mobility & Public, and Healthcare sectors. We provide solid and innovative solutions for complex and critical software issues. Our headquarters are located in Veenendaal (NL) and Mechelen (BE). At present, approximately 500 employees are employed by Info Support.
Info Support’s working method is characterized by a number of core values: solidity, integrity, craftsmanship, and passion. These core values are intertwined in our work and the way we interact with each other.
To ensure that all employees are always up to date with the latest developments, Info Support has an in-house IT Academy that eagerly satisfies the hunger for more or different knowledge and skills.
B2 language proficiency in Dutch is required.
