One of the main reasons for undertaking the informal survey provided here is to examine how different mapping studies have performed this task of analysis. While the software engineering Guidelines (Kitchenham & Charters 2007) provide considerable guidance on performing data extraction and analysis for an SLR, they provide very little advice on how to undertake these tasks for a mapping study. Indeed, it may only be possible to determine the most appropriate forms of analysis once the form and extent of the available dataset is known and has been classified in some way. Our experiences suggest that deciding how to classify and categorise the studies found may well provide one of the major problems
for the inexperienced analyst—and given that mapping studies are (superficially at least) a potentially useful starting point for research students and even for some advanced undergraduate projects, it would seem to merit closer examination.