Systematic mapping study of model transformations for concrete problems

As a contribution to the adoption of the Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) paradigm, the research community has proposed concrete model transformation solutions for the MDE infrastructure and for domain-specific problems. However, as the adoption increases and with the advent of the new initiatives for the creation of repositories, it is legitimate to question whether proposals for concrete transformation problems can be still considered as research contributions or if they respond to a practical/technical work. In this paper, we report on a systematic mapping study that aims at understanding the trends and characteristics of concrete model transformations published in the past decade. Our study shows that the number of papers with, as main contribution, a concrete transformation solution, is not as high as expected. This number increased to reach a peak in 2010 and is decreasing since then. Our results also include a characterization and an analysis of the published proposals following a rigorous classification scheme.