Metrology, measurement and metrics in software engineering

Up until recently software 'metrics' have been most often proposed as the quantitative tools of choice in software engineering, and the analysis of these had been most often discussed from the perspective referred to as 'measurement theory'. However, in other disciplines, it is the domain of knowledge referred to as 'metrology' that is the foundation for the development and use of measurement instruments and measurement processes. The IEEE-computer society, with the support of a consortium of industrial sponsors, has recently published a guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK) and, throughout this guide, measurement is pervasive as a fundamental engineering tool. We use our initial modelling of the sets of measurement concepts documented in the ISO international vocabulary of basic and general terms in metrology to investigate and position the measurement concepts within this body of knowledge, and to identify gaps where further research on software measurement is required.