ASWEC 2014 - 23rd Australasian Software Engineering Conference (ASWEC)

ASWEC was established in 1986 and is Australasia’s leading forum for the software engineering profession to describe important new research results and report valuable project experiences.
Software is everywhere, and the way it is built remains a challenge. In the past decades, software engineering as a discipline has produced many theoretical and practical results. As software is playing more important roles in ever larger and more complex systems, traditional software engineering is interacting substantially with more fields. For example, the emerging research activities around DevOps are looking at the complex interactions between product development and operations in modern IT infrastructure. The challenges in building highly dependable large-scale systems lie in reconnecting logic-based formal methods with other statistical approaches in new ways to better manage the uncertainties of the environment and provide assurance cases. Industry’s use of dynamic, concurrent and functional programming languages in specific domains is making programming language research more connected to software engineering. Cloud computing, service-oriented computing, mobile apps, big data, Internet of Things and software ecosystems are also bringing new contexts to software engineering research.
The scope of software engineering research needs to be expanded and more interaction with other communities will benefit the research going forward. The theme for the next ASWEC is “The Future of Software Engineering”. We are particularly seeking contributions that help redefine the future scope of software engineering from both the traditional software engineering community and other fields. Topics of interest for ASWEC14 include (but are not limited to) the following:
Agile Methods
Computer Supported Cooperative Software Engineering
Configuration Management
Dependable and Secure Computing
DevOps and Operations (esp. in Distributed/Cloud Environment)
Domain-specific Models and Languages, and Model Driven Development
Domain-specific Applications for Logistics, Finance, Health Care, Manufacturing, Defence and etc.
Empirical Research in Software Engineering
Engineering Big Data and Analytics Applications
Engineering Cloud Applications
Engineering/operating Large-Scale Distributed Systems
Formal Methods
Knowledge-Based Software Engineering
Legacy Systems, Software Maintenance and Reverse Engineering
Measurement, Metrics, Experimentation
Mobile Computing and Apps Development
Modularisation Techniques, including Component-Based Software Engineering and Aspect-Oriented Programming
Open Source Software Development
Programming Languages and Techniques such as Dynamic Languages, Concurrent and Functional Programming
Quality Assurance
Real-Time and Embedded Software
Requirements Engineering
Service Oriented Architectures and Services Engineering
Software Analysis and Visualisation
Software Architecture, Design and Patterns
Software Documentation
Software Ecosystem and Ultra-Large-Scale Systems
Software Engineering of Multi-Agent Systems
Software Engineering of Services
Software for Internet of Things and Ubiquitous Computing
Software Modelling Approaches
Software Performance Engineering
Software Processes and Quality
Software Project Management and Risk Management
Software Reuse and Product Lines
Software Security, Safety and Reliability
Software Verification and Validation
Standards and Legal Issues
Usability
Web Applications and REST
Contributions for ASWEC 2014 can be submitted in the form of: Research submissions, Industry/Government submissions, Education submissions, and Doctoral Symposium submissions.
Research Submissions
Research submissions include both full and short paper submissions. Full papers (10 pages, CPS format) include research papers presenting original and significant research ideas with reasonable evaluation, or reflective experience reports describing best practices, lessons learned or any other valuable experiences in real-world project context. Short papers (4 pages, CPS format) may be about interesting novel ideas (but less focussed on evaluation), discussion-stimulating real-world experiences, or position papers on research directions (especially ones on expanding the software engineering research scope in collaboration with other fields).
Research submissions will be reviewed by at least three reviewers. Accepted papers will be published in the ASWEC Proceedings by Conference Publishing Services (CPS) and will be submitted for indexing (e.g. the EI index), under the condition that one of the authors registers and attends the conference to present. The presentation format will differ from the past; authors will deliver a short oral account suitable for a general computing audience, that explains the problem being addressed and the main idea of the contribution. Each accepted paper should also provide a poster to be displayed at the conference.
Industry/Government Submissions
ASWEC 2014 is looking for experience reports, case studies and research presentations that discuss the application of Software Engineering practices in the real context. This provides opportunities to software engineers and thought leaders to share, network and learn from each other through the presentation of industry success and failure cases. Industry presentations will provide important insights into future research directions and share practices which worked and which did not work. We invite submissions that discuss lessons learned and share experiences about the benefits and limitations of Software Engineering practices. Industry/government submissions should be based on actual practice, and should cover all sides of the story ? strengths and weaknesses, successes and challenges relevant to Software Engineering practices. Prospective presenters are invited to submit an abstract (500-1000 words approximately) which outlines the proposed presentation with some key takeaways; additional material such as proposed slides or more discussion may also be submitted. All industry/government submissions will be reviewed by the program committee. Authors of accepted presentations should then provide content (such as the intended presentation slides, or a paper) that will be published in the conference proceedings that are distributed to participants; a “permission to publish” form will need to be signed by the authors or their organizations. Authors also have the option, if they choose, of allowing the published material to be archived in the INFORMIT digital library that is accessible free by members of Engineers Australia, and at a fee by others. One author from each accepted submission is required to register as a delegate and present at the conference.
Education Submissions
We invite submissions in a variety of formats: full papers, short papers, and discussions papers that summarise and reflect on start-of-the-art teaching approaches or exciting news that the whole SE education community would find useful. Full papers (10 pages, CPS format) include papers that describe research in teaching or developing SE curriculum, including theoretical and grounded theory works, as well as best practice and technique integration papers, with a clear description of the evaluation of the approach and recommendations to the community in general. Short papers (4 pages, CPS format) could convey novel ideas that provide a sound theoretical basis but have not yet been implemented, as well as smaller case studies on approaches where the evaluation is not yet complete, and positions papers on research directions. Discussion papers (6 pages, CPS format) can provide a venue to summarise two or more existing papers with an emphasis on increasing the community’s knowledge base for discussing and developing educational ideas, or to clarify industry perspectives on desirable outcomes from SE education.
All education submissions will be reviewed by the program committee. Authors of accepted education presentations are required to submit the final version of their papers for publication in the conference proceedings that are distributed to participants; a “permission to publish” form will need to be signed by the authors. Authors also have the option, if they choose, of allowing the published material to be archived in the INFORMIT digital library that is accessible free by members of Engineers Australia, and at a fee by others. One author from each accepted submission is required to register as a delegate and present at the conference.
Doctoral Symposium Submissions
The aim of the ASWEC 2014 doctoral symposium is to give PhD students the opportunity to present their research to receive constructive feedback from a panel of senior researchers in software engineering. The doctoral symposium is run in a highly interactive and workshop-like format. To obtain maximum benefit from this symposium, students should consider participating after they have settled on a research topic, with a defined problem statement and some ideas about the solution that they want to discuss. Papers submitted to the doctoral symposium should not exceed 4 pages. Contents should cover: (1) Related work in the area of study, which clearly defines the gap, and the problem to be solved with a justification of its importance (2) The specific research question that arises from the identified problem (3) The proposed approach to address the research question (4) Progress in solving the stated problem. For more advanced students, papers should also describe (5) The main contribution(s) from the research work (6) The method used to carry out the research, which should include the plan for evaluating the approach and presenting evidence of the results (7) Preliminary results.
To apply as a student participant to the Doctoral Symposium the following two documents must be submitted before 31st January 2014.
Extended Research Abstract: Research abstracts must be formatted according to the CPS formatting guidelines and must not exceed 4 pages, including all text, references, appendices, and figures. Research abstracts must be in English and submitted via Easychair in PDF format.
Recommendation Letter: A letter of recommendation from your main PhD advisor that includes your name, and an assessment of the current status of your dissertation research. The letter should be in PDF format and should be sent by your advisor directly by e-mail to Doctoral Symposium Chair, Didar Zowghi. This letter will be held confidential.
Evaluation Criteria: Participants for ASWEC Doctoral Symposium will be selected using the following criteria: (1) The quality and potential of the research and its relevance to Software Engineering (2) The stage of the research and its suitability for the Doctoral Symposium.