ACSEAC 2011 - Doctoral Symposium African Conference on Software Engineering and Applied Computing ACSEAC 2011

The aim of the Doctoral Symposium is to provide early feedback to students who are currently preparing their PhD research within the general area of Software Engineering and Applied Computing. A friendly atmosphere is envisaged for students to present their research and to discuss it constructively with senior researchers. It will also create an opportunity for students to meet other doctoral students who are at the same stage of their dissertation research.

Selected students will present their thesis topic, the work they have performed so far and the results that they have obtained; they will furthermore discuss their research issues and ideas, receive constructive feedback and present themselves as upcoming researchers. They can also expose the difficulties encountered and the problems that have not yet been resolved, and ask for comments from the audience.

The main objectives of this event are to:

Provide a forum in which students receive constructive feedback and guidance;
Provide students with a forum for building a network with other PhD students as well as with more senior researchers;
Assist PhD students to practice writing clearly and presenting their research effectively;
Assist students in selecting an adequate research methodology for their PhD work;
Build bridges for potential research collaboration; and
Contribute to the ACSEAC conference goals.
The Doctoral Symposium is intended for students who have not yet completed their dissertation research and who do not expect to write up their dissertation before the conference. Each student will give a presentation of 20 minutes, followed by 15 minutes of questions and feedback. Additionally, the panellists may interview the selected candidates before the conference, so that suggestions and advice can also be given in advance. In addition to scientific matters, students will also receive feedback on various aspects of completing a PhD and performing research as a young professional in software engineering.

Topics covered in the Doctoral Symposium will closely align with the technical topics of interest to the conference.

Submission

Interested students should submit 3-4 page extended abstracts, singly authored and describing their research, using the standard paper submission template for the conference. Formatted according to the IEEE two-column conference style, a maximum of 4 pages will be allowed for the extended abstracts and the paper should be in .pdf file format. See template for details. Proposal abstracts must be e-mailed to the Doctoral Symposium Co-chairs docsymp[-AT-]acseac.org.

Abstracts of the papers will be in the conference proceedings. Registration at the conference is required for the proposal to be printed in the Proceedings. Doctoral students who submit to the Symposium are encouraged to submit a full paper or short paper on their research.

Important pointers:

Your name and contact information
Title describing your research
Short abstract
Research area and sub-area of your work
What is the nature of the problem you are addressing?
What is the main significance of this problem?
Brief literature review, as well as current solutions/approaches
Description of proposed research methodology
Results achieved so far (if any)
The expected contributions of your research
Review criteria

Submissions will be reviewed by the Symposium Panel and selected for inclusion in the symposium according to the following criteria:

Quality of the research proposal; this must include a clear, concise statement of the research questions or problem and why it is important
Discussion on what related work is already published, and how your research will add to that field
Relevance to the conference topics
Quality of the references used
Quality of the proposal presentation
It is expected that students at different stages in their PhD may address these issues differently