8th IEEE Workshop on Next Level of Test AutomationNEXTA 2025

Co-located with the IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification, and Validation (ICST 2025)

Theme and Goals

NEXTA 2025 is the eighth edition of the IEEE Workshop on Test Automation - highly relevant for both research and industry. Thus, NEXTA aims to attract both academic researchers and industry practitioners. Test automation has been an acknowledged software engineering best practice for years. However, the topic involves more than the repeated execution of test cases that often comes first to mind. Simply running test cases using a unit testing framework is no longer enough for test automation to keep up with the ever-shorter release cycles driven by continuous deployment and technological innovations such as microservices and DevOps pipelines. Now test automation needs to rise to the next level by going beyond mere test execution. The NEXTA workshop will explore how to advance test automation to further contribute to software quality in the context of tomorrow’s rapid release cycles. Takeaways for industry practitioners and academic researchers will encompass test case generation, automated test result analysis, test suite assessment and maintenance, and infrastructure for the future of test automation.

Call for Papers

Theme and Goals

NEXTA 2025 is the eighth edition of the IEEE Workshop on Next Level of Test Automation - highly relevant for both research and industry. Thus, NEXTA aims to attract both academic researchers and industry practitioners. Test automation has been an acknowledged software engineering best practice for years. However, the topic involves more than the repeated execution of test cases that often comes first to mind. Simply running test cases using a unit testing framework is no longer enough for test automation to keep up with the ever-shorter release cycles driven by continuous deployment and technological innovations such as microservices and DevOps pipelines. Now test automation needs to rise to the next level by going beyond mere test execution. The NEXTA workshop will explore how to advance test automation to further contribute to software quality in the context of tomorrow’s rapid release cycles. Takeaways for industry practitioners and academic researchers will encompass test case generation, automated test result analysis, test suite assessment and maintenance, and infrastructure for the future of test automation.

Topics of Interest

NEXTA solicits contributions targeting all aspects of test automation, from initial test design to automated verdict analysis. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Test execution automation
• Test case generation
• Automatic test design generation
• Analytics, learning, and big data in relation to test automation
• Automatic aspects management in test, progress, reporting, planning, etc.
• Visualization of test
• Evolution of test automation
• Test suite architecture and infrastructure
• Test environment, simulation, and other contextual issues for automated testing
• Test tools, frameworks, and general support for test automation
• Testing in an agile and continuous integration context, and testing within DevOps
• Orchestration of test
• Metrics, benchmarks, and estimation on any type of test automation
• Any type of test technologies relying on automation of test
• Process improvements and assessments related to test automation
• Test automation maturity and experience reports on test automation
• Automatic retrieval of test data and test preparation aspect
• Maintainability, monitoring, and refactoring of automated test suites
• Training and education on automated testing
• Automated test for product lines and high-variability systems
• Test automation patterns
• Automated test oracle

NEXTA solicits the following types of original papers:

• Technical Papers (max. 8 pages). Full papers presenting research results or industrial practices related to the next generation of test automation.
• Position and Experience Papers (max. 4 pages). Short papers introducing challenges, visions, positions, or preliminary results within the scope of the workshop. Experience reports and papers on open challenges in the industry are especially welcome.
• Tool Papers (max. 4 pages). Tool papers introduce tools that implement an approach to support the transition to the next generation of test automation. A tool paper submission must include either 1) a URL to a screencast of the tool in action, or 2) a runnable version of the tool for evaluation by the program committee.

Authors should submit a PDF version of their paper through the ICST 2025 paper submission site (please select the NEXTA track). All accepted papers will be part of the ICST joint workshop proceedings published in the IEEE Digital Library.

Submission Format

All papers must conform to the two-column IEEE conference publication format. It must conform to the IEEE Conference Proceedings Formatting Guidelines (please use the letter format template and conference option). The submission must also comply with the ACM plagiarism policy and procedures. In particular, it must not have been published elsewhere and must not be under review elsewhere while under review for NEXTA. The submission must also comply with the IEEE Policy on Authorship.

For more info, please contact: Leo Hatvani, Organization Co-chair, leo.hatvani@mdu.se.