TechDebt 2025 will be offering mentorship to help bring new researchers to the community and assist those who would like to improve their papers by getting independent advice to ensure that papers are consistent with the existing technical debt body of work, focus on critical open challenges, and are accessible to everyone. This page summarizes the structure of the TechDebt 2025 Mentorship Program.
The goal of paper writing mentorship is to seek help from seasoned researchers on your paper. You may receive advice on a submission in any of the submission categories in TechDebt 2025. The mentoring program is open to anyone who thinks they can benefit from working with a mentor in preparing their paper. If you think you would benefit from mentoring because you are new to presenting your research, new to the type of category you would like to submit to, or a seasoned author but seek assistance in preparing your paper, please consider applying for mentoring help.
The deadline to apply is October 8, 2024. Please apply by filling the following form. Anyone can take advantage of the mentoring program, regardless whether you are brand new to the TechDebt conference, or have already published at TechDebt or other conferences before.
Mentoring typically pertains to the process of composing the submission, with at least two communication sessions: one initial meeting when a draft is ready and one right before the deadline to submit. The first meeting should occur at least a month before the submission deadline, and the second one should be at least 5 days before the submission. It is the authors’ responsibility to reach out and adhere to this very strongly recommended schedule with their mentor. Scheduling any additional communication sessions is at the discretion of the mentee and mentor. After reviews are received, mentees are encouraged to contact their mentor again and seek advice on interpreting the reviewers’ comments. Even if the submission is accepted, this final session may help the mentee produce an even better camera-ready version.
Mentors provide feedback to authors on a draft of their paper and particularly assist in communicating the contributions of the work, the methods followed, the gaps, and relevance to the technical debt body of work. Mentors are not co-authors on the paper, their role is to provide advice during the writing process. Mentoring is not a prerequisite for submitting a paper. It is meant to help improve the communication of the work and bring in new researchers to our community.
Participating in the TechDebt 2025 Mentoring Program does not guarantee that the paper will be accepted. However, most individuals who have used the mentoring service at other conferences (e.g. ASSETS or CHI) have reported positive experiences and an improved understanding of what reviewers require in general. (The structure of TechDebt 2025 mentoring program is heavily inspired from ASSETS, we thank ASSETS organizers for the great information available and paving the way.)
Authors must also refer to the TechDebt 2025 Author guidelines when preparing submissions.
Mentees
The deadline to apply is October 8, 2024. Please apply by filing the following form. The submissions are going to be treated confidentially and the PC will not know which submissions have been mentored.
Mentors
Once we have matched the mentor and mentee and put them in touch, they are of course free to choose whatever communication method they prefer. As a mentor you are committing to reading the paper and holding two meetings to provide ongoing advice and providing advice once the reviews are received. Holding additional meetings is at your discretion. One suggested communication flow is the following:
- The mentee sends the submission to the mentor to give her/him/them a chance to read it in advance,
- The mentor and mentee set up an appointment for a video call,
- The mentee shares a link of the most recent version of the text with the mentor,
- At the scheduled time, the mentor and mentee establish the video call and discuss the submission.
- At the end of the first meeting the mentor and mentee decide on the time and structure of the second or any other subsequent meetings.
If you would like to volunteer in the TechDebt 2025 mentor program, please contact the Mentorship program chair Ipek Ozkaya at ozkaya at sei.cmu.edu with the following information: why you would like to mentor and how does your current work relate to technical debt management practice and research.
The mentors agree to keep all the details about the paper, data, and authors confidential.
TechDebt 2025 Mentorship Program team will do their best to identify most suitable mentors based on their expertise to the topics of the paper, but in some cases this may not be possible. Regardless, all applicants will be matched with a mentor.
Conflicts
Mentors are volunteers who choose to serve as part of the mentorship program and ideally will not join TechDebt 2025 PC. In the rare cases where the mentor is also a member of the PC, they are prohibited from reviewing the papers that they have mentored. In the event of an erroneous assignment the mentors are obliged to inform the PC chairs ASAP.