RE’23 welcomes original research papers focusing on traditional areas of requirements engineering, as well as new ideas which challenge the boundaries of the area. The research paper track is the main track for long-form new research, including new technical solutions, scientific evaluations, and perspective papers.

Accepted Papers

	Title
	A Comparative Evaluation of Requirement Template Systems Research Papers A: Katharina Großer, A: Marina Rukavitsyna, A: Jan Jürjens DOI Pre-print File Attached
	A Data-Driven Approach for Finding Requirements Relevant Feedback from TikTok and YouTube Research Papers A: Manish Sihag, A: Ze Shi Li, A: Amanda Dash, A: Nowshin Nawar Arony, A: Kezia Devathasan, A: Neil Ernst, A: Alexandra Albu, A: Daniela Damian
	All Eyes on Traceability: An Interview Study on Industry Practices and Eye Tracking Potential Research Papers A: Maike Ahrens, A: Lukas Nagel File Attached
	Analysis and optimisation of SPL products using goal models Research Papers A: Inmaculada Ayala, A: Mercedes Amor, A: Lidia Fuentes Pre-print File Attached
	An Experiment on the Effects of using Color to Visualize Requirements Analysis Tasks Research Papers A: Yesugen Baatartogtokh, A: Irene Foster, A: Alicia M. Grubb Pre-print
	A Requirements-Driven Platform for Validating Field Operations of Small Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles Research Papers A: Ankit Agrawal, A: Bohan Zhang, A: Yashaswini Shivalingaiah, A: Michael Vierhauser, A: Jane Cleland-Huang Pre-print Media Attached File Attached
	A Transformer-based Approach for Abstractive Summarization of Requirements from Obligations in Software Engineering Contracts Research Papers A: Chirag Jain, A: Preethu Rose Anish, A: Amrita Singh, A: Smita Ghaisas File Attached
	Eliciting the Double-edged Impact of Digitalisation: a Case Study in Rural Areas Research Papers A: Alessio Ferrari, A: Fabio Lepore, A: Livia Ortolani, A: Gianluca Brunori Pre-print File Attached
	ML-based Compliance Verification of Data Processing Agreements against GDPR Research Papers A: Orlando Amaral, A: Sallam Abualhaija, A: Lionel Briand Pre-print File Attached
	Mobile Application Privacy Risk Assessments from User-authored Scenarios Research Papers A: Tianjian Huang, A: Vaishnavi Kaulagi, A: Mitra Bokaei Hosseini, A: Travis Breaux Pre-print
	Prompting Creative Requirements via Traceable and Adversarial Examples in Deep Learning Research Papers A: Hemanth Gudaparthi, A: Nan Niu, A: Boyang Wang, A: Tanmay Bhowmik, A: Hui Liu, A: Jianzhang Zhang, A: Juha Savolainen, A: Glen Horton, A: Sean Crowe, A: Thomas Scherz, A: Lisa Haitz
	Quantifying Requirements Technical Debt: A Systematic Mapping Study and a Conceptual Model Research Papers A: Judith Perera, A: Ewan Tempero, A: Yu-Cheng Tu, A: Kelly Blincoe Pre-print Media Attached File Attached
	Synthesized data quality requirements and roadmap for improving reusability of in-situ marine data Research Papers A: Ngoc-Thanh Nguyen, A: Keila Lima, A: Astrid Marie Skalvik, A: Rogardt Heldal, A: Eric Knauss, A: Tosin Daniel Oyetoyan, A: Patrizio Pelliccione, A: Camilla Sætre File Attached
	User Driven Functionality Deletion for Mobile Apps Research Papers A: Maleknaz Nayebi, A: Konstantin Kuznetsov, A: Andreas Zeller, A: Guenther Ruhe
	Zero-shot Learning for Named Entity Recognition in Software Specification Documents Research Papers A: Souvick Das, A: Novarun Deb, A: Agostino Cortesi, A: Nabendu Chaki

Call for Papers

RE’23 welcomes original papers focusing on the traditional RE topics; however, this year’s edition would like to also invite submissions on the theme: “Redefining RE: Challenging RE Perceptions, Boundaries, and Topics”. With this theme, the RE’23 organizers ask the RE community to challenge their notion of what is and is not included as part of requirements engineering, and how these boundaries affect successful buy-in and application of RE research in industry. With this theme, we encourage submissions to:

• Challenge the boundaries of requirements engineering: given the changing landscape and paradigms of software and system developing, including the pervasiveness of agile methods and the rise in AI and machine learning, as well as cyber-physical and embedded systems, what sorts of problems and topics will be in the scope of RE in the years to come? What topics are out of scope? How do we maintain our identity as a community and continue to utilize our expertise while adapting to new needs and ways of working?
• Propose new theories, topics and methods, or a revision of existing RE topics: these may be needed to address the changing landscape of software and systems development. This may include new or revised theories, novel topics, new collaborations, increased transdisciplinarity, new tactics or topics for education and for revising the industrial perception of requirements engineering.

Suggested Paper Topics

Although we are interested in discussing and revising the boundaries of RE, the RE conference typically welcomes papers which focus on the following topics. This list is not intended to be complete, but to give potential authors guidance on whether the RE’23 is a good fit for their paper topic. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Requirements Elicitation and Prioritization
• Requirements Analysis and Specification
• Requirements Verification and Validation
• Requirements Management
• Pragmatic Requirements Engineering
• Theoretical Requirements Foundations
• Large-scale Requirements Engineering
• Agile Requirements Engineering
• Requirements Engineering and Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery/DevOps
• Requirements, Configuration, Variability and Product Lines
• Requirements and Adaptive Systems
• Requirements Traceability and Dependencies
• Requirements Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
• Requirements in Open-Source Software Projects
• Requirements and Issue Tracking
• Requirements and Architecture
• Quality Engineering
• Product Management and Release Planning
• Global Requirements Engineering
• Online Feedback and User Review Analysis
• Domain-specific Requirements Engineering
• Requirements Engineering for Societal Challenges
• Requirements Engineering for Artificial Intelligence
• Requirements in System Engineering/System Science
• Requirements Engineering Education and Training
• Empirical Studies, Measurements and Prediction

Categories for Research Papers

The RE’23 Research Track invites original submissions of research papers in three categories: Technical Solution, Scientific Evaluation, and Perspective.

• Technical Solution papers present solutions for requirements-related problems that are novel or significantly improve on existing solutions. This includes new algorithms or theory, novel tools, modeling languages, infrastructures, or other technologies. All requirements-related activities, such as elicitation, prioritization, or analysis are in scope. These papers are mainly evaluated with regard to problem significance, novelty in comparison with existing work, clarity of presentation, technical soundness, and evidence for its benefits.
• Scientific Evaluation papers evaluate existing problem situations or real-world artifacts, or they validate or refute proposed solutions by scientific means. This includes experiments, case studies, and surveys reporting qualitative and quantitative data and findings. The papers are mainly evaluated with regard to the soundness of research questions and appropriateness and correctness of study design, data analysis, and threats to validity. Replications are welcome. Lessons learned can be particularly important to complement other empirical results.
• Perspective papers explore the history, successes, and challenges of requirements related practices and research agendas, and outline research roadmaps for the future. Literature reviews are also included in this category and must distill novel knowledge, present new insights, and not be a mere compilation. These papers are evaluated based on the insights they offer to the reader and the corresponding arguments, and on their potential to shape future research.

Prospective authors who are unsure about relevance are welcome to contact the PC chairs for a preliminary assessment of the scope.

Review Criteria

Papers submitted to the RE’23 Research Track will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Soundness: The extent to which the paper’s contributions and/or innovations address its research questions and are supported by rigorous application of appropriate research methods.
• Significance: The extent to which the paper’s contributions can impact the field of requirements engineering, and under which assumptions (if any).
• Novelty: The extent to which the paper's contributions are sufficiently original with respect to the state-of-the-art. Note that Scientific evaluation papers do not have to introduce a novel solution.
• Related Work: The extent to which the paper's contributions are appropriately compared to related work.
• Verifiability and Transparency: The extent to which the paper includes sufficient information to understand how an innovation works; to understand how data was obtained, analyzed, and interpreted; and how the paper supports independent verification or replication of the paper’s claimed contributions. Note that perspective papers do not always require full verifiability and transparency.
• Presentation: The extent to which the paper’s quality of writing meets the high standards of the RE conference series, including clear descriptions, as well as adequate use of the English language, absence of major ambiguity, clearly readable figures and tables, and adherence to the provided formatting instructions. The RE 2023 Research Track follows a double-blind review process.

Reviewers will carefully consider all of these criteria during the review process, and authors should take great care in clearly addressing them. The authors should clearly explain the claimed contributions, and how they are sound, significant, novel, and verifiable, as described above.

Downloads

Call for Contributions as PDF Call for Papers as PDF

Papers must be submitted electronically in PDF format via the RE’23 EasyChair system. Select the RE’23 Research Track for your submission.

In order to guide the reviewing process, all authors who intend to submit a paper must first submit the title and abstract. Abstracts should describe explicit coverage of context, objectives, methods, and results and conclusions, and should not exceed 200 words.

Papers must not exceed 10 pages for the main body and up to 2 additional pages for the references. Submissions must be written in English and formatted according to the IEEE formatting instructions. Submissions must be double-blinded in conformance with the instructions below.

Please note: Papers that exceed the length specification, are not formatted correctly, or are not properly double-blinded will be desk-rejected without review. Only full paper submissions will be peer-reviewed. Abstract-only submissions will be discarded without further notice after the submission deadline. Accepted papers may require editing for clarity prior to publication and presentation. They will appear in the IEEE Digital Library.

Instructions for the Double-Blind Review Process

The RE’23 Research track will use a double-blind reviewing process. The goal of double-blind reviewing is to ensure that the reviewers can read and review your paper without having to know who any of the authors are, and hence avoid related bias. Of course, authors are allowed and encouraged to submit papers that build on their previously published work.

In order to prepare your submission for double-blind reviewing, please follow the instructions given below.

1. Omit all names and affiliations of authors from the title page, but keep sufficient space to re-introduce them in the final version should the paper be accepted.
2. Do not include any acknowledgements that might disclose your identity. Leave space in your submission to add such acknowledgements when the paper has been accepted.
3. Refer to your own work in the third person, as you would normally do with the work of others. You should not change the names of your own tools, approaches, or systems, since this would clearly compromise the review process; it would also violate the constraint that “no change is made to any technical details of the work”. Instead, refer to the authorship or provenance of tools, approaches, or systems in the third person, so that it is credible that another author could have written your paper. In particular, never blind references.
4. When providing supplementary material (e.g., tools, data repositories, source code, study protocols), do this via a website that does not disclose your identity. Please refer to the Open Science Policy in the Call for Papers with guidelines on how to anonymize such content.
5. Adhere to instruction 3 when citing previously published own work.
6. Remove identification metadata from the PDF file before submission (in Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can check their presence with File Properties, or Ctrl-D).

Important Policy Announcements

Papers submitted to RE’23 must be original. They will be reviewed under the assumption that they do not contain plagiarized material and have not been published nor submitted for review elsewhere while under consideration for RE’23.

RE’23 follows the IEEE policies for cases of double submission and plagiarism

The format of your paper must strictly adhere to the IEEEtran Proceedings Format.

LaTeX users: please use the LaTeX class file IEEEtran v1.8 and the following configuration (without option ‘compsoc’ or ‘compsocconf’):

\documentclass[conference]{IEEEtran}

Word users: please use this Word template (official IEEE Templates page for more information).

Please make sure that your submission

• does not exceed the respective page limit specified in the track call
• is in PDF format,
• is in letter page size,
• does not have page numbers,
• has all fonts embedded in the PDF file,
• uses only scalable font types (like Type 1, TrueType) --- bit-mapped font types (like Type 3) are not acceptable,
• has all figures embedded in vector graphics (if not possible, use a high-resolution bitmap format of at least 300 dpi; do not use JPG, but a lossless format like PNG or GIF),
• has all text in figures and tables large enough and readable when printed,
• has a caption for every figure or table,
• has the title and all headings properly capitalized
• has no orphans and widows (cf. Section Help), and
• does not use footnote references in the abstract.

Empirical Studies and Sharing of Data

I am doing research with industry. What if I cannot share data from my research? We absolutely welcome research with industry, as it often conveys important lessons about requirements engineering in practice – and we perfectly understand that industry data may be subject to confidentiality issues or legal requirements. If you cannot share data, please state the reason in the submission form and the paper; a typical wording would be “The raw data obtained in this study cannot be shared because of confidentiality agreements”. Having said that, even sharing a subset of your data (for instance, the data used for figures and tables in the paper, an anonymized subset, or one that aggregates over the entire dataset), analysis procedures, or scripts, would be useful.

I am doing user studies. What if I cannot share data from my empirical study? We absolutely welcome user studies! However, we also perfectly understand that sharing raw data can be subject to constraints such as privacy issues. If you cannot share data, please state the reason in the submission form and the paper; a typical wording would be “The raw data obtained in this study cannot be shared because of privacy issues”. Having said that, even sharing a subset of your data (for instance, the data used for figures and tables in the paper, an anonymized subset, or one that aggregates over the entire dataset), analysis procedures, or scripts, would be useful.

I am doing qualitative research. What information should I include to help reviewers assess my research results and the readers use my results? Best practices for addressing the reliability and credibility of qualitative research suggest providing detailed arguments and rationale for qualitative approaches, procedures, and analyses. Therefore, authors are advised to provide as much transparency as possible into these details of their study. For example, clearly explain details and decisions such as 1) context of study, 2) the participant-selection process and the theoretical basis for selecting those participants, 3) collection of data or evidence from participants, and 4) data analysis methods, e.g., justify their choice theoretically and how they relate to the original research questions, and make explicit how the themes and concepts were identified from the data. Further, provide sufficient detail to bridge the gap between the interpretation of findings presented and the collected evidence by, for example, numbering quotations and labeling sources. Similar to replicability in quantitative research, transparency aims to ensure a study’s methods are available for inspection and interpretation. However, replicability or repeatability is not the goal, as qualitative methods are inherently interpretive and emphasize context. As a consequence, reporting qualitative research might require more space in the paper; authors should consider providing enough evidence for their claims while being mindful with the use of space.

Finally, when qualitative data is counted and used for quantitative methods, authors should report the technique and results in assessing rigour in data analysis procedures, such as inter-reliability tests or triangulation over different data sources or methods, and justify how they achieved rigour if no such methods were used.

I can make my data set / my tool available, but it may reveal my identity. What should I do? See this question under “double-anonymous submissions”, below.

Double-Blind Submissions

I previously published an earlier version of this work in a venue that doesn’t have double-anonymous. What should I do about acknowledging that previous work? If the work you are submitting for review has previously been published in a peer-reviewed venue or in a non-peer-reviewed venue (e.g., arXiv.org, or a departmental technical report), then it should be cited but in the third person so that it is not revealed that the cited work and the submitted paper share one or more authors.

Our submission makes use of work from a PhD or master’s thesis, dissertation, or report which has been published. Citing the dissertation might compromise anonymity. What should we do? It is perfectly OK to publish work arising from a PhD or master’s degree, and there is no need to cite it in a submission to the RE Research Track because prior dissertation publication does not compromise novelty. In the final post-review, camera-ready version of the paper, please do cite the dissertation to acknowledge its contribution, but in any submission to the RE Research Track, please refrain from citing the dissertation to increase anonymity.

You need not worry whether or not the dissertation has appeared. Your job is to ensure that your submission is readable and reviewable, without the reviewers needing to know the identities of the submission’s authors. You do not need to make it impossible for the reviewers to discover the authors’ identities. The referees will be trying hard not to discover the authors’ identity, so they will likely not be searching the web to check whether there is a dissertation related to this work.

What if we want to cite some unpublished work of our own (as motivation for example)? If the unpublished paper is an earlier version of the paper you want to submit to the RE Research Track and is currently under review, then you have to wait until your earlier version is through its review process before you can build on it with further submissions (this would be considered double-submission and violates plagiarism policies and procedures). Otherwise, if the unpublished work is not an earlier version of the proposed submission, then you should simply make it available on a website, for example, and cite it in the third person to preserve anonymity, as you are doing with other work.

Can I disseminate a non-anonymized version of my submitted work by discussing it with colleagues, giving talks, publishing it at ArXiV, etc.? You can discuss and present your work that is under submission at small meetings (e.g., job talks, visits to research labs, a Dagstuhl or Shonan meeting), but you should avoid broadly advertising it in a way that reaches the reviewers even if they are not searching for it. Therefore, the title of your submission must be different from preprints on ArXiV or similar sites. During review, you must not publicly use the submission title. Under these conditions, you are allowed to put your submission on your home page and present your work at small professional meetings.

What if we want to make available a tool, a data set, or some other resource, but it may reveal my identity? Please refer to the Open Science Policy of ICSE’23 for guidelines on how to anonymize such content. If that is impossible, place a warning next to the link that this may reveal your identity.