Doctoral SymposiumRequirements Engineering 2023

“Empower your Ph.D. Journey and Beyond: Engage, Learn, and Connect at RE’23 Doctoral Symposium!”

The Doctoral Symposium at the 31st IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE’23) aims to bring together doctoral candidates, recent graduates, and experienced mentors working in the fields of requirements engineering. This track provides an opportunity for Ph.D. students and doctoral candidates to present their research work in progress to the panel of internationally renowned RE experts and receive constructive feedback. Senior students/early postdocs will get valuable networking opportunities and constructive feedback that can bolster their career in academia or industry. The track will provide a highly interactive and collegial format.

Accepted Papers

Call for Submission and Participation

The Doctoral Symposium primarely welcomes any Ph.D. student who has already settled on a dissertation topic in the Requirements Engineering area and whose Ph.D. research will benefit from external feedback.

We call for submission and participation from students who are typically in the first half of their research toward their Ph.D. dissertation.

Goal for Submission and Participation

The aim of the forum is to offer participants personalized, helpful feedback on how to improve their current research while encouraging the exploration of new ideas.

Additionally, the event provides an opportunity for student participants to connect with experienced researchers and professionals in the field as well as with fellow students from around the world. This interaction allows for the sharing of knowledge and insights, as well as the development of lasting professional connections that can benefit the entire community.

Submission and Participation Requirements

Each student’s Doctoral Symposium submission comprises two essential components:

• A letter of recommendation from the student's dissertation advisor, which should be sent directly to the Doctoral Symposium Chairs via email (to Muneera Bano or to Walid Maalej). This letter must provide an assessment of the current state of the student's research and an anticipated date for dissertation completion.
• A concise paper detailing the student's dissertation research, authored solely by the student.

The paper should span four pages (with an additional page permitted for references only) and must clearly address the following aspects:

1. The research problem to be resolved, its significance, and the justification that prior research has not yet resolved the issue.
2. The research hypothesis or claim.
3. The anticipated contributions of the research, including a discussion of related work.
4. The proposed method for evaluating the results and presenting credible evidence to the community.
5. A summary of the results obtained thus far.
6. timeline planned (or followed)

For early-stage Ph.D. submissions, the paper should be limited to two pages (with an additional page allowed for references only) and must include all items from (1) to (4) listed above, excluding items (5) and (6).

Papers must be submitted electronically in PDF format via the RE’23 Easychair system following the formatting instructions described below. Select the Doctoral Symposium Track for submission. We encourage applicants to submit their papers promptly and ensure the accurate entry of potential conflicts for the review process.

Students who have been accepted to the Doctoral Symposium must register at regular student rates and must attend the Doctoral Symposium in person.

Evaluation Criteria

The Doctoral Symposium panel will select participants using the following three criteria:

• The quality and potential of the research and its relevance to Requirements Engineering,
• The quality of the Doctoral Symposium paper, and
• The stage of the research and its suitability for the Doctoral Symposium.

Call for Early PostDocs Participation

This year, we also call for expression of interest from students who are towards the end of their Ph.D. or who have just recently finished (early PostDocs)

Engaging with these individuals presents an opportunity to explore the latest findings and contemporary perspectives in their respective fields.

By targeting senior students/early postdocs at this pivotal stage of their academic careers, the event aims to provide valuable networking opportunities and constructive feedback that can bolster their career in academia or industry.

To be able to participate, senior PhD students and early postdocs must submit the following:

• A brief letter of reference.
• A CV (max 2 pages) including publications.
• A brief abstract from the expected support/help from participating in the forum.

Doctoral Symposium Panel

Walid Maalej, Universität Hamburg, Germany (Co-Chair)

Muneera Bano, CSIRO’s Data61, Australia (Co-Chair)

Travis D. Breaux, Carnegie Mellon University, USA

Markus Borg, codescene, Sweden

Zhi Jin, Peking University, China

Barbara Paech, University of Heidelberg, Germany

Additional members to be confirmed.

Cost of Participation

Students who have been accepted to the Doctoral Symposium must register at regular student rates and must attend the Doctoral Symposium in person.

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,
• have 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.