RE@Next! PapersRequirements Engineering 2024

The RE@Next! track is a venue to present ongoing work that has generated early or preliminary results. The goal is to trigger new collaborations with like-minded colleagues and potential industrial partners and to receive early feedback which can help you to submit a full research paper to next year’s RE conference.This year, the track will also include vision papers to discuss novel visionary, disruptive, and through-provoking ideas.

RE is an ever-evolving field, and the community is always prolific in new disruptive ideas, possibilities of synergies with other disciplines, and ambitious research plans. The RE@Next! Track is the right place to share initial ideas that are not fully developed in terms of solutions or empirical evaluation as well as ground-breaking results that still need full validation. By collecting feedback from the RE attendees, the authors can develop their work further and present a full paper at the next RE conference or any other RE-relevant venue. RE@Next! is also the right place to share novel visionary, disruptive, and thought-provoking ideas that can trigger discussion at the conference and contribute to new research roadmaps.

RE@Next! 2024 publishes the following two types of papers:

• Research Preview (max 7 pages plus one page for reference): provide a novel research idea that is not fully developed in terms of solutions or empirical evaluation, or ground-breaking results that may still need full validation. A research preview should include research questions, envisioned methodology, a proof-of-concept or preliminary evaluation, a research plan, and potential risks and limitations.

• Vision (max 7 pages plus one page for reference): provide novel visionary, disruptive, and through-provoking ideas to trigger discussion at the conference, potentially creating a paradigm-shift in RE and novel long-term objectives. Vision paper can also raise awareness on novel and unexplored topics that are relevant to RE, at the boundary with other disciplines, including but not limited to psychology, sociology, philosophy, and all other life science and engineering disciplines.

Review Criteria

We have different review criteria that the authors should consider when preparing their submissions and which will be taken into account by the PC members when reviewing these papers. Each paper type has its own review criteria, presented in order of relevance.

Research Preview

• Novelty: Is the proposal sufficiently novel with respect to the state-of-the-art? Do the authors discuss related work and clearly identify the gaps their contribution aims to fill?

• Soundness of the Research Plan: do the authors present a convincing research plan? Did the authors discuss the limitations and risks of their plan? Is the plan referring to sound research methods? Do the authors clarify their research questions, planned data collection, and data analysis? Did the authors perform a convincing proof-of-concept or some preliminary research steps?

• Potential for Discussion: will the presentation of the preview raise the interest of the RE audience? Will the preview lead to good discussion? Will the audience be able to provide useful feedback to the authors, given the typical background of the RE audience? Can the preview raise controversial opinions in the audience?

• Presentation: is the paper clearly presented? To what extent can the content of the paper be understood by the general RE public?

Vision

• Novelty: is the main idea of the vision sufficiently surprising, thought-provoking, or visionary? To what extent is the main idea exciting for a reader?

• Ambition of the Idea: is the scope of the idea sufficiently broad to change the state of RE or one of its sub-field (e.g., RE and modelling, NLP for RE, AI and RE)? To what extent is the idea creating synergies with other disciplines? Do the authors sketch a convincing and visionary roadmap for research? Will other authors embrace the vision?

• Potential for Discussion: is the idea sufficiently thought-provoking? will the presentation of the idea raise the interest of the RE audience? Will the idea raise discussion? Will the audience be able to provide useful feedback to the authors, given the typical background of the RE audience? Can the idea raise controversial opinions in the audience?

• Presentation: is the paper clearly presented? To what extent can the content of the paper be understood by the general RE public?

REFSQ-RE@Next! Transfer Model

This year, we are experimenting with a new transfer model between the REFSQ research paper track and RE@Next! to bring the conferences closer together. REFSQ submissions that are not yet deemed mature enough to be accepted for presentation at REFSQ but are considered promising as RE@Next! contributions will have the opportunity to participate in the transfer model.

In close collaboration between the PC co-chairs of the REFSQ research track and the RE@Next! track, this model will invite authors of selected submissions to revise their manuscripts and submit them to RE@Next! with a rebuttal of changes suggested by the chairs. Those submissions will then not undergo a regular review process but will be be evaluated by the chairs of both tracks.