Research (Full Papers)EASE 2023

Accepted Papers

Call for papers

The International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE) is one of the premier conferences for research related to empirical software engineering. The EASE research track seeks high quality submissions of technical research papers describing original and unpublished results.

Topics and Methods

EASE welcomes papers addressing topics related to evaluating and assessing software products, processes, practices, tools & techniques including:

• Defect and quality prediction
• Estimation, decision-making, heuristics & biases in SE
• Evaluation and comparison of software technologies (e.g. IoT, Context–Awareness, Cyber-physical)
• Human factors and behavioral aspects of SE
• Infrastructure and techniques for conducting empirical studies
• Inter- or multi-disciplinary studies intersecting SE
• Modeling, measuring, and assessing product/process quality, or SE success
• Modeling, measuring, and assessing SE productivity and job performance
• Software analysis, testing, verification, validation
• SE analytics and metrics
• Software project and knowledge management
• Software technology transfer to the industry
• Theory development and evaluation

Similarly, EASE welcomes papers employing any of the following empirical methods:

• Qualitative research including action research, case study, ethnomethodology, grounded theory, qualitative surveys (interviews) & qualitative simulation (e.g. protocol analysis)
• Quantitative approaches including benchmarking, experiment, data science (i.e. AI or ML-based approaches), longitudinal studies (e.g. cohort studies), optimization studies, quantitative simulation, quasi-experiment, questionnaire surveys, and repository mining.
• Systematic literature reviews including case survey, critical review, meta-analysis, qualitative synthesis, and scoping review (systematic mapping)
• Engineering research (also called “design as research” and “design science research”)
• Mixed methods and multi-methodology
• Replication studies
• Meta-science (e.g. papers about research methods and methodological issues, whether empirical or conceptual).

FIELD EXPERIMENT

Over the past three years, a task force of methodological experts created the ACM SIGSOFT Empirical Standards for Software Engineering Research (https://acmsigsoft.github.io/EmpiricalStandards/). Their primary purpose is to make peer review more fair, transparent, and predictable; however, the effectiveness of the standards is an empirical question. Therefore, most papers submitted to EASE will be evaluated independently by two different program committees: one using the empirical standards; the other using a more traditional review process. This means that most papers submitted to the Research Track will receive four reviews:

• two free-text reviews like those in previous years.
• two standards-based reviews.

Therefore, by submitting a paper to EASE, authors consent to participate in an experiment. Before submitting, please read the consent form https://figshare.com/s/1af745e670ce4757aedd.

Your paper will be included in the field experiment if an empirical standard exists for the research method(s) used. Papers not selected for the field experiment will only receive free-text reviews. Papers using a research method for which there is no empirical standard are welcome at EASE.

HOW TO SUBMIT

All papers must be submitted in PDF format through the web-based submission system https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ease2023. Submissions must not exceed 10 pages inclusive of all figures, tables, references, and appendices.

All submissions should use the official ACM Primary Article Template (https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template). Deviating from the ACM formatting instructions may lead to a desk rejection. LaTeX users should use the the following options:

\documentclass[sigconf,review,anonymous]{acmart}

\acmConference[EASE 2023]{The 24th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering}{14–16 June, 2023}{Oulu, Finland}

When submitting your paper, you will be asked to indicate the research method(s) used. If you are not sure which method(s) to select, go here, https://acmsigsoft.github.io/EmpiricalStandards/form_generator/Checklist.html?role=author read the paragraph at the top of the page, and hover over method names for definitions. If you’re still not sure, click on the method names for more information. Each standard has an “application” section that explains what kind of studies it applies to. If you’re still not sure, email the program chairs for assistance.

Authors must comply with the SIGSOFT Open Science Policy < https://github.com/acmsigsoft/open-science-policies/blob/master/sigsoft-open-science-policies.md> (i.e., to archive data and artifacts in a permanent repository—e.g. Zenodo, not GitHub—to the extent ethically and practically possible, and include links in a Data Availability section in their manuscripts).

EASE 2023 will employ a double-anonymous review process. Do not include author names or affiliations in submissions. All references to the author’s prior work should be in the third person. Any online supplements, replication packages, etc. referred to in the work should also be anonymized. Advice for sharing supplement anonymously can be found here https://ineed.coffee/post/how-to-disclose-data-for-double-blind-review-and-make-it-archived-open-data-upon-acceptance

By submitting to EASE, authors agree to the ACM Policy and Procedures on Plagiarism, Misrepresentation, and Falsification https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/plagiarism-overview. Papers submitted to EASE must not be published or under review elsewhere. The Program Chairs may use plagiarism detection software, under contract to the ACM. If the research involves human participants/subjects, the authors must adhere to the ACM Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/research-involving-human-participants-and-subjects. By submitting a paper to EASE, authors consent to participate in the field experiment explained above. Before submitting, please read the consent form https://figshare.com/s/1af745e670ce4757aedd.

REVIEW CRITERIA

Papers selected for the field experiment will receive two standards-based reviews. To see the criteria for standards-based reviews will use this tool. https://acmsigsoft.github.io/EmpiricalStandards/form_generator/Checklist.html?role=author. Read the introductory paragraph carefully. Select the method(s) used in your submission. Click “submit.” Going through this checklist is a great way to optimize your paper for EASE.

All papers will receive free-text reviews like previous years. These reviews will evaluate submissions against 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 software engineering, and under which assumptions (if any)
• Novelty: The extent to which the contributions are sufficiently original with respect to the state-of-the-art
• 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.
• Presentation: The extent to which the paper’s quality of writing meets the high standards of EASE, 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 formatting instructions provided above.

IMPORTANT DATES:

Conference Attendance Expectation

If a submission is accepted, at least one author of the paper is required to register for the conference and present the paper.