Student Research CompetitionECOOP and ISSTA 2023

This year there will be an ACM Student Research Competition (SRC) at ECOOP/ISSTA! SRC offers a unique forum for undergraduate and graduate students to present their original research in software engineering and related topics at ECOOP/ISSTA 2023. The goal is to give students a place to discuss their research with experts in their field and to help them sharpen their research and communication skills.

Call for Student Research Competition Submissions

This year there will be an ACM Student Research Competition (SRC) at ECOOP/ISSTA! SRC offers a unique forum for undergraduate and graduate students to present their original research in software engineering and related topics at ECOOP/ISSTA 2023. The goal is to give students a place to discuss their research with experts in their field and to help them sharpen their research and communication skills.

Eligibility criteria

Participants must have current student status, either graduate or undergraduate, at the time of the submission deadline. Participants in the SRC must also be current ACM (student) members.

Selection Process and Attendance

Three rounds of competition will take place before and during ECOOP/ISSTA 2023. All rounds are held in parallel for two categories: Undergraduate Students and Graduate Students. Master’s and Ph.D. students both participate in the Graduate category. Winners of the third round will be invited to participate in the SRC Grand Finals competition hosted by the ACM. The ECOOP/ISSTA rounds are:

• Extended abstract round. Students first submit a 2 page extended abstract outlining their research. Based on the abstracts, a panel of reviewers will select the most promising authors to participate in a poster session, which will take place in person at ECOOP/ISSTA. Registration will be free for the selected students.
• Poster session. Selected students will need to prepare a research poster. During the poster session, students will have the opportunity to present their work to the judges, who will select three semi-finalists for each category to advance to the third round.
• ECOOP/ISSTA presentation. The last round will consist of a short (10 min) oral presentation at the conference. Judges and attendees will get a chance to ask questions during the Q&A session after each talk. Based on these presentations the judges will select the first, second, and third place for each category. Prizes will be awarded accordingly (see section “Prizes”).

Submission

The main body of the submission is a title and extended abstract consisting of the following:

Problem and Motivation: Clearly state the problem being addressed and explain the reasons for seeking a solution to this problem.

Background and Related Work: Describe the specialized (but pertinent) background necessary to appreciate the work in the context of ECOOP/ISSTA areas of interest. Include references to the literature where appropriate, and briefly explain where your work departs from that done by others.

Approach and Uniqueness: Describe your approach in addressing the problem and clearly state how your approach is novel.

Results and Contributions: Clearly show how the results of your work contribute to software engineering research in particular and to computer science in general; explain the significance of those results.

The final submission must also include the student author’s name, email address, institutional affiliation, research advisor’s name(s), ACM student member number, category (undergraduate or graduate). We recommend including all this information in the standard author contact information region.

Submissions must be original research that is not already published at any conference or journal. One of the goals of the SRC is to give students feedback on ongoing, unpublished work. Furthermore, the abstract must be authored solely by the student. If the work is collaborative with others and/or part of a larger group project, the abstract should make clear what the student’s role was and should focus on that portion of the work.

The extended abstract must not exceed 1000 words and must not be longer than 2 pages. Reference lists do not count towards these limits. Please use the ACM Conference Proceedings Template similar to https://www.overleaf.com/read/yggzbgjwjntv with line numbers turned on.

The submission site is: https://issta23src.hotcrp.com/. It will be open for submissions closer to the deadline. Should you have questions on whether your work is a good fit for the SRC track, please reach out to the SRC Co-Chairs by emailing at chandra@certora.com or giorgio.audrito@unito.it.

Important Dates

The deadline for submitting the 2-page abstract is April 15, 2023.

Decisions will be sent out by the end of May, 2023.

The actual conference is on July 17 - 21, 2023 which is when both the poster session and short talks will take place.

Prizes and ACM SRC Grand Finals

Winners of the three top places in each category will receive prizes of $500 for the first place winner, $300 for the second place winner and $200 for the third place winner, respectively.

First place winners in each category will be invited to participate in the ACM SRC Grand Finals, an online round of competition between first-place SRC winners from different ACM conferences held in 2023. Grand Finals will be judged by an ACM-appointed panel of judges.

Winners of the three top Grand Finals places in each category will receive additional prizes of $500 for the first place winner, $300 for the second place winner and $200 for the third place winner, respectively.

Good luck, and we hope to see you in July!