Accepted Papers

Call for Papers

Goal and Scope

The overall goal of the ICSME 2024 Doctoral Symposium is to help the next generation of software engineering researchers form connections and gain advice on their software maintenance and evolution research. To support this goal, the Doctoral Symposium welcomes submissions in three tracks: early predoctoral (pre-proposal), late predoctoral (post-proposal), and post-doctoral. The three tracks will meet together for the day to enable multi-level peer mentoring as more senior students and junior researchers reflect on their experiences during their PhD studies.

Pre-proposal (Early Pre-doctoral) Track

This track is open to all students who are or are considering pursuing a doctoral degree in the general area of software maintenance and evolution but have not yet completed the dissertation proposal phase (or equivalent) of their program; if there is no formal “dissertation proposal phase”, the students should be in the first halff of the time nominally allocated to completion of doctoral studies at their institution. This track aims to expose early career students to the ICSME research community and research process and to help them progress toward their dissertation proposal.

Post-proposal (Late Pre-doctoral) Track

This track is open to PhD students currently pursuing a doctoral degree in the general area of software maintenance and evolution, who have completed the dissertation proposal phase (or equivalent) of their program, or are in the second half of the time nominally allocated to completion of doctoral studies at their institution. This track aims to bring together students who (a) are pursuing a specific research question, (b) have a concrete research plan for completing their studies, and (c) have obtained some initial results motivating their methodology and plan. Students will gain feedback from a broader community outside their institution and network with peers in the ICSME research community.

Post-doctoral Track

This track is open to researchers who between January 1, 2023 and December 31, 2023 have completed their PhD dissertation in the general area of software maintenance and evolution. This track provides an opportunity for participants to present their research agenda to a general audience and gain feedback in preparation for job interviews. Participants will develop a research vision that builds on their dissertation and learn to present it to a general audience who is familiar with the research area, but not their specific project or focus.

Evaluation

All submissions that meet the submission criteria (see below) and fit the scope of the conference will be evaluated by the Doctoral Symposium chairs on the basis of their relevance to the ICSME community, their originality, and their technical soundness. Submissions that are not in compliance with the required submission format or that are out of the scope of the conference will be rejected without being reviewed. Submitted papers must comply with IEEE plagiarism policy and procedures.

Publication and Presentation

Accepted post-proposal and post-doctoral papers will be published in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library. Accepted pre-proposal papers will be made available to attendees of the symposium, but will not be published in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library. Please review the ICSME 2024 Publication Requirements for more details. Participants from all three tracks will present at the symposium. Presentations will be limited in time to allow for sufficient time for discussion and feedback. Each participant will also prepare and present a poster during the symposium. During the main conference, the author will present the poster again at a public poster session, having the opportunity to receive feedback from a larger audience. More presentation details will follow after notification of acceptance.

Each author of an accepted paper will have the opportunity to discuss their work one-on-one with a member of the Doctoral Symposium PC or other members of the ICSME research community.

How to Submit

Submissions must be formatted according to the ICSME 2024 Formatting Instructions. Papers should provide all details (name, affiliation, contact details) of the PhD student, who should be the first author of the paper. Pre-proposal papers must not exceed 2 pages (including figures and appendices) plus up to 1 page that contains references only. Post-proposal and post-doctoral papers must not exceed 4 pages (including figures and appendices) plus up to 1 page that contains references only. All submissions must be in PDF, compliant with the submission guidelines, and must be submitted online by the deadline via the ICSME 2024 Doctoral Symposium EasyChair conference management system.

Authors should indicate the names of their supervisors. However, supervisors should not be listed as co-authors of the submission; submissions are expected to be written by the (post)doctoral researchers solely.

Pre-proposal (Early Pre-doctoral) Track

For the Pre-proposal (Early Pre-doctoral) Track, the submission should include a description of a research project in which the student has already participated. Focus on research questions and on lessons learned so far about the research and the research process. Expound on your own proposal ideas. What is your general research area? What open questions/problems do you find personally meaningful, and why are they interesting to you? It is acceptable for this to be a broad outline of the research area and where you think you might want to contribute, and should not be a research paper reduced in size to fit the symposium format. To encourage students to share their nascent ideas, accepted papers will not be published in the conference proceedings.

Post-proposal (Late Pre-doctoral) Track

For the Post-proposal (Late Pre-doctoral) Track, the submission should include a statement of the general technical problem addressed, its importance, and the specific research questions under investigation. Provide an overview of the related research background in the context of the work being conducted, a sketch of the research methodology, the envisioned contributions, a description of the evaluation method, and the results obtained so far. Your goal should be to convey the novelty and breadth of your research, so this should not simply be a research paper reduced in size to fit the symposium format.

Post-doctoral Track

For the Post-doctoral Track, the submission should be a shortened version of a research proposal/statement for a job application and include a synopsis of the PhD dissertation, focusing on the research problem addressed, its contributions, evidence documenting these contributions (in terms of working software systems or case studies), and a statement of their innovation and importance, a description of your research vision going forward for the next few years – not just the next few obvious steps after the dissertation: Think about what the topic of your first research grant application could be. Think big picture! – and two or three “lessons learned” through the PhD process. Reflect on what worked well and what could have gone better. The first of the submission’s references should be the author’s dissertation, including a URL where it is accessible.

For any questions, please contact the Doctoral Symposium chairs.

Submission Link

Please use the following link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icsme2024

Information for Presenters

Presentation. Each presenter will have a total slot of 25 minutes. Of those, a maximum of 10 minutes is reserved for your presentation. It is very important to treat this as a maximum, and we recommend aiming for about 8 minutes, given that most presentations tend to go on longer than what they are planned for. This then allows for 15 minutes discussion/Q&A on your work.

Registration. If you have not yet registered, please do so before September 2. You can register here: https://conf.researchr.org/attending/icsme-2024/Registration

Poster. Please prepare and bring a poster at size A0 in portrait mode. We advise not to have too much text on the poster (“walls of text”), but rather a mix of figures, tables, and short explanatory text. Please also ensure that all contents are easy to read (not too small, not too big), considering it is printed in A0 format. We advise doing a trial print, and adjust as needed.