[AISWorld] CFP: Special Issue of JVLC on Representations and Environments for User-Driven Development of Service Applications

[Nikolay Mehandjiev]

		                  CALL for PAPERS
              Special Issue of Journal of Visual Languages and Computing 
    Representations and Environments for User-Driven Development of Service
Applications

Guest Editors: Nikolay Mehandjiev and Antonella De Angeli Full Manuscript
due: February 28th, 2013

Service-oriented software (SoS) is focused on delivering software on demand
– the software gets assembled into service applications at the point of
need, delivered, executed and then discarded. Two simplified manifestations
of this idea are quite popular today:  the mobile phone apps which offer
focused functionality and are delivered to the mobile phones on request, and
service-based software, which researches dynamic composition of distributed
services, without focusing on the actual delivery of the assembled software.


The engagement of end users in the process of developing service-based
applications is a key enabler of the vision of SoS with its dynamic nature
and focus on the needs of their users. This highlights an immediate problem
with the existing environment and tools for assembling services into service
applications – they are still too focused on the underlying technology such
as event processing or data flow, and are thus often incomprehensible for
people without formal training in software development which are the
majority of the target users of the system. This is confirmed by our
studies, which highlight the difficulties users have with the concepts of
data passing between services and the need for this data to be aligned for
better processing. 

The proposed special issue will consolidate the work done in the
intersection of service development and End User Development, an area of
research which aims to empower users who are not professional programmers to
develop or modify software.  This intersection has been the subject of three
international workshops (www.eud4services.org) which helped us build an
international community working in the area. The proposed special issue will
build on the work presented in the workshops, soliciting archival-quality
contributions from that community but also encouraging further submissions
from the wider EUD and Services Communities.

This first of its kind special issue will focus on the intersection of
interaction design, end user development and services computing. Papers will
be solicited in the following areas (the list is indicative rather than
exclusive):

•	Design or evaluations of graphical tools to support end-user
development of service-based applications;

•	Studies of mental models used by users for service development;

•	Cognitive or behavioural theories and models of users’
problem-solving when developing service-driven applications;

•	Proposals for simpler and user-centric interfaces or environments;

•	The place of domain-specific tools for user-driven composition of
service applications;

•	The role of personalisation in delivering effective user-oriented
environments; 

•	Impact of context-customisation on the simplification of tools and
representations;

•	The role of service semantics for providing better support within
EUD4Services environments;

•	The place of collaborative development within user-driven assembly
of services. 

Key Dates:

Please send an email with a short abstract or statement of intent to Nikolay
Mehandjiev (mailto:mehandjiev at gmail.com), by January 15, 2012.  Complete
manuscripts should be emailed before February 28, 2013.   Every paper will
be blind reviewed for rigour, contribution and relevance by three experts.
First round results will be sent to authors by June 1 2013.  Revisions will
be due August 1 2013.  Final publication decisions will be made by October
15 2013. Publication: February 2014 

The Journal of Visual Languages and Computing is a forum for researchers,
practitioners, and developers to exchange ideas and results for the
advancement of visual languages and its implication to the art of computing.
The journal publishes research papers, state-of-the-art surveys, and review
articles in all aspects of visual languages. 

For complete details on submission guidelines, please see the JVLC website:
http://ees.elsevier.com/jvlc/
Editors: S.-K. Chang, S. Levialdi