[AISWorld] Academic reminder on CFP: Special Issue on Practical Design Methods for Software Architectures in the Service-oriented Computing and Cloud Paradigms: Challenging or Confirming Extant Scholastic Methods

[mmora at securenym.net]

Journal of Software: Practice and Experience (SPE)
Special Issue on
Practical Design Methods for Software Architectures in the
Service-oriented Computing and Cloud Paradigms:
Challenging or Confirming Extant Scholastic Methods

Guest Editors: Manuel Mora, Rory O’Connor, Frank Tsui, Jorge Marx-Gomez
Edited by: Rajkumar Buyya and R. Nigel Horspool

*** CALL FOR PAPERS ***
The design of the architecture of system has been a critical relevant
activity in the systems engineering discipline from several decades for
the design of physical man-made systems. However, a reduced set of design
methods and complementary decision-making techniques have been
consistently used with successful results. In contrast, in the software
engineering discipline, there has been a vast scholastic research on
foundations, methods, and complementary techniques with a scarce
accumulative knowledge. Every design stream on software architecture
elaborates their own vocabulary and methods and usually ignores other
design streams. Additionally, there are most proprietary than open access
design methods, and a reduced set of well-accepted methods, techniques and
practices are still missing. Thus, software architecture design methods
are inconsistently or little used in the practice during the application
of software development methodologies except by the large system and
software  development companies.

In particular software systems are widely demanded at present in two
co-existing paradigms:  Software-oriented Computing (SOC) and the Cloud
Computing paradigms. SOC paradigm aims the development of medium-sized and
large distributed inter-organizational systems by assembling it (ideally)
as a system of service providers and consumers (called a Service-oriented
Computing Application (SOCA)). Thus, the design of SOCAs inherently
includes the challenges of high quality software architecture design,
given its natural  composition by services provided by some entities and
consumed by others (independently of the self-services in the same SOCA).
In turn, the Cloud Computing paradigm aims to provide a cost-effective,
scalable and dynamic provision of IT resources (processing, storage,
networking) for elastic demands. This convergence of SOC and this emergent
paradigm, introduces new software architecture design challenges and
trade-off problems for achieving functional and non-functional
requirements of Software as Service (SaaS) as a whole entity assembled by
other composed and atomic services in the cloud.

Hence, we consider that: 1) the SOC and Cloud Computing applications
strongly dependently of their architectural designs; 2) practitioners
demand well-structured and practically applicable software architecture
design methods;  3) there are a scarcity of well-accepted software
architecture design methods; and 4) there is a wide gap between
theoretical recommendations and their daily utilization in the practice
for software engineers working in small, medium-sized and large companies.
Thus, a call for papers is required for high quality conceptual proposals
or already applied software architecture design methods for SOC and Cloud
Computing paradigms.  This special issue aims lately to improve our
understanding and encourage the utilization of software architecture
design methods by being perceived as useful, ease of use, ease of learn,
compatible, and highly valued by practitioners. Accepted papers must
demonstrate clearly how their contributions advance the current status of
scholastic software architecture design methods.
The topics of interest for this special issue include, but are not limited
to:
•	Case studies of successful applied software architecture design methods
for SOC and Cloud Computing paradigms
•	Case studies of failed utilizations of software architecture design for
SOC and Cloud Computing paradigms
•	Usability studies on specific software architecture design methods for
SOC and Cloud Computing paradigms
•	Successful examples of inclusion of software architecture design methods
into agile software development methodologies  for SOC and Cloud Computing
paradigms from practitioners perspectives.
•	Software architecture design methods for SOC and Cloud Computing
paradigms based on ISO/IEC standards (e.g. ISO 42010, ISO 12207, ISO
15288, among others).
•	Comparative studies of most recognized software architecture design
methods for SOC and Cloud Computing paradigms.
•	Cases on the development of prototype tools for supporting the software
architecture design tasks for SOC and Cloud Computing paradigms.

IMPORTANT DATES:
Open for manuscript submission in ScholarOne: July 1, 2016
Closed for submissions: August 1, 2016
Results of first round of reviews: October 1, 2016
Submission of revised manuscripts: November 1, 2016
Results of second round of reviews: February 1, 2017
Publication materials due: March 1, 2017


Major Guidelines
The special issue requests original applied research papers that challenge
or confirm the current status of scholastic software architecture design
methods and complementary techniques through the report of usable
well-structured software architecture design methods in the SOC and Cloud
Computing paradigms.

Papers based on original ideas are expected. Papers elaborated as extended
versions of previous published research must provide at least 50% of new
material. For this case, authors must submit a cover letter/document with:
1) a comparative table of findings, contributions and limitations from
extended and initial paper; and 2) a brief justification on the extended
sections in the new paper.

Each submitted paper will be reviewed by two international reviewers at
least. The editorial review committee will be conformed by academic and
industry based people involved in the special issue themes.

Selection and Evaluation Criteria:
- 	Evidences of advances on the current status of scholastic software
architecture design methods
- 	Practical relevance to use and apply the method or contributions of the
paper
- 	Scope and criticality of the application domain of the method or
contributions of the paper
- 	Correctness of the applied research method (problem definition, work
hypothesis, materials and methods, application of materials and methods,
discussion of results, contributions and limitations, and conclusions).
-	Clarity and readability of the paper
Author Submission Guidelines
Papers should be formatted according to the SPE Author Guidelines below:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1097-024X/homepage/ForAuthors.html

Manuscript length:
Regular papers should not exceed the length of 15 pages including figures
and tables (in SPE format). Please note, the special issue’s page limit is
different from SPE regular paper submissions. Papers that exceed the
length of 15 pages may not be considered for review and publication. In
special cases, up to 20 pages will be allowed subject to approval from the
Guest Editors. Authors desiring a 20 page limit should contact the Guest
Editors in advance.

Submission Instructions
The article will be submitted in the usual way via the online submission
site (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/spe).

When submitting a manuscript for this special issue, authors should take
care to select “Special Issue: Practical Design Methods for Software
Architectures in the Service-oriented Computing and Cloud Paradigms:
Challenging or Confirming Extant Scholastic Methods” as the Manuscript
Type and to select Manuel Mora as the preferred editor.

GUEST EDITORS:
Prof. Manuel Mora,  – Corresponding Guest Editor
Information Systems Department, Autonomous University of Aguascalientes,
Ave. Universidad 940, Aguascalientes, AGS. Mexico 20131
Email: mmora at correo.uaa.mx

Prof. Rory O’Connor
Dublin City University, Ireland

Prof.  Frank Tsui
Kennesaw University, USA

Prof.  Jorge Marx-Gomez
University of Oldenburg, Germany