<div dir="ltr"><div style="font-size:13px">The 4th ICSE Workshop on General Theories of Software Engineering (GTSE 2015)</div><div style="font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-size:13px"><a href="http://semat.org/?page_id=1364" target="_blank">http://semat.org/?page_id=1364</a></div><div style="font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-size:13px">Monday, May 18, 2015, Florence, Italy </div><div style="font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-size:13px">In conjunction with the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2015)</div><div style="font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-size:13px">(<a href="http://2015.icse-conferences.org/" target="_blank">http://2015.icse-conferences.org/</a>)</div><div style="font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-size:13px">Key Dates</div><div style="font-size:13px">Paper submission deadline: ***Extended to January 30, 2015**** </div><div style="font-size:13px">Paper acceptance notification: February 18, 2015</div><div style="font-size:13px">Camera-ready accepted paper deadline: February 27, 2015 </div><div style="font-size:13px">Workshop: May 18, 2015</div><div style="font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-size:13px">Workshop Overview</div><div style="font-size:13px">Most academic disciplines emphasize the importance of their core, central or general theories. Examples of general theories include Big Bang Theory, Maxwell’s equations, The Theory of the Cell, The Theory of Evolution, Supply and Demand, Structuration Theory, The General Theory of Crime, Pure Theory of Law and The Theory of Marriage. Software engineering meanwhile, has not produced widely-accepted general theories. Lack of theory undermines the perceived scientific legitimacy of the field, curtails education and impedes development of a cumulative body of knowledge. GTSE consequently supports attempts to propose, synthesize, clarify and test core, central and general theories in the software engineering domain. GTSE especially promotes attempts to answer fundamental questions, integrate ideas from diverse sources and propose revolutionary, contrarian and generally ambitious new theories. </div><div style="font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-size:13px">Keynote by Professor Barry Boehm</div><div style="font-size:13px">Developing and Evolving a Value-Based Theory of Software Engineering</div><div style="font-size:13px">The development of a value-based theory of software engineering began in the 1980s with attempts to find a theory of project management that was simple, general, and specific, for use in teaching software engineering and managing software projects at TRW. After trying to tailor various management heroes such as Theories X, Y, and Z, the stakeholder win-win Theory W emerged in 1988-89. It then evolved over software management experiences at TRW and DARPA and participation in the value-based software engineering community into a more fully-articulated theory presented in the 2005 book, Value-Based Software Engineering. Subsequent application, evolution, and student PhD dissertations led to its current form, along with associated processes, tools, and generalization to systems engineering. This presentation includes a discussion and set of criteria for a good theory, elaboration of the theory and process and its application to a representative project, and a summary of its !</div><div style="font-size:13px">evaluation with respect to the criteria for a good theory.</div><div style="font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-size:13px">Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):<span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>New theories in software engineering</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Groundbreaking extensions to existing theories</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Groundbreaking synthesis of existing theories</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Novel applications of theories from reference disciplines (e.g. sociology) to software engineering</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Grounded theory, ethnography and qualitative approaches to theory building</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Systematic literature review and thematic synthesis, leading to new theory</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Empirical evaluation of general theories</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Software engineering process theories</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Research methodologies for general theory evaluation</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Addressing core questions for a general theory:</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>How can a general theory of software engineering be of practical use?</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>What core phenomena should it explain?</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>What questions should it address?</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>What should its main concepts be?</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>How are they related?</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>How should it be expressed?</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>How can it be tested?</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>How can it gain acceptance throughout both the academic community and industry?</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Contrarian perspectives on software engineering theory</div><div style="font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-size:13px">Possible Contributions include (but are not limited to):</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Theory proposals with conceptual evaluations</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Theory building empirical field studies including grounded theory, case studies and ethnography</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Theory building, explorative lab studies, experiments and simulations</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Empirical evaluations of general, central or core theories (any research approach welcome)</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Systematic literature reviews and thematic analyses</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Conceptual contributions related to research methodology</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Position papers on general theory topics</div><div style="font-size:13px"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div style="font-size:13px">Submissions</div><div style="font-size:13px">We welcome full papers (up to 12 pages) and short papers (up to 4 pages) to allow submissions of not only developed research but also early ideas and position papers. The papers must follow ICSE technical papers formatting guidelines: <a href="http://2015.icse-conferences.org/submission-guidelines" target="_blank">http://2015.icse-conferences.org/submission-guidelines</a> and they should be submitted to the workshop's EasyChair site: <a href="https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=gtse2015" target="_blank">https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=gtse2015</a>. All papers will be published in the ACM and IEEE Digital Libraries.</div><div style="font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-size:13px">Organizing Committee</div><div style="font-size:13px">Paul Ralph, University of Auckland, New Zealand</div><div style="font-size:13px">Ivar Jacobson, Ivar Jacobson International, Switzerland</div><div style="font-size:13px">Gregor Engels, University of Paderborn, Germany</div><div style="font-size:13px">Michael Goedicke, paluno, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany</div><div style="font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-size:13px">Contact information</div><div style="font-size:13px">To contact the organizers, please email: <a href="mailto:gtse2015@easychair.org" target="_blank">gtse2015@easychair.org</a></div>
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