[AISWorld] CFP: General Theories of Software Engineering (due 30 Jan)

[Paul Ralph]

The 4th ICSE Workshop on General Theories of Software Engineering (GTSE
2015)

http://semat.org/?page_id=1364

Monday, May 18, 2015, Florence, Italy

In conjunction with the International Conference on Software Engineering
(ICSE 2015)

(http://2015.icse-conferences.org/)

Key Dates
Paper submission deadline: ***Extended to  January 30, 2015****
Paper acceptance notification:  February 18, 2015
Camera-ready accepted paper deadline:  February 27, 2015
Workshop:  May 18, 2015

Workshop Overview
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.

Keynote by Professor Barry Boehm
Developing and Evolving a Value-Based Theory of Software Engineering
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 !
evaluation with respect to the criteria for a good theory.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
New theories in software engineering
Groundbreaking extensions to existing theories
Groundbreaking synthesis of existing theories
Novel applications of theories from reference disciplines (e.g. sociology)
to software engineering
Grounded theory, ethnography and qualitative approaches to theory building
Systematic literature review and thematic synthesis, leading to new theory
Empirical evaluation of general theories
Software engineering process theories
Research methodologies for general theory evaluation
Addressing core questions for a general theory:
How can a general theory of software engineering be of practical use?
What core phenomena should it explain?
What questions should it address?
What should its main concepts be?
How are they related?
How should it be expressed?
How can it be tested?
How can it gain acceptance throughout both the academic community and
industry?
Contrarian perspectives on software engineering theory

Possible Contributions include (but are not limited to):
Theory proposals with conceptual evaluations
Theory building empirical field studies including grounded theory, case
studies and ethnography
Theory building, explorative lab studies, experiments and simulations
Empirical evaluations of general, central or core theories (any research
approach welcome)
Systematic literature reviews and thematic analyses
Conceptual contributions related to research methodology
Position papers on general theory topics
Submissions
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: http://2015.icse-conferences.org/submission-guidelines and they
should be submitted to the workshop's EasyChair site:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=gtse2015. All papers will be
published in the ACM and IEEE Digital Libraries.

Organizing Committee
Paul Ralph, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Ivar Jacobson, Ivar Jacobson International, Switzerland
Gregor Engels, University of Paderborn, Germany
Michael Goedicke, paluno, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

Contact information
To contact the organizers, please email: gtse2015 at easychair.org
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