[AISWorld] SPLC'2020 - Call for Workshop Proposals (due date: May 1st, 2020)

[Iris Reinhartz-Berger]

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The 24th International Conference on Systems and Software Product Line 
Conference (SPLC'2020)


October 19-20, 2020; Montreal, Canada


*** Call for Workshop Proposals ***


Workshop proposal submission: May 1, 2020


http://splc2020.net/call-for-papers/call-for-workshop-proposals/


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General:

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We invite you to submit proposals for one-day or two-day workshops in 
any area related to the field of system and software product lines. In 
particular, workshops on challenging, emerging areas related to the 
conference topics are especially sought.

We particularly encourage proposals for highly interactive and 
collaborative workshops, rather than mini-conferences, e.g., apart from 
the traditional short and long papers, consider allowing position papers 
with only one page (not included in the proceedings) and focus on a 
lively discussion after the presentation, which can be conducted 
physically or virtually, to foster new ideas and gather feedback (rather 
than just defending the presented work). The expected dates of the 
workshops would be October 19th and 20th, 2020, before the main track of 
the conference.

The workshops will take physical or virtual form, depending on the 
situation with COVID-19. The workshop papers will be published by ACM as 
usual.

We do hope to be able to have a physical conference. However, in order 
to address personal or economic concerns, we can confirm that, in any 
scenario, SPLC 2020 will provide the opportunity to participate 
virtually and with a reduced registration pricing that factors out local 
costs (e.g. coffee breaks, lunches, and banquet). This applies also for 
workshops.



Important Dates:

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* Workshop proposal: May 1, 2020

* Notification: June 1, 2020

* Workshop papers submission: August 17, 2020

* Workshop papers notification: September 17, 2020

* Final version of papers + summary of the workshop: September 21, 2020



Submissions/Publishing:

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SPLC workshop papers will be published in a volume of the SPLC 
conference proceedings published by ACM. Moreover, a one-page summary of 
each accepted workshop will be published in the proceedings as well.

Workshop proposals should be authored by at least two organizers, 
preferably from different institutions, and they should contain the 
following three sections and address each corresponding point:


1. Organizers

* Name: organizers’ full names

* Contact information: affiliations, job titles, postal addresses, 
e-mail addresses, URLs, and phone

* Brief biography: 100-200 words, focusing on the organizers’ expertise 
in the field and experience as workshop organizers


2. Workshop content

* Title: workshop title and acronym

* Abstract: max 150 words describing the workshop (suitable for the 
conference’s website)

* Topics and motivation:

- What are the topics, themes, and areas of interest of the workshop?

- How is the workshop relevant to SPLC?

- How does the workshop connect SPLC to other research communities?

- Optional (relations to MODELS): Is the workshop relevant to MODELS? 
How? Is it a joint workshop with MODELS (to be validated by both MODELS 
and SPLC workshop chairs)?

* Goals and expected results:

- Explicitly state the goals of the workshop and how you intend to reach 
them

- What are the expected results of the workshop?

- How will these results be disseminated?

* Format:

- What is the planned workshop format (paper presentations, working 
sessions, lightning talks, demonstrations, etc.)?

- With the aim of avoiding workshops cancellation, in case of an 
insufficient number of submissions, what is the “backup” plan?

-  What is the virtual plan? Please describe in a few sentences how to 
present research contributions and how to foster online discussion.  You 
can use optionally the ACM guide as a source of inspiration: 
https://www.acm.org/virtual-conferences

- What are the planned pre- and post-workshop activities?

* Participants:

- What is the expected number of submissions and participants? Provide a 
plan for attracting sufficient submissions and promoting attendance

- If applicable, please provide information from previous or related 
workshops. Have there been previous workshops on the same or a closely 
related topic? When, where and with how many participants?

* Required equipment (if the conference remains physical): Overhead 
projector, PC projector, whiteboard, flip charts, microphone, etc.

* Program committee: list of tentative program committee members, names 
and affiliations.


3. Preliminary Call for Papers

This will necessarily repeat some of the information from the previous 
sections but should be targeted towards prospective participants. It 
should address the following items:

* Overview of the motivation, topics, and goals

* Workshop format

* Deadlines of the workshop (see dates in this call for proposals)

* Submission guidelines and review process

* References to previous workshops (websites)



Submission instructions

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Please send your workshop proposals using EasyChair: 
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=splc2020.

A workshop proposal must be at most 4 pages. Submissions must follow the 
ACM Master Article Template: 
https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template

\documentclass[sigconf]{acmart}

\acmConference[SPLC'20]{24th ACM International Systems and Software 
Product Line Conference}{19--23 October, 2020}{Montreal, Canada}


Relevant supporting material, such as proceedings from previous 
offerings of the proposed workshop or other workshops run by the 
proposal authors, should be included if available but are not required 
for submission.



Acceptance Criteria

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Each workshop proposal will be evaluated according to the relevance of 
its topic, the expertise and experience of the workshop organizers, and 
the workshop’s potential for attracting participants and generating 
useful results. We underline the importance of active and creative 
workshops that foster a collaborative environment of interest to both 
practitioners and researchers, aiming, e.g., to evolve the field of 
software product lines and to identify elements of joint future work. To 
obtain a balanced and cohesive workshop program, the Organizing 
Committee will collaborate closely with workshop organizers and reserves 
the right to circulate proposals to other submitters in view of possible 
workshop mergers. The organizers of accepted workshops will be required 
to create and maintain a Web site in a timely manner to serve as a 
workshop information centre and to provide a repository for documenting 
pre- and post-workshop activities. Workshops organisers will have a 
dedicated  track on the SPLC Easychair 2020 site to manage workshops 
papers.

The SPLC proceedings will be published in the ACM Digital Library. SPLC 
is ranked as a top conference.

At least one author of each accepted proposal must register and attend 
SPLC 2020 in order for the workshop to be accepted and the summary of 
the workshop published.



Workshop chairs:

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* Iris Reinhartz-Berger, University of Haifa, Israel

* Gilles Perrouin, University of Namur, Belgium

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