Call for Doctoral Symposium

REFSQ2014 will host a Doctoral Symposium for PhD students whose research area includes elements of Requirements Engineering. The goals of the REFSQ2014 Doctoral Symposium are:

• to provide PhD students in early stages of their research with an opportunity to survey the field and get a feeling for what their colleagues are working on;
• to provide PhD students in more advanced stages with an opportunity to present their plans and early results;
• to provide all participant students with advice and suggestions from a panel of senior researchers;
• to facilitate interaction among all the participants.

Following the time-honoured tradition of REFSQ, the Symposium will revolve around structured presentations and matching discussions, with ample time devoted to comments from the floor. A number of senior researchers will attend the event. Authors of sufficiently advanced proposals will be invited to prepare a poster for the main conference.

The call is also available as pdf.

Submission Instructions

Presenters should have set on a dissertation topic in the general area of RE, or in a related field (in which case your topic should have a significant component of RE). Typically, you have progressed beyond your first year in the program, or are close to doing so, but have not submitted your thesis yet. To apply to the Doctoral Symposium, you will need to submit an application to EasyChair https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=refsq14ds consisting of:

• A Research Abstract (max 6 pages + 1 for references, LNCS style) describing the problem you are addressing (what is unsatisfactory in the current state of the world?), its relevance (why would anyone care if the problem was solved?), your proposed solution (how do you plan to attack the problem?), the novelty of the problem, of the solution, or both (nobody identified the problem or provided the solution before you – i.e., what is your original contribution), the research method you are applying (which method are you following to get to the solution, and how do you prove it solves the problem?), and the progress in your research (where are you, how long to the final destination?). The Research Abstract should contain a short survey and pointers to relevant literature.
• A Letter of Recommendation from your primary supervisor or advisor. The letter need not discuss the research (which is already covered in your abstract) but should include a statement about your position as a PhD student, the starting and expected completion date of your PhD, and an assessment of the current state of your research (including expectations about the final delivery). If your research topic is not clearly in Requirements Engineering, the letter should briefly make a case for relevance.

Submissions will be evaluated based on the quality of the Research Abstract, and of the interest of the research described therein.

Important Dates

Symposium Chairs

Daniel Berry, Univ. of Waterloo, Canada,
Roel Wieringa, Univ. of Twente, The Netherlands,

Programme Committee

Xavier Franch, Univ. Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
Samuel Fricker, Bleckinge Inst. of Technology, Sweden
Erik Kamsties, Dortmund Univ. of Applied Sciences and Arts, Germany
Marjo Kauppinen, Aalto University, Finland