Call for Research Papers

Requirements Engineering (RE) is a crucial factor for developing high-quality software, systems and services. The REFSQ working conference series is a well-established leading international forum for discussing RE and its many relations to quality. The first REFSQ took place in 1994, and since 2010 REFSQ has been organised as a stand-alone conference. In February 2017, we again welcome participants to attend REFSQ'17, which will be held in Essen, Germany.

The Call for Research Papers can be downloaded here.

REFSQ has a long tradition of being a highly structured and interactive forum. Each session is organised to provoke discussion among the presenters of papers, pre-assigned discussants, and all the other participants. The REFSQ’17 program will include distinguished keynote speakers, technical papers, research methodology papers, industrial presentations, as well as and posters and tools. Workshops and a doctoral symposium will be collocated with the main conference.

REFSQ 2017 seeks reports of novel ideas and techniques that enhance the quality of RE’s products and processes, reflections on current research and industrial RE practices, as well as new views on RE. We invite submissions on any aspect of RE. We encourage researchers and practitioners from the RE, software engineering, information systems, service science, embedded systems, and product management fields to present original work. Contributions from further related areas such as systems engineering, economics, and management are also very welcome for the insights they provide to RE.

RE methods, tools and processes are nowadays expected to support engineering diverse types of systems of different scale and complexity -- such as information systems, safety-critical systems, socio-technical systems, service-based applications, apps for mobile devices, or cyberphysical systems -- and are applied in diverse domains. The special theme of REFSQ’17 is "My RE" to emphasize an important issue: how can RE evolve to deal with this diversity, still keeping its ultimate objective: understanding what is the right software system and helping developing it in the right way. We encourage submissions that highlight how RE could be advanced and adapted to address those challenges.

We invite original submissions in the following categories:

Technical Design Papers (up to 15 pages) describe and explain new artifact design, i.e., novel solutions for requirements-related problems or significant improvements of existing solutions. The research method of technical papers follows the design cycle (problem, treatment design, validity argument). The paper should give credible arguments that the novel solution will have the desired effects in the intended problem context, possibly illustrated with an example. Technical design papers are evaluated based on problem relevance, novelty of design, clarity of presentation of design, the technical soundness of the design, and the credibility of the validity arguments.

Scientific Evaluation Papers (up to 15 pages) investigate existing real‐world problems, evaluate existing real‐world implemented artifacts, or validate newly designed artifacts, e.g., by means such as case studies, experiments, simulation, surveys, systematic literature reviews, mapping studies, or action research. The research method of scientific evaluation papers follows the empirical cycle (research questions, design, execution, data analysis). Scientific evaluation papers are evaluated based on the interest of the research questions, soundness of the research design, the clarity of presentation of measurements, and the validity (degree of support) of the conclusions.

Vision Papers (up to 6 pages) state where the research in the field should be heading towards. Vision papers outline research roadmaps and programmes for the future based on existing knowledge. These papers are evaluated based on the insights they offer to the readers and on their potential to shape future research.

Research Previews (up to 6 pages) describe well-defined research ideas at an early stage of investigation which may not be fully developed. Research previews will be evaluated based on their relevance, novelty, and soundness of the described research.

The REFSQ 2017 proceedings will be published in Springer’s LNCS series. Papers should be submitted in PDF format. The results described must be unpublished and must not be under review elsewhere. Submissions must conform to Springer’s LNCS format and must no exceed the page limits mentioned above.

Information about the Springer LNCS format can be found at http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html.
Papers should be submitted using EasyChair at: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=refsq2017 for further information.

Authors of selected papers from REFSQ'17 will be invited to submit an extended version to a Special Issue published in the Empirical Software Engineering journal (Springer).

Paul Gruenbacher - Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria

Anna Perini - Fondazione Bruno Kessler-ICT, Trento, Italy