Impact Project Focus Area

Call for Participation

Papers are solicited for presentation as an identified focus area of the ICSE 2011 program, and for publication as part of the ICSE 2011 proceedings, addressing the general issue of how software development practice has been impacted by software engineering research.

Background

The Impact Project was established as an ACM-SIGSOFT project nearly 10 years ago, with major funding from the US National Science Foundation, with the stated goal of providing solid and meticulous documentation of the ways in which software development practice has been impacted by software engineering research. It was expected that establishing this documentation would suggest practices and approaches to technology transition that have seemed to have been relatively more effective in the past, and software engineering research activities that have proven to have had particularly notable impact.

The project has been divided into several different studies, each addressing a different type of software development technology that is in wide use. Each study is expected to result in the publication of a carefully researched paper tracing the way in which the software development technology being studied has come into being. The role of software engineering research in bringing this technology into use is intended to be a focus of each study, but is to be presented in the context of other key contributions. These final completed papers are to be suitable for publication in a top quality journal such as ACM TOSEM. But prior to the publication of these final papers, preliminary reports and presentations were to be made available, both as indicators of progress, and as vehicles for soliciting input and new material from the software engineering community at large. To date three final completed Impact Project papers have appeared in ACM TOSEM, a few other preliminary papers have appeared in venues such as Software Engineering Notes, and several other papers are in earlier states of completion.

The software engineering community has been invited to follow the work of the Impact Project over the past several years. Vehicles for doing this have included the preliminary reports published in Software Engineering Notes, and a project web site, http://www.sigsoft.org/impact/index.htm. In addition the activities and products of the Impact Project have been featured in sessions, panels, and tracks at previous ICSEs and FSEs.

The Impact Project Focus Area at ICSE 2011

With 2011 the Impact Project is moving into a new phase of broader engagement with the software engineering community at large. During its initial phase the Impact Project sought to validate its ideas and approaches by proactively identifying areas for study and report-writing internally, and proactively soliciting the participation of authors in each of these areas. Having evolved and validated its approaches, the project now wants to widen its scope by inviting the broad participation of the community in the identification of areas for study and in carrying out these studies. The way in which this broadened participation is being invited initially is by means of contributions to a special Impact Project focus area in the ICSE 2011 program.

Thus, the Impact Project now invites the submission to this focus area of original papers that make a contribution towards the better understanding of such issues as:

  • How specific software development technologies and practices that are currently in widespread use have come into being.
  • What contributions to contemporary software development technology have been made by specific software engineering research activities.
  • What contributions to other fields, in Computer Science and elsewhere, have been made by specific software engineering research activities.
  • What specific approaches to technology transition have proven to have been particularly effective and successful.
  • What obstacles to the understanding and/or transition of software engineering research products have hindered their acceptance and transition.

Potential contributors to these sessions can obtain initial guidance by consulting Impact Project papers that have appeared in Software Engineering Notes as well as Impact Project papers that have been published in ACM TOSEM. It should be noted that the essence of the Impact Project’s approach is scrupulously researched, meticulously pursued investigation. Thus,it is important that all submissions to the ICSE 2011 Impact Project focus area be consistent with these project modalities. Memoirs, recollections, anecdotes, personal histories, and unsubstantiated opinions are not without value, but they are not sufficient for presentation as papers in the Impact focus area.

Two kinds of papers are invited for the Impact Project focus area: full papers (up to 10 pages in length) and short papers (up to 5 pages in length). Full papers should comprise a careful treatment of a specific area of software development practice. Short papers may have a relatively more restricted focus, or may represent a more preliminary investigation. Both are welcomed as submissions to the ICSE 2011 Impact Project focus area. All papers accepted for the Impact Project focus area will be presented at an ICSE 2011 session, and will appear in the ICSE 2011 Proceedings.

The Impact Project focus area Program Committee is eager to facilitate and support potential authors as they consider the conceptualization and development of both kinds of submissions. Authors seeking advice about the suitability of their potential submissions, the type of submission that they should be considering, the way in which their submissions might be developed, or potential coauthors who might be particularly useful in developing a submission, should contact any of the members of the Impact Project focus area Program Committee, see below.

How to Submit

Submissions must represent original work that has not previously been published, and is not currently under review for any other publication venue.  Accepted papers may also be invited for further development into larger and more comprehensive papers aimed at eventual publication in ACM TOSEM.

All papers must conform at time of submission to the ICSE 2011 Format and Submission Guidelines, and must not exceed 10 pages, including all text, references, appendices and figures. All submissions must be in English. Submissions must be in PDF format.

Submissions that do not comply with the foregoing instructions will be desk rejected without review.

Note: camera–ready copy will use the same format and length limits required of submissions, and thus your submission should reflect the form that you anticipate your camera–ready copy will take.

Papers must be submitted electronically via EasyChair  by December 23, 2010.

Review and Evaluation Criteria

All submissions will be reviewed by at least three members of the Impact Project focus area Program Committee.

Acceptance

Upon notification of acceptance, all authors of accepted papers will be asked to complete an ACM Copyright form and will receive further instructions for preparing their camera ready versions. At least one author of each paper is required to present the results at the ICSE 2011 conference. All accepted contributions will be published in the conference electronic proceedings which will also be available as a printed proceedings.

Important Dates

Submission Due Date Thursday, December 23, 2010
Notification Date Thursday, January 20, 2011
Camera-Ready Date Friday, February 11, 2011

 

 

Impact Project Focus Area Chair

University of Massachusetts, Amherst
United States of America

Program Committee

See the Impact Project program committee page.