Call for Papers

How should we assess progress in Requirements Engineering research?

As a young, multi-disciplinary field, we still lack any broad consensus on appropriate research methodology and evaluation criteria, yet we need to do comparative evaluation of our research efforts, if we wish to develop and mature as a scientific discipline. Such comparisons are also a crucial component of technology transfer.

CERE'06 will examine the research methods we currently use in RE, and will investigate how we can improve our ability to evaluate and compare our research results.

Overview

Following the success of the first three International Workshops on Comparative Evaluation in Requirements Engineering (CERE), we are pleased to announce the Fourth International Workshop, CERE'06, to build on the progress made so far. This year we will focus on the relationships and integration of theory, methods and practice in RE.

The need to assess the effectiveness and impact of RE research has been a growing concern within the RE community. One of the symptoms of this concern has been the interest shown at the 2003 - 2005 CERE workshops. These workshops have investigated the foundations of RE impact assessment and have shown that RE is now mature enough for the community to begin to make detailed comparative evaluations of alternative techniques. In this CERE workshop we will investigate CERE's traditional themes of RE research methods and validation, the role of comparative evaluation in RE, and results of empirical studies and comparative evaluations of RE techniques, methods and tools. However, we will also broaden the mission of previous workshops by explicitly considering the role of theory in comparative evaluation. CERE'06 will aim to develop a deeper understanding of the state of theory in RE, the different types of theory currently available, how those theories can be used to guide evaluation, and what refinements or new theories are needed to provide a more comprehensive framework for comparative evaluation in RE. If we succeed, CERE'06 will produce an inventory of RE theories, guidelines for use of RE theory in comparative evaluation, and a research agenda for improving the state of RE theory and research evaluation. Building on the advances achieved in earlier CERE workshops, CERE'06 will seek to foster a community initiative in shaping future directions for RE research and evaluation.

CERE'06 will mix presentations of results from current research with discussion of next steps. We seek submissions of both technical and position papers on the following themes:

• Requirements engineering theories
  • that identify existing RE theories and how theory can inform comparative evaluation in RE.
• Research methods and research validation in RE
  • that review and improve RE research taxonomies and methods.
  • that investigate the relationships between different types of RE research and the means of validating each type of research.
• The role of comparative evaluation in RE
  • classifying different types of RE research and assessing their relative contributions to advancing RE knowledge or practice.
  • establishing the necessary consensus on how to compare research results.
  • identifying strengths and weaknesses of various comparative evaluation approaches.
  • determining sub-areas in RE ready for comparative evaluation with appropriate evaluation approaches, criteria, generality, etc.
• Empirical studies and comparative evaluation of RE techniques, methods and tools

Important Dates

Format

CERE'06 will be a discussion-oriented workshop to promote interaction and exchange of ideas. The first half of the workshop will consist of presentations and discussion of submitted papers. During the afternoon, we will synthesize the ideas and examine the way forward for comparative evaluation. Papers will be reviewed by an international program committee. Accepted papers will be published in web-based proceedings, together with reports of the afternoon sessions.

Submissions

Please follow the instructions at: http://www.di.unipi.it/CERE06/authors.html

Types of Submission

• Position papers (4-6 pages) Short papers should state the position of the author(s) on any of the workshop’s themes. For example, a position paper might propose a particular theory in RE for comparative evaluation or might give an industrial perspective on barriers to introducing and validating new methods or tools.
• Technical papers (10-12 pages) Full papers should describe frameworks for RE research, RE theories to aid in comparative evaluation, comparative evaluation experiences, or report the results of such evaluations. For example, a full paper might describe how a comparative evaluation of RE techniques was performed in practice, or it might present the results of the actual performance of RE tools, methods or processes.

Organising Committee