Special issue on Software Evolution, Adaptability and Variability

Special issue in Science of Computer Programming

Context

Successful software systems are long-lived systems that are able to keep up with the pace of rapidly changing requirements, technological infrastructures, business processes, legislation, and so on. The research domains of software evolution, adaptability and variability focus on techniques and principles that let software engineers adapt software systems to meet such new and changing requirements. This Elsevier Science of Computer Programming special issue intends to gather high-quality submissions on novel and original research, experience reports and empirical studies in the aforementioned domains.

The special issue originates from the 8th Belgian-Netherlands Software Evolution Seminar (BENEVOL), a successful series of seminars bringing together researchers from Belgium, The Netherlands and neighbouring countries to identify and discuss important principles, problems, techniques and results related to software evolution research and practice.

Topics of Interest:

Topics of interest include, but are not restricted to:

• Model-driven software evolution: model transformation, evolution and co-evolution of models, verification and validation of evolving models, quality of models and model transformations, modeling evolution, meta-modeling;
• Foundations & paradigms: formal languages, semantics and theories for software evolution;
• Empirical studies in evolution: empirical results, case studies, experimentation design, measurement, quality models for evolvability;
• Tool support for software evolution: tools to assist the evolution process, tools to ensure or to verify quality of the evolution process or of the evolving artifacts;
• Data-intensive systems evolution: data evolution, reengineering data-intensive systems and databases;
• Process-intensive systems evolution: process evolution, reengineering process-oriented systems;
• Software evolution concerns in Model-Driven, Aspect-Oriented, Service-Oriented, Open Source, Software Product Lines;
• Managerial aspects and process models for software evolution: software re-engineering and quality improvement, inconsistency management and co-evolution;
• Software analysis and visualisation techniques to support software evolution: static and dynamic analysis, change propagation, metrics;
• Data and process analysis techniques to support software evolution: data and process analysis, data and process mining;
• Dynamic adaptation, composition and reconfiguration of software and services.
• Testing of software maintenance, variability and adaptability.

Submission Guidelines

Papers should be formatted according to the Elsevier Science of Computer Programming guidelines, which you can find here.

Please take into account that:

• there is a limit of 20 pages.
• when preparing your manuscript with Latex, please use elsarticle.cls and use the preprint option (more details can be found here.)
• A newer version of the elsarticle.cls can be found at http://support.river-valley.com/wiki/index.php?title=Elsarticle.cls, it is supposed to solve a number of issues (thanks Pieter van der Spek).
• any submission to this special issue should contain at least 30% new material compared to any previously published manuscript on this topic.

Submissions details:

• Submission must occur electronically via http://ees.elsevier.com/scico/
• You must select "Special Issue: Software Evolution" when you reach the "Article Type" step in the submission process, otherwise your submission will not be correctly identified for the special issue.

Important dates:

• Submit title, authors & abstract by February 26th, 2010 (through email: Johan.Brichau@uclouvain.be and a.e.zaidman@tudelft.nl)
• Submission deadline: February 26th, 2010 March 5th, 2010 (extended!!!)
• Notification of acceptance: April 30th, 2010 2nd half of May 2010 postponed
• Intended publication date: TBA

Guest Editors

• Johan Brichau, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium
• Andy Zaidman, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Program Commitee

• Mark van den Brand, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
• Anthony Cleve, University of Namur, Belgium
• Serge Demeyer, University of Antwerp, Belgium
• Dirk Deridder, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
• Stephane Ducasse, INRIA Lille, France
• Pieter Van Gorp, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
• Robert Hirschfeld, Hasso-Plattner Institut Potsdam, Germany
• Andy Kellens, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
• Paul Klint, CWI, The Netherlands
• Pierre Kelsen, University of Luxemburg, Luxemburg
• Ralf Laemmel, Universität Koblenz-Landau, Germany
• Dalila Tamzalit, University of Nantes, France
• Eddy Truyen, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

-- AndyZaidman - 23 Feb 2010