-------- Original-Nachricht -------- Betreff: [isworld] Empirical Studies in Software Architecture - Special Issue Datum: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:35:53 -0500 Von: Muhammad Ali Babar muhammad.alibabar@lero.ie Antwort an: Muhammad Ali Babar muhammad.alibabar@lero.ie An: AISWORLD Information Systems World Network isworld@lyris.isworld.org

Call for Papers

Special Issue of the Empirical Software Engineering Journal

'Empirical Studies in Software Architecture: Opportunities, Approaches, and Challenges'

http://www.lmsa-community.org/wikis/index.php/ESE-SA

--------------------------------- Guest Editors

M. Ali Babar, Lero, Ireland. Patricia Lago, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Arie van Deursen, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands.

---------------------------------- Important dates

Deadline for submission: 30 July 2009 Date of notification to authors (first round): 15 October 2009 Proposed date of publication: Tentatively in Spring 2010

---------------------------------- Context and Theme

In recent years, the software architecture community (i.e., researchers and practitioners) has developed many methods, techniques, and tools to support software architecture design, documentation, and evaluation activities. However, apart from a few exceptions, there has been little effort to gather and use empirical evidence to support the claims of efficacy or capabilities of different methods and techniques developed for supporting the software architecture process. The aim of this special issue is to provide an authoritative reference on systematically selecting and rigorously applying suitable empirical methods for evaluating methods, techniques, and tools developed for supporting the software architecture process.

This issue is particularly interested in carefully designed and rigorously conducted empirical studies to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of different methods, techniques, tools (e.g., ADLs, design methods, analysis tools) developed to support the software architecture process (i.e., design, description, and evaluation). The editors of this special issue have made available some example papers and relevant guidelines published in software engineering literature at http://www.lmsa-community.org/wikis/index.php/ESE-SA . Although not mandatory, we strongly encourage the authors interested in submitting their work to carefully examine these papers and give full considerations to the guidelines papers while preparing their manuscripts for this special issue.

Articles on the following topics are of interest. In all cases appropriateness of the empirical research design and reliability and validity of the achieved results should be emphasized:

� Empirical analysis of the benefits and limitations of different architecture design methods � Empirical comparisons of different Architectural Description Languages (ADLs) and architectural modeling tools � Empirical analyses of contemporary and emerging approaches to architecting (e.g., aspect-oriented, model-driven, and service-oriented) � Empirical studies illustrating benefits and limitations of technologies for architectural knowledge and rationale management � Empirical studies aimed at clarifying the misconceptions and false hopes of applying architectural styles and patterns � Experience reports or empirical case studies, particularly those that demonstrate the scope and limitations of architecture design, description, and evaluation approaches. o Papers describing the failures in using certain approaches will be of as much interest as the papers of success stories. � Empirical studies describing the social, organizational, and economic aspects of institutionalizing architectural practices � Survey papers that present either the state-of-the-art or the state-of-the-practice to examine and compare past results in this area, particularly survey papers focusing on limitations. Particular interest will be paid to surveys using published results to assess the strength of evidence provided and illustrate the limitations of the studied approaches.

-------------------------------- Submission guidelines

All manuscripts should be compliant with the journal's submission guidelines, which can be accessed by visiting journal's website (http://www.springer.com/computer/programming/journal/10664 ) and must not have been published previously or be currently under consideration for publication in any other journals or conferences. Significant extensions to substantive papers published in conferences are also welcome, provided that the editors are made aware of the previous publications.

The paper submissions via the online submission system at http://www.editorialmanager.com/emse/

------------------------------- For further information and relevant literature, please visit the special issue's website:

http://www.lmsa-community.org/wikis/index.php/ESE-SA

For any kind of inquiry, Please contact one of the guest editors:

M. Ali Babar: malibaba@lero.ie, Patricia Lago: patricia@cs.vu.nl, Arie van Deursen: Arie.vanDeursen@tudelft.nl

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