At five previous REFSQ workshops - all arranged in connection with CAiSE conferences - researchers and practitioners from various disciplines have contributed to improve the definition and implementation of quality requirements. REFSQ'2000 will continue this tradition as a highly interactive stage for discussion of quality-related problems in RE as they have developed over the last year. In particular, we encourage people from the requirements engineering, software engineering and information systems fields to present their approaches to higher software quality and to discuss how requirements engineering can contribute to it. Extended versions of selected papers from REFSQ'2000 will be invited for publication in a Special Issue of the "Requirements Engineering Journal" published by Springer.

G O A L

Achieving high quality means to realise the needs of users and customers. These needs are elicited, negotiated, documented and validated during requirements engineering (RE). RE is therefore the most crucial phase of software development. The goals of RE are:

• To produce a traceable requirements specification that is as consistent and complete as possible;
• To facilitate a cooperative and iterative learning process;
• To document both the specification and the RE process using appropriate representation formats;
• To establish a sufficient common understanding among the stakeholders involved.

Conventional RE methods usually support only parts of this process or help stating only specific kinds of requirements.

The goal of REFSQ is to improve the understanding of the relations between requirements engineering and software quality. More precisely, REFSQ aims at having intensive discussion provoked by brief presentations about:

• solutions to known RE problems and shortcomings;
• innovative research ideas possibly initiating new research directions;
• industrial problem statements; and
• generalisations from individual industrial experiences.

T H E M E S

One way to achieve the goals of RE is to enhance the methods used. Method Engineering (ME) has sought ways to develop new methods and tools for developing information and software systems. Our special workshop theme this year is therefore "Consolidating the Field - Method Engineering and Meta-Modelling Approaches to Requirements Engineering", where we seek innovative and novel method development approaches which aid in the early stages of systems development. Possible topics include new methods for RE, methodical approaches to distributed development and advanced methods for rapid application development. Of particular interest are methods that aid in end-user participation and facilitate building of shared understanding among all stakeholders.

REFSQ'2000 also invites general submissions addressing a wider range of RE-issues, such as:

• understanding and improving RE-processes;
• RE for Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) systems;
• empirical evaluation of RE methods and tools; as well as
• empirical studies of industrial RE practice.

Papers addressing other areas of RE are of course also welcome.

P U B L I C A T I O N

Like earlier years, the papers presented at the workshop will be published in the REFSQ'2000 proceedings.

In addition, extended versions of selected papers from REFSQ'2000 will be invited for publication in a Special Issue of the "Requirements Engineering Journal" published by Springer.

W O R K S H O P   F O R M A T

The workshop will be highly interactive. Attendance is limited to 30 people and all participants should have a paper accepted for the workshop. The workshop language is English.

The workshop will be organised in conjunction with the CAiSE*2000 conference. Earlier CAiSE conferences have sometimes required workshop participants to also attend the main conference.

The accepted papers will be made available electronically to all workshop participants before the workshop, so that presentations can be kept short. Discussants will be appointed for each paper presentation. The discussants will be followed by a plenary discussion of the paper. In addition, there will be a plenary discussion at the end of each session.

At the end of the workshop there will be a general discussion, possibly including a brainstorming session about areas or topics of RE research that the participants perceive as important.

I N S T R U C T I O N S   F O R   A U T H O R S

Papers of three types can be submitted to the workshop:

• Full papers (max 6000 words)
  Full papers should emphasise what is new and significant about the chosen approach and adequately compare it with similar work. Integration of the contributions with mainstream or other research approaches to RE, SE and IS development are especially encouraged.
  The maximum length of a full paper is 6000 words.
• Position papers (max 2000 words)
  Position papers should state the author's research position with respect to current RE practice, relations between current RE practice and RE research, and/or research methodology and ontological assumptions. Papers should emphasise which topics that are particularly important within RE at present, and why.
  The maximum length of a position paper is 2000 words.
• Industrial problem statements (1 page or longer)
  People from industry are especially encouraged to submit problem statements, which may address mis-matches between current RE practice and research and/or emerging areas of concern for RE practitioners.

Send your contribution by e-mail in RTF- or PDF-format before February 28th 2000 (hard arrival date) to:

Matti Rossi
Helsinki School of Economics
P.O. Box 1201
FIN-00101 Helsinki
Finland

Email submission is encouraged, because the accepted papers will be distributed to the other participants electronically before the workshop.

I M P O R T A N T   D A T E S

P R O G R A M   C O - C H A I R S

P R O G R A M   C O M M I T T E E

Camille Ben Achour, Univ. of Paris 1 - Sorbonne, France	Daniel M. Berry, Univ. of Waterloo, Canada
Sjaak Brinkkemper, BAAN, The Netherlands	Eric Dubois, SWIFT, Belgium
Steve Easterbrook, Univ. of Toronto, Canada	Göran Goldkuhl, Linköping Univ., Sweden
Brian Henderson-Sellers, Univ of Technology, Sydney, Australia	Juhani Iivari, Univ. of Jyväskylä, Finland
Matthias Jarke, RWTH Aachen, Germany	John Krogstie, Andersen Consulting, Norway
Wing Lam, ICL, UK	Dieter Landes, Coburg Univ. of Technology, Germany
Peri Loucopoulos, UMIST, UK	Kalle Lyytinen, Univ. of Jyväskylä, Finland
Neil Maiden, City Univ., London, UK	Pentti Marttiin, Nokia, Finland
Peter Axel Nielsen, Ålborg Univ. Center, Denmark	Anders Nilsson, Karlstad Univ., Sweden
Bashar Nuseibeh, Imperial College, UK	Antoni Olive, Technical Univ. of Catalonia, Spain
Andreas L. Opdahl, Univ. of Bergen, Norway	Klaus Pohl, Univ. of Essen, Germany
Sandeep Purao, Georgia State Univ., USA	Bala Ramesh, Georgia State Univ., USA
Björn Regnell, Lund Univ. of Technology, Sweden	Colette Rolland, Univ. of Paris 1 - Sorbonne, France
Matti Rossi, Helsinki School of Economics, Finland	Peter Sawyer, Lancaster Univ, UK
Guttorm Sindre, Norwegian Univ. of Science and Technology, Norway	Paul Sorenson, Univ. of Alberta at Edmonton, Canada
Roel Wieringa, Univ. of Twente, The Netherlands	Eric Yu, Univ. of Toronto, Canada