REFSQ 2011 » Empirical Research Fair

Empirical Research Fair

It is clearly understood in the requirements engineering (RE) community that case studies of industry projects are critical for our in-depth understanding of both: (a) the phenomena occurring in projects, processes, systems, and services and (b) the impact of the phenomena on the quality, cost, and deliverability of systems. For example: Are we doing too much or too little documentation of software and system requirements in projects? When eliciting requirements for a relatively new system or a legacy system, should we examine the existing system architecture and, if so, when, and why then? What is the impact of decisions made during RE on the quality, cost and delivery of software or services to the customer? How do we manage a very large number of requirements on large projects? How does one efficiently and effectively review the requirements for a large system? Such questions abound in industrial projects, but there is a dearth of research results in RE that actually helps solve them. Consequently, both the industrial and the academic RE communities are struggling to make significant progress in RE, so the purpose of the fair is to bring them together.

This situation is akin to paddling a bicycle with a malfunctioning sprocket. Let us fix the RE sprocket so that (i) industry can provide the right kind of questions and environment to the researchers to solve important RE problems and (ii) research in RE can yield relevant answers to help RE practice, thus creating a symbiotic relationship between industry and academia.

For what appears to be the first time ever and certainly for the first time at any REFSQ working conference, at REFSQ 2011, there will be a special Empirical Research Fair track, the goal of which is to bring together practitioners and researchers together – very much like in a fair – so that: (1) practitioners can propose studies that organisations would like to have conducted and (2) researchers can propose studies they would like to conduct in industry. It is a meeting point to match the demand and supply of empirical studies among researchers and practitioners.

Practitioners are typically “turned off” or intimidated by the rigorous requirements and low acceptance rates of conference paper submissions. To encourage industry participation, the format of this session is short presentations of case study proposals by both practitioners and researchers. In addition, there will be a “match-making” session to bring together specific industry personnel and specific researchers on specific proposals.
The Empirical research Fair will bring together practitioners presenting studies they would like to have conducted in their organisations by researchers and, likewise, researchers presenting studies they would like to conduct in an industrial setting.

Presentations

What do User Stories Tell Us About the Business Value? Zornitza Bakalova, Maya Daneva short description

RBAC in Practice, Virginia N. L. Franqueira, Nelly Condori Fernandez short description

Why Do Homecare Providers Stories Tell Us About the Dynamicity, Alireza Zarghami, Mohammad Zarifi, Marten van Sinderen short description

Empirical Study of Modelling Behavior, Ilona Wilmont, Lauri Ann Scheinholtz short description

Requirements Elicitation and Validation for Secure IT Enabling Supply Chain Networks, Elena Irina Neaga, Michael Henshaw short description

Scalability of Methods for Managing Requirements Information- an Interview Study, Krzysztof Wnuk, Bjorn Regnell short description

Interested in Improving Your Requirements Engineering Process? Try Requirement Patterns! Xavier Franch, Cindy Guerlain, Cristina Palomares, Carme Quer, Samuel Renaul short description

The Impact of Domain Knowledge on the Effectiveness of Requirements Engineering Activities, Ali Niknafs, Daniel Berry short description

Towards a Universal Syntax of Software Requirements, James Hulgan, Joy Beatty short description

Intercultural Requirements Engineering for Software-Development: Culture and Its Impact on Requirements Negotiation, Dr. Georg Herzwurm, Benedikt Krams short description

Application of Tailored Requirements Process in the Context of Reuseoriented IS Development, Sebastian Adam short description

Identifying Value-based Criteria for Requirements Triage and Selection Decision Making, Mahvish Khurum, Tony Gorschek short description