Call for Research Papers

Requirements Engineering (RE) is a critical factor in developing high-quality and successful software, systems and services. The REFSQ working conference series is an established international forum for discussing current and state-of-the-art RE practices, celebrating its 24th year. We are excited to hold REFSQ in Utrecht, returning to the location of the first REFSQ meeting in 1994. We welcome participants to attend REFSQ'18 in the Netherlands!

Working Conference Format

REFSQ has a long tradition of being a highly structured and interactive event. Each session is organised to emphasize discussion among the presenters of papers, pre-assigned discussants, and all the other participants. The REFSQ’18 program will include keynote speakers, technical papers, research previews, industrial presentations, as well as posters and tools. Workshops and the REFSQ doctoral symposium will be co-located with the main conference.

Scope

REFSQ 2018 seeks reports of novel ideas and techniques that enhance the quality of RE products and processes, reflections on current research and industrial RE practices, as well as new views on RE. We invite submissions on any aspect of RE. We encourage researchers and practitioners from the RE, software engineering, information systems, service science, embedded systems, and product management fields to present original work. RE methods, tools and processes are expected to support engineering diverse types of systems of different scale and complexity and are applied in diverse domains. As such, contributions from related areas such as systems engineering, economics, and management, providing insights to RE, are welcome. The special theme of REFSQ’18 is "RE and Digital Transformation" to emphasize an important issue: what role can RE play in the dramatic changes that take place in our society today to innovate and design new heterogeneous systems and services to fit the needs of users and to keep values of society.

Submissions

We invite original submissions in several categories:

• Technical design papers (up to 15 pages) ) describe and explain new artifact design, i.e., novel solutions for requirements-related problems or significant improvements of existing solutions. The research method of technical papers follows the design cycle (problem, treatment design, validity argument). The paper should give credible arguments that the novel solution will have the desired effects in the intended problem context, possibly illustrated with an example. Technical design papers are evaluated based on problem relevance, novelty of design, clarity of presentation of design, the technical soundness of the design, and the credibility of the validity arguments.
• Scientific evaluation papers (up to 15 pages) investigate existing real‐world problems, evaluate existing real‐world implemented artifacts, or validate newly designed artifacts, e.g., by means such as case studies, experiments, simulation, surveys, systematic literature reviews, mapping studies, or action research. The research method of scientific evaluation papers follows the empirical cycle (research questions, design, execution, data analysis). Scientific evaluation papers are evaluated based on the interest of the research questions, soundness of the research design, the clarity of presentation of measurements, and the validity (degree of support) of the conclusions.
• Vision papers (6 pages)state where the research in the field should be heading towards. Vision papers outline research roadmaps and programmes for the future based on existing knowledge. These papers are evaluated based on the insights they offer to the readers and on their potential to shape future research..
• Research previews (6 pages) describe well-defined research ideas at an early stage of investigation which may not be fully developed. Research previews will be evaluated based on their relevance, novelty, and soundness of the described research.
• Research method papers (15 pages) discuss methodological aspects of good quality empirical RE research. Conclusions should be supported by evidence. Research method papers will be evaluated by their relevance and soundness of the described research method.

Publications

The REFSQ 2018 proceedings will be published in Springer’s LNCS series. The authors of the best manuscripts will be invited to extend their papers into full journal papers for a Special Section of the Information and Software Technology Journal.

Programme Co-chairs