Research PapersREFSQ 2024

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 30th edition.

Call for Papers

We invite submissions along the following categories

• Technical design papers (15 pages incl. references) describe the design of new artifacts, i.e., novel solutions for problems relevant to practice and/or significant and theoretically sound improvements of existing solutions. A preliminary validation of the artifacts is also expected.

• Scientific evaluation papers (15 pages incl. references) investigate existing real-world problems, evaluate existing artifacts implemented in real-world settings, or validate newly designed artifacts, e.g., by means such as case studies, action research, quasi-controlled experiments, simulations, surveys, or secondary studies if they clearly synthesize the state of reported evidence in literature (via systematic literature reviews or mapping studies). Please refer also to the Empirical Standards for guidelines and review criteria for each research method: https://github.com/acmsigsoft/EmpiricalStandards

• Experience report papers (12 pages incl. references) describe retrospective reports on experiences in applying RE techniques in practice, or addressing RE problems in real-world contexts. These papers focus on reporting the experience and give special attention to practical insights, lessons learned, and/or key takeaways and recommendations to the community. Experience reports may also include studies in which the authors interview practitioners about the application of specific RE techniques or about RE problems in practice.

• Vision papers (8 pages incl. references) state where research in the field should be heading.

• Research previews (8 pages incl. references) describe well-defined research ideas at an early stage of investigation which may not be fully developed.

Each type of paper has its own review criteria, which are listed here: (Will be updated soon)

Finally, we cordially invite authors to disclose their research artifacts following our open science guidelines. Authors who wish to disclose their artifacts can find further guidance and support under the open science initiative (more information soon).

Submission, Reviewing and Publication

Contributions must be submitted to: (Link will be provided soon)

Each submission in the scope of REFSQ will undergo a single-blind review process that will involve at least three members of the program committee.

The REFSQ 2024 proceedings will be published in Springer’s LNCS series.

A selection of best papers will be invited to submit extended versions for tentative publication in a Special Section of the journal of Information and Software Technology published by Elsevier https://www.journals.elsevier.com/information-and-software-technology

Formatting

All submissions must be formatted according to the Springer LNCS/LNBIP conference proceedings template (for LaTeX and Word), available here. As per the guidelines, please remember to include keywords after your abstract.

Furthermore, to facilitate accurate bidding and a better understanding of the papers, each paper submitted to REFSQ 2024 is required to have an abstract structured with exactly 4 paragraphs with the following content:

• Context and motivation: situate and motivate your research.

• Question/problem: formulate the specific question/problem addressed by the paper.

• Principal ideas/results: summarize the ideas and results described in your paper. State, where appropriate, your research approach and methodology.

• Contribution: state the main contribution of your paper, by highlighting its added value (e.g., to theory, to practice). Also, state the limitations of your results.

Open Science Policy

REFSQ encourages sharing data, code, and other artifacts, and this year it features a dedicated Open Science track. No artifact submissions are required, but the authors are encouraged to provide an availability statement and follow the guidelines reported on the web page of the Open Science Track

REFSQ-RE@Next! Transfer Model

This year, we are experimenting with a new transfer model between the REFSQ research paper track and RE@Next! track of the RE conference to bring the conferences closer together. REFSQ submissions which are not yet deemed mature enough to be accepted for presentation at REFSQ but are considered promising as RE@Next! contributions, will have the opportunity to participate in the transfer model.

In close collaboration between the PC co-chairs of the REFSQ research track and the RE@Next! track, this model will invite authors of selected submissions to revise their manuscript and submit it to RE@Next! with a rebuttal of changes suggested by the chairs. Those submissions will then not undergo a regular review process, but will be evaluated by the chairs of both tracks.