CALL FOR PAPERS, TUTORIALS, DOCTORAL SYMPOSIUM, AND STUDENT RESEARCH COMPETITION

MobileSoft 2016 - 3rd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems (May 16-17) http://mobilesoftconf.org/2016/

Austin, TX (USA)
Co-located with ICSE 2016 (May 14-22) http://2016.icse.cs.txstate.edu/
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RESEARCH PAPERS, SHORT PAPERS, EXPERIENCE REPORTS
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Paper submission: January 25, 2016 (Extended!)
Notification: February 19, 2016
Camera-Ready: February 23, 2016
Conference date: May 16-17, 2016

In recent years, the massive use of mobile applications deeply influences the way people go about their daily life. The number of available mobile applications has grown enormously since the establishment of app stores and marketplaces that enable users to download and seamlessly install apps. Mobile platforms are rapidly changing and include diverse capabilities such as GPS, cameras, wireless communications on many frequencies and bandwidths, a variety of on-device memory and disk capacities, and various sensors.

Innovative mobile services and exciting mobile applications are emerging as a result of the ingenious use of these technologies. Consequently, the development of mobile applications has also been growing at a fast pace, presenting new challenges to Software Engineering. When running on mobile platforms, modern applications need to scale on-demand, according to the hardware capabilities and user preferences. Developing versatile and robust mobile applications requires formally grounded methods, as well as advanced practices and tools.

MobileSoft aims at providing innovative contributions to the research and development of novel approaches to the design, development, validation, execution and evolution of mobile applications. These include architecture techniques relating to platform complexity; improved refactoring tools for hybrid applications using dynamic languages; developing applications in multiple languages; and testing and verification techniques for applications that run on different devices.

We welcome contributions related to mobile software engineering. Topics include, but are not limited to:
* Development environments and tools
* Testing, maintenance, verification and evolution
* Patterns, frameworks, and product lines
* Refactoring, restructuring, and renovation
* Program transformation and optimization
* Empirical studies and metrics
* User experience and new input devices
* Hybrid versus native applications
* Agile or model-driven development
* Application and system security
* Cloud support and scalability
* Static and dynamic analysis
* Debugging techniques and tools
* Programming languages
* Mobile programming and software engineering education and training
* The mobile role in the context of Internet of Things
* Mobile apps connected to wearable devices

We solicit contributions of research papers (up to 10 pages plus 2 pages for references only), short papers (up to 4 pages), and experience report papers (2 pages). Short papers can be industrial, emerging ideas, or demonstrations. Your submission must conform to the ACM Formatting Guidelines (http://2016.icse.cs.txstate.edu/formatInstr). Submit your paper in Adobe PDF via EasyChair (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mobilesoft2016).
Accepted papers will be published in the conference electronic proceedings and in both ACM Digital Library and IEEE Digital Library.


TUTORIALS
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Important Dates
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Tutorial submission: January 27, 2016
Notification: February 05, 2016
Extended abstract deadline: February 23, 2016
Slides online: May 12, 2016

Within the scope of MOBILESoft 2016, we invite proposals for 60 minutes long tutorials with 30 minutes of subsequent interactive activity for the participants. We encourage tutorials on all topics related to the context of software engineering for mobile applications, its challenges, new perspectives, and tool support.

Tutorial proposal submissions should contain the following sections in the suggested order:

* TITLE
A concise title.

* PRESENTER(S)
The name(s), affiliation, contact information, and brief bio of the presenter(s).

* TOPIC DESCRIPTION
A description of the tutorial topic, providing a sense of both the scope of the tutorial and depth within the scope.

* FORMAT
Clarification of the intended format and activities planed within the tutorial (e.g. initial lecture, demo, hands-on exercise, discussion).

* PREVIOUS EDITIONS
If the tutorial was given before, describe when and where it was given and how it will be modified for MOBILESoft 2016. If possible, provide a link to slides of the previous tutorial presentation.

* EQUIPMENT
Indicate additional equipment needed (if any). The standard equipment includes an LCD projector, a single projection screen and microphone. Additionally indicate if you require the participants to bring any equipment.

Proposals must be in PDF, conforming to the ACM Formatting Guidelines using the ICSE 2016 papers template, and must be no longer than 2 pages. Tutorial proposals should be submitted via EasyChair, in the Tutorials track of https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mobilesoft2016.

The description, presenter(s) and slides of the accepted tutorials will be made available at the conference website, and a 2-page extended abstract of the tutorial will be included in the conference proceedings.


DOCTORAL SYMPOSIUM
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Important Dates
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Submission deadline: February 05, 2016
Notification of acceptance: February 20, 2016
Extended abstract deadline: February 27, 2016
MOBILESoft Symposium Day: TBA


The goal of the Doctoral Symposium is to provide a forum in which PhD students can present their work in progress. The symposium supports students by providing independent and constructive feedback about their already completed and, more importantly, planned research work. The symposium will be accompanied by prominent experts who will actively participate in critical discussions.

Relevant fields within Mobile Software Engineering and Systems include (but are not limited to):

* Verification and Validation of mobile applications and OSs
* Energy consumption and sustainability
* Offloading
* Mobile patterns, frameworks, and best practices
* Model driven development for mobile applications
* Security and trust
* User experience of mobile applications
* Hybrid versus native applications
* Programming environments on or for mobile devices
* Mobile development in the cloud
* Libraries and programming frameworks for mobile devices

Any topic of interest for the conferences that will take place within the MOBILESoft 2016 call for papers is highly welcomed.

Submissions exclusively authored by the PhD student are invited from students who have settled on a PhD topic. We do accept papers on both initial stage (first or second year) and mature stage (third year, or later) of research. The authors shall clearly indicate their stage of research maturity in a footnote to be added to the paper title.

Submissions are allowed via EasyChair (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mobilesoft2016).

Each submission will be reviewed by at least 3 experts based on originality, significance, correctness and clarity. Submissions should describe research-in-progress that is meant to lead to a PhD dissertation, using the following structure:

* Title of your proposal
* Your name, affiliation, email address, and personal website.
* Your advisor’s name and email address.
* Problem: The problem the research intends to solve, the target audience of this research, and a motivation of why the problem is important and needs to be solved.
* Related work: A review of the relevant related work with an emphasis of how the proposed approach is different and what advantages it has over the existing state of the art.
* Proposed solution: A sketch of the proposed solution.
* Preliminary work: A description of the work to-date and results achieved so far.
* Expected contributions: A list of the expected contributions to both theory and practice.
* Plan for evaluation and validation: A description of how it will be shown that the work does indeed solve the targeted problem and is superior to the existing state of the art (e.g., prototyping, industry case studies, user studies, experiments).
* Current status: The current status of the work and a planned timeline for completion.

All accepted submissions to the Doctoral Symposium at MobileSoft2016 will be published in the MobileSoft216 proceedings and in both the ACM Digital Library and the IEEE Digital Library.

Contributions must not exceed 4 pages in ACM format.

STUDENT RESEARCH COMPETITION
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Important Dates
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Abstract submission: January 20, 2016
Notification: February 19, 2016
Camera-Ready: February 28, 2016

MobileSoft is hosting an ACM Student Research Competition (ACM SRC) sponsored by Microsoft Research. The competition is an internationally recognized venue that enables undergraduate and graduate students to experience the research world, share their research results with other students and MobileSoft attendees, and compete for prizes.
The ACM Student Research Competition facilitates interaction with researchers and industry practitioners; providing both sides with the opportunity to learn of ongoing, current research in the area of mobile software. Additionally, the Student Research Competition gives students experience with both formal presentations and evaluations.

A maximum of 20 students (10 undergraduates, 10 graduates) will be selected to participate in the Student Research Competition at MobileSoft. Submissions are reviewed by a panel of experts, and are evaluated based on the quality of the work, novelty of approach, significance of contribution, and clarity of written presentation. Students whose submissions are accepted to participate in the competition are entitled to a stipend for their travel expenses, up to a maximum of US $500. Students can enter ICSE and MobileSoft SRCs, but may not be funded for both SRCs at ICSE and MobileSOFT.

At the conference, the first round of the competition evaluates the research during a poster presentation. The poster presentation is evaluated based on two facets:
* The presentation of the research, including the visual aspects of the poster and the student's oral discussion.
* The research, specifically its quality, novelty, and the significance of the contribution.

Based on the results from the poster session, the judges will select students to advance to the second round of the competition.

During the second round each student gives a short (5-10 min) presentation of their research, followed by a question and answer period. The judges evaluate the presentations and select the top three winners in each category. The winners receive prizes of US $500, US $300, US $200, respectively.

After the conference, the winners from each category will advance to the ACM Grand Finals of the Student Research Competition, where all SIG conference contest winners are evaluated.

Submissions must be original research that is neither in submission nor already published at MobileSoft or another conference or journal. Also, submissions must be individual student research projects. The Student Research Competition is meant to be an opportunity for junior students to develop their skills as researchers and to give them an opportunity to showcase their work. One of the goals of the program is to focus on the student, their capabilities as a researcher, and their potential. Supervisors of the work should not be listed as co-authors; you must submit a single-authored version for the competition. Interested students should submit a two-page abstract using ACM conference format. The submission should describe:
* The research problem and motivation
* Background and related work
* Approach and uniqueness
* Results and contributions

Submissions are reviewed by a panel of experts, and are evaluated based upon the following criteria:
* Quality of work
* Novelty of approach
* Significance of contribution
* Clarity of written presentation

Submissions web site: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mobilesoft2016

Participants must be undergraduates or graduate students pursuing an academic degree at the time of initial submission. Research completed while the student was an undergraduate may be submitted to the undergraduate category even if the student is now a first-year graduate student. Participants must be current members of the ACM and provide their ACM member number.


ORGANIZATION
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General Chair
Aharon Abadi, IBM Research - Haifa, Israel

Program Co-Chairs
Paola Inverardi, University of L'Aquila, Italy
Lori Flynn, CERT, Carnegie Mellon University, United States

Tutorials Co-Chairs
Barbora Buhnova (Masaryk University, Czech Republic) - chair
Jonas Sevcik (Masaryk University, Czech Republic)

Doctoral Symposium Chair
Henry Muccini, University of L’Aquila, Italy

Student Research Competition Chair
Young-Woo Kwon, Utah State University, USA

Social Media & Publicity Chairs
Shah Rukh Humayoun, University of Kaiserslautern, Germany
Yu Feng, The University of Texas, Austin, USA

Technical Chair
Mirco Franzago, University of L’Aquila, Italy

Mobile Applications Track Chair
Marco Pistoia, IBM research, Watson, USA

Finance Chair
Amiram Yehudai, Tel-Aviv University, Israel

Sponsorship Chair
Judith Bishop, Microsoft Research, Redmond, USA

Proceedings Chair
Jeff Gray, University of Alabama, USA