MOBILESoft 2018 - Combined Call for Contributions (technical papers, visions, tool demos and mobile apps, student research competition)

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MOBILESoft 2018 - 5th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems
May 27-28, Gothenburg, Sweden
http://mobilesoftconf.org/2018/

Co-located with ICSE 2018 (May 27 - June 3) http://www.icse2018.org/

MOBILESoft 2018 cordially invites contributions related to all aspects of mobile software engineering!

In recent years, the massive increase in the use of mobile applications has greatly influenced 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, several wireless communications (WLAN, 4G, RFID, etc.), 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. Developing versatile and robust mobile applications requires formally grounded methods, as well as advanced practices and tools.

MOBILESoft provides a working conference-style forum for the discussion and presentation of innovative contributions to the research and practice of the design, development, validation, execution, and evolution of mobile applications.

MOBILESoft 2018 comprises four main tracks:
- technical papers,
- visions,
- tool demos and mobile apps,
- student research competition.


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Call for Papers
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Technical Papers
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The technical papers track will focus on significant, novel and emerging solutions for mobile application software engineering. These should be well-motivated, carefully compared, and contrasted with significant related research. Papers should include methodology, implementation, results, and discussion as appropriate. Solutions are expected to be rigorously evaluated.
Areas of contribution may include technological advancements, architectural approaches, advancements in design and implementation methods, testing approaches, user interfaces and HCI, business and organizational issues, and empirical studies. We solicit contributions of full papers (up to 10 pages, with up to 2 additional pages only for references), and short papers (up to 4 pages, with 1 additional page only for references). Full papers are expected to make a significant new research or practice contribution. Short papers are expected to present an interesting, well-developed contribution of more modest proportions. Papers must not have been previously published or be under consideration elsewhere for publication. We solicit contributions from both academia and industry.

Programme Committee co-chairs: Grace A. Lewis and Itai Segall


Visions track
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MOBILESoft 2018 also invites submissions for a “Visions” track. This track addresses the same topics of interest as those of the MOBILESoft 2018 technical research paper track. However, authors of Vision papers are encouraged to focus more on fledgling or unconventional ideas. These may include: new perspectives that call into question long held beliefs or conventions; bold visions of new directions in mobile software engineering and systems; novel (and potentially groundbreaking) interdisciplinary synergies; and, more in general, “big” ideas for our emerging community of software engineering for mobile systems. Note that evaluation results are not required for Visions papers, but preliminary results providing initial support for the proposed ideas are welcome. Submissions should not exceed four (4) pages, with one additional page only for references, and should be submitted according to all of the requirements (including deadlines) of MOBILESoft 2018.

Track co-chairs: Ivano Malavolta and Sam Malek


Tool Demos and Mobile Apps track
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Mobile devices and platforms dominate the modern computing landscape, creating immense demand for quality applications. Because of this, the engineers, architects and designers that create these apps are able to reach unprecedented numbers of users. However, the mobile software development and design processes comes with a unique set of challenges and constraints. The goal of this track is to solicit demonstrations of tools and mobile apps from both academic and industrial origins designed to improve the lives of mobile developers across the world. Submissions should showcase novel, practical contributions that aid mobile software architects, designers, researchers, or engineers in their respective workflows. Authors of each accepted submission will give a short presentation of their solution, followed by a detailed demo session. Both tool demos and mobile application submissions can fall into one of the following two categories:
Tools and apps in practice, either from commercial vendors or open-source projects. These demonstrations should focus on practical applications within the different activities of software design and development and should particularly show how they advance the current state of the practice. New ideas are particularly welcome.
Tools and apps in research from academic or industrial research environments. These demonstrations are intended to highlight underlying scientific contributions and show how scientific approaches have been transferred into a working tool.
Both categories may range from early prototypes to in-house or pre-commercialized products. Authors of regular MOBILESoft papers are also welcome to submit an accompanying MOBILESoft Tool Demos and Mobile Apps paper by adding information regarding the actual demo. Each contribution must be submitted in the form of up to a four (4)-page short paper.

Track co-chairs: Denys Poshyvanyk and Christoph Elsner


Student Research Competition track
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Continuing with the success of previous years, MOBILESoft will host 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 SRC at MOBILESoft 2018 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. The ACM SRC at MOBILESoft 2018 consists of three parts: (1) research abstract submission, (2) poster presentation, and (3) research presentation. The winners of the competition will be invited to participate in the ACM SRC Grand Finals.
To participate in the competition, interested students should submit a two-page abstract (including all text, references and figures). Submissions must be individual student research projects. The first round of the competition will take place at the conference and will evaluate the research during a poster presentation. 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 presentation of their research, followed by a question and answer period. The judges will evaluate the presentations and select the top three winners in each category (undergraduate and graduate).
The top three winners receive prizes of US $500, US $300, and US $200, respectively. All winners also receive an award medal and a two-year complimentary ACM membership with a subscription to ACM’s Digital Library. Winners will be recognized during the conference. After the conference, the winners from each category will advance to the ACM SRC Grand Finals, where all SIG conference contest winners are evaluated.
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.

Track co-chairs: Jamie Payton and Mirco Franzago


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Topics of Interest (common to all tracks)
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We solicit contributions related to mobile software engineering, including but not limited to the following topics:

- 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
- Mobile Cloud Computing
- Static and dynamic analysis
- Debugging techniques and tools
- Programming languages
- Mobile programming and software engineering education and training
- The role of mobile in the context of the Internet of Things
- Mobile apps connected to wearable devices
- Industrial experience reports


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Formatting and Submission Instructions
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All submissions must conform to the ACM formatting and submission instructions and must be in PDF. The page limit indicated in each track is strict, and it will not be possible to purchase additional pages at any point in the process (including after the paper is accepted).

For MS Word users: Use the ACM_SigConf.docx template following the instructions from the NEW ACM formatting guidelines (https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template).

For LaTex users: Use the NEW ACM formatting guidelines (https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template). Upon unzipping the zip file, run ‘make all’. This will produce the acmart.cls file. You should use the conference format described in sample-sigconf.tex to format your paper. You are recommended to use the ‘review’ option (\documentclass[sigconf,review]{acmart}) which will add line numbers, thereby allowing referees to refer to specific lines in their comments, but we do not enforce the use of the ‘review’ option (that is, we will not desk reject papers for failing to use this option).

Accepted papers will be published in the conference electronic proceedings and in both the ACM Digital Library and IEEE Digital Library.

Submit via Easy Chair:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mobilesoft2018


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Important Dates
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Technical papers, visions, tool demos, and mobile apps
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- Papers due: January 15, 2018 24:00 AoE
- Author Notifications: February 19, 2018
- Camera-ready due: March 19, 2018

Student research competition
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- Abstract submission: February 19, 2018
- Author Notifications: March 12, 2018


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Proceedings
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At least one author of an accepted contribution is required to register, present the work, and participate during the discussions at the forum. Accepted papers will be published in the conference electronic proceedings and in both the ACM Digital Library and IEEE Digital Library.


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Organizing committee
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General chair:
Christine Julien, The University of Texas at Austin, USA

Program Co-Chairs:
Grace Lewis, Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute, USA
Itai Segall, Nokia Bell Labs, USA

Visions Co-chairs:
Ivano Malavolta, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Sam Malek, University of California at Irvine, USA

Tool Demos and Mobile Apps Co-Chairs:
Denys Poshyvanyk, William and Mary, USA
Christoph Elsner, Siemens AG, Germany

Student Research Competition Co-Chairs:
Jamie Payton, Temple University, USA
Mirco Franzago, University of L'Aquila, Italy

Keynote Chair:
Henry Muccini, University of L’Aquila, Italy

Proceedings Chair:
Stephan Krusche, Technische Universität München, Germany

Panels Chair:
Marco Autili, University of L’Aquila, Italy

Web Chair:
Colin Maxfield, The University of Texas at Austin, USA

Publicity and Social Media Co-Chairs:
Luís Cruz, University of Porto, Portugal
Kevin Moran, William and Mary, USA
Romina Spalazzese, Malmö University, Sweden


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Social media
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/mobilesoftconf
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/MobilesoftConference/

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Luís Cruz, Kevin Moran, and Romina Spalazzese

Publicity and Social Media Co-Chairs of MOBILESoft 2018
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