CALL FOR PAPERS

SPICE 2014

The 14th International SPICE Conference Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination
Vilnius, Lithuania
4 - 6 November 2014

http://www.spiceconference.com

The SPICE User Group is pleased to announce the fourteenth International SPICE Conference on Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination in Software, Systems Engineering and Service Management, to be held at Vilnius, Lithuania from 5 - 6 November 2014. The conference will be preceded by a Workshops and Tutorials day on 4 November 2014. This major conference is hosted on behalf of The SPICE User Group by Vilnius University. The conference marks 21 years since the beginning of the SPICE Project.

The 2014 Conference will focus on the emerging ISO/IEC 3300xx series which is the revision of the ISO/IEC 15504 family of related Standards; it is anticipated that key documents from this Standards suite will be in publication at the time of the Conference; a significant focus for the Conference will be the transition from ISO/IEC 15504 to ISO/IEC 330xx. There will also be special tracks for Automotive systems and software; Medical device systems and software; Innovation, knowledge and technology transfer; Enterprise systems; Sustainability ('Green IT') and IT Security.

Papers and presentations related to process assessment, improvement and risk determination are specifically invited for the 2014 SPICE conference. Submissions are sought in the following categories:

* Research Papers
Research papers should describe innovative and significant work in process modelling, assessment and improvement, particularly relating to the application of the Standards for Process Assessment, which is relevant across the information technology industry generally. Papers should comprise 10 ñ 12 pages.

* Industrial Experience Reports
Reports on practical experiences related to process assessment and improvement across the domains of software engineering, systems engineering and IT service management are sought; an extended abstract (up to 4 pages) should be submitted.

* Workshops and Tutorials
Proposals for half-day or one-day workshops or tutorials are welcomed. Tutorials should address a specified topic in the scope of the Conference, from a presenter of acknowledged expertise. Workshops may include several short discussion papers from interested participants. Tutorials and Workshops will be held on 4 November 2014, the day preceding the conference.

The breadth of the application of the standardised approach to process assessment remains a topic of considerable interest, from both a practical and theoretical perspective; and so, accordingly, the SPICE 2014 Conference seeks contributions specifically relating to the following areas of application:

* Automotive systems and software;
* Aerospace systems and software;
* Medical device systems and software;
* Innovation, knowledge and technology transfer
* Enterprise systems;
* IT service management;
* IT Security;
* Safety-related systems and software;
* Test process improvement;
* Financial institutions and banks;
* Small and very small enterprises.

The programme committee welcome high quality contributions to the conference on the following related topics:
* Case studies on model-based improvement
* Knowledge and skills for process assessment and improvement;
* Definition of novel process quality characteristics to support process improvement;
* Empirical studies on characteristics of high maturity organizations;
* Emerging Process Reference Models and Process Assessment Models;
* Use of process assessment in domains outside software, systems engineering and service management;
* Assessment approaches applied to agile development;
* Conformity assessment approaches and schemes for process assessment;

SUBMISSIONS:

Contributions will be accepted in following formats:
* Full papers (12 pages) in Springer CCIS format
* Extended Abstracts for Industrial Experience presentations (4 pages) in Springer CCIS format

All papers must be submitted electronically as MS-Word files through the Easychair conference portal https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=spice2014 and a copy sent by email to papers@spiceconference.com.

All paper submissions will be reviewed by members of the Programme Committee, with those judged best to meet the aims of the Conference selected for presentation.

All accepted research papers and extended abstracts of industrial experience reports will be published in the Conference Proceedings by Springer-Verlag as part of the as part of the CCIS (Communications in Computer and Information Science) book series.
Accordingly papers must conform to the Springer CCIS format, identical to the LNCS (Lecture Notes in Computer Science) format. Please see the SPICE 2014 website (http://www.spiceconference.com) for complete author guidelines. Full Papers must not exceed 12 pages and Extended Industry Experience papers must not exceed 4 pages.

Note: For a paper to be published in the proceedings, Springer requires one author to sign a copyright release form. In addition, at least one of the authors must agree to attend SPICE 2014 to present the paper. All papers will be published in both print and digital format (therefore all digital source files (doc/docx/latex/pictures, etc.) must be submitted).

WORKSHOPS AND TUTORIALS:

Workshops and tutorials will be held on 4 November 2014, the day preceding the Conference.
Groups interested in organizing workshops (half day or one day) focusing on topics related to the overall theme of SPICE 2014 are invited to provide proposals to the Organising Committee; the proposal should include:
o A two-page abstract providing the workshop title, aims and content, duration and the identity of the workshop moderator;
o Proposed schedule for submission of workshop materials;
o Arrangements for review of workshop submissions.

Groups or individuals seeking to submit tutorials (half-day or one-day) are invited to submit proposals, including the topic of the tutorial and a biography of the presenters.
Proposals for workshops or tutorials should be forwarded to the Tutorials Chair, tutorials@spiceconference.com, by 13 June 2014.

SCHEDULE (check for updated one in the website):

Call for Papers 19 February, 2014
Tutorial proposals submission 13 June 2014
Full paper and extended abstracts submission 20 June, 2014
Notification of acceptance 28 July, 2014
Preliminary programme 1 August, 2014
Early Bird Registration 1 September, 2014
Final copy of paper due 15 August, 2014
Tutorials and Workshops 4 November, 2014
Conference 5 - 6 November, 2014