*** MODULARITY '16 ***

15th International Conference on Modularity
March 14-17, 2016
Málaga, Spain
http://2016.modularity.info/   


*** CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS ***

* Research Results and Modularity Visions tracks
  October 30, 2015 - Abstract submission (recommended)
  November 6, 2015- Paper submission

ABOUT MODULARITY

Modularity shapes the quality of information systems, software, and system production processes. Modularity influences system diversity, dependability, performance, evolution, the structure and the dynamics of the organizations that produce systems, human understanding and management of systems, and ultimately system value.

Yet the nature of and possibilities for modularity remain poorly understood, such things as the limits to modularity, the mechanisms needed to achieve it in given forms, and its costs and benefits. Significant advances in modularity are possible and promise to yield breakthroughs in our ability to conceive, design, develop, validate, integrate, deploy, operate, and evolve modern information systems and their underlying software artifacts.

Modularity at the semantic as well as the syntactic level is a key enabler for the expression of high quality software systems. One of the most important techniques for complexity management during the creation of software is abstraction. Novel concepts and abstraction mechanisms are a focus point for improvements in the support for modularity. The scope of this conference covers all perspectives on software systems in all their life-cycle phases, such as the following:
- domain analysis
- case studies on modularity or the lack thereof
- programming language constructs
- runtime environments and library support
- formal proofs of system properties
- program state visualization in debuggers
- performance improvements in compiler algorithms

The 2016 edition of the Modularity conference (formerly AOSD) sets out to advance our understanding of these issues and the expressive power of new and known techniques.

RESEARCH RESULTS AND MODULARITY VISIONS:

Modularity 2016 invites papers for its Research Results and Modularity Visions tracks presenting compelling insights into modularity in information systems, including its nature, forms, mechanisms, consequences, limits, costs, and benefits.

Proceedings will appear in the ACM Digital Library.

All submissions are peer reviewed in accordance with the highest established standards of scientific rigor. Reviewers assess works in terms of research problem formulations, novelty and sophistication of proposed solutions, clarity and significance of contributions, and correct characterization of work in relation to existing knowledge.

Papers submitted to the Research Results track should present research results supported by proper design and execution of experimental or analytical assessments and sound interpretation of data.

Papers submitted to the Modularity Visions track are examined as scientific research proposals discussing compelling preliminary results or worked-out prototypes or proposals for sound future experimental or analytical assessments and interpretation of data. The scope of Modularity Visions is broad and open to submissions from all areas of computer science.

SUBMISSIONS, SELECTION PROCESS AND PROCEEDINGS 

Submissions should not have been published previously nor under review at other events. Research papers should describe work that advances the current state of the art. Experience papers should be of broad interest and should describe insights gained from substantive practical applications. The program committee will evaluate each contributed paper based on its relevance, significance, clarity, length, and originality.

Papers are to be submitted electronically at http://cyberchairpro.borbala.net/modularitypapers/submit/ for Research Results and http://cyberchairpro.borbala.net/modularityvisionspapers/submit/ for Modularity Visions in PDF format. Submissions must be in the ACM format (see http://www.sigplan.org/Resources/Author/, 10 point font) and not exceed 12 pages for regular papers and 4 pages for short papers. Short papers need to be labelled as such.

Note: In previous years, the conference had two rounds of submissions and reviews. Starting this year, Modularity 2016 will run a single-round two-phase reviewing process to help authors make their final papers the best that they can be. After the first phase, papers will be rejected, conditionally accepted, or unconditionally accepted. Conditionally accepted papers will be given a list of issues raised by reviewers. Authors must then submit a revised version of the paper with a cover letter explaining how they have or why they have not addressed these issues. The program committee will then consider the cover letter and revised paper, and recommend final acceptance or rejection. The second phase will only be used to elevate promising papers to the conference standard, not to require additional work of papers already deemed up to standard. All papers will remain under submission until the authors receive notification of acceptance or rejection.

All submitted papers are peer reviewed. Accepted papers will be published in the ACM Digital Library.

TOPICS OF INTEREST 

Modularity welcomes papers on topics that include, but are not limited to the following:
- new modularity mechanisms in programming, modeling, and domain-specific languages
- evaluation of modularity mechanisms in case studies
- understanding modularity in the context of development processes, collaboration, and organizational aspects
- role of modularity in the evolution of software systems
- measuring modularity
- modular re-engineering of legacy code
- domain analysis
- mathematics of modular paradigms for (automated) software construction
- module (feature) interactions
- novel module verification and testing techniques
- mining software repositories to develop theories related to modularity
- cost-benefit models of modularity mechanisms and techniques
- usability of interfaces and modularity mechanisms
- modularity supported by tools, such as view extraction, visualization, recommendation, and refactoring tools

IMPORTANT DATES

Abstracts (recommended) 
October 30, 2015 (Fri)

Papers (Research Results and Modularity Visions)
November 6, 2015 (Fri)

Primary notification
December 11, 2015 (Fri)

Revised papers due
January 8, 2016 (Fri)

Final notifications
January 22, 2016 (Fri)

Camera ready versions due
February 5, 2016 (Fri)

PROGRAM COMMITTEE CHAIRS

Research Results
- Don Batory, The University of Texas at Austin, USA (batory@cs.utexas.edu)

Modularity Visions
- Krzysztof Czarnecki, University of Waterloo, Canada (kczarnec@gsd.uwaterloo.ca)

PROGRAM COMMITTEES 

Research Results

- Mehmet Akşit, University of Twente, The Netherlands
- Jo Atlee, University of Waterloo, Canada
- Walter Cazzola, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy
- Shigeru Chiba, The University of Tokyo, Japan
- Oscar Díaz, University of the Basque Country, Spain
- Gregor Engels, University of Paderborn, Germany
- Ismael Figueroa, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaiso, Chile
- Pascal Fradet, Inria Rhône-Alpes, France
- Jesús J. García Molina , Catedrático Escuela Universitaria, Spain
- Jeff Gray, University of Alabama, USA
- George Heineman, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA
- Ralf Lämmel, University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany
- Peter D Mosses, Swansea University, UK
- James Noble, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
- Jacques Noyé, École des Mines de Nantes, France
- Bruno C. d. S. Oliveira, The University of Hong Kong
- Hridesh Rajan, Iowa State University, USA
- Awais Rashid, Lancaster University, UK
- Julia Rubin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
- Guido Salvaneschi, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany
- Norbert Siegmund, University of Passau, Germany
- Yannis Smaragdakis, University of Athens, Greece
- Eli Tilevich, Virginia Tech, USA
- Salva Trujillo, IK4-IKERLAN, Spain
- Steffen Zschaler, King’s College London, UK

Modularity Visions

- Thorsten Berger, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
- Claus Brabrand, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark
- Richard P. Gabriel, IBM Research Almaden, USA
- Christian Kaestner, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
- Gail Murphy, University of British Columbia, Canada
- Sarah Nadi, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany
- Yoshiki Ohshima, SAP Labs & Viewpoints Research Institute, USA
- Klaus Ostermann, University of Tuebingen, Germany
- Richard Paige, University of York, UK
- Andrzej Wasowski, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark

For additional information, clarification, or answers to questions please contact the Program Committee Chairs.