*** Call for Chapters ***

We invite high-quality chapters for an edited book on

Software Engineering for Variability Intensive Systems: Foundations and Applications

A book to be published by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC/CRC Press and edited by:

Ivan Mistrík, Computer Scientist & Software Researcher, Heidelberg, Germany
Matthias Galster, Senior Lecturer in Software Engineering at University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Bruce Maxim, Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, USA

OVERVIEW
Modern software systems are not static constructs, but flexible and adaptive systems where a single system or a platform needs to support a variety of usage scenarios. Supporting different usage scenarios means that software must be able to accommodate different (and maybe even unforeseen) features and qualities (for example, faster response for premium customers). These usage scenarios may be defined and implemented either during design time or "on the fly" while a system is running. From an implementation point of view, in the early days, variability has been enabled through conditional compilation of source code, mostly for configurable and customizable single systems. Later, software product lines started to emerge and provided processes and practices to develop families of similar systems. Variability and the complexity of variability-intensive systems have had significant impact on industrial software development practices. Nowadays, self-adaptive systems, open platforms, context-aware apps and dynamic web and service-based systems are common. However, building variability-intensive systems is challenging. In particular, modern software development practices (e.g., lean and flexible development; assembling complex systems from micro-services; building systems-of-systems and software ecosystems), unprecedented types of software and new application domains (e.g., cyber-physical systems, smart homes, VR and AR systems in entertainment and health care, autonomous systems in military), dynamic and critical operating conditions of systems (e.g., disaster response and monitoring systems), fast moving and highly competitive markets (e.g., mobile and web apps), and increasingly powerful and versatile computing equipment (e.g., mobile and "smart" devices) contribute to increasing the complexity of such systems. Comprehensive knowledge is needed to understand software engineering challenges involved in developing and maintaining these systems.

Our goal in this book is to collect chapters on software engineering for variability-intensive systems and related to constructing (i.e., planning, designing, implementing, evaluating), deploying and maintaining high quality software products in and for dynamic and flexible environments.
Topics include (but are not limited to):
*Drivers for variability and why managing variability does (and will) matter
*Exploration of variability from different viewpoints, e.g., business, process and practices, technical, people, context
*Economic view on variability (e.g., business value and trade-offs)
*Software versus hardware variability
*Variability at different software life cycle states
*Impact of variability on software development practices
*Types of variability-based systems and variability-intensive domains
*Designing, maintaining and evolving variability-intensive systems (traditional ways and novel approaches, including conditional compilation, context-oriented programming, generative programming, product lines, reference architectures)
*Design of systems in variability-intensive domains/contexts/environments
*Challenges involved in designing modern variability-intensive systems (e.g., variability in a fast-moving world, continuous delivery/DevOps; ensuring quality and compliance; risk management)
*Migrating from “static” to “variable” systems
*”Intelligent” software engineering for variability-intensive systems (e.g., self-managing variability, variability mining, AI and “big data” to predict and harness variability)
*Industry experiences
*Emerging topics and issues
*Research and commercial tools and frameworks

BACKGROUND TOPICS
The intention of this book is to collect state-of-the-art knowledge on software engineering issues related to requirements, design, implementation, evaluation, deployment and maintenance of variability-intensive systems. In particular, the book aims at providing a comprehensive reference on variability from a technical and non-technical perspective, including latest research and industry trends in engineering variability-intensive systems throughout the lifetime of systems. It will leverage practical experience and evidence to look ahead at the challenges faced by organizations in a fast moving world with increasingly fast changing customer expectations, and explores the basis of future work in this area.
All chapters should consider the practical application of the topic through case studies, experiments, empirical validation, or systematic comparisons with other approaches already in practice. The book intends to discuss systematic and disciplined approaches to building variability-intensive systems, as well as allow further dissemination of the state-of-the-art methods and techniques for representing and evaluating these systems.

FORMAT

Chapters are invited that synthesize existing knowledge on
relevant background topics and application areas in software engineering for variability-intensive systems. Chapters should be accessible to senior undergraduate students and graduate students with a background in Computer Science, Information Science, Software Engineering, Software Architecture, Systems Engineering, Requirements Engineering, Software Design or related disciplines. Chapters are not expected to correspond to the description of a single research project or technique. Each chapter should clearly highlight three to five take-away messages or key lessons at the beginning of the chapter.

PROCEDURE AND IMPORTANT DATES

Please submit your chapter in PDF format to:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sevis2017

Chapters will be peer-reviewed by 3 reviewers. The authors participating in this publishing project will also be asked to review chapters by other contributors.
We recommend using Word from very beginning, since the sources for the final manuscript are required to be in Word. Please refer to Publisher’s Guideline for Authors at https://www.crcpress.com/assets/images/crc/T%26F%20Text%20Preparation%20Instructions_Disk_Word_v1_1.pdf
You are expected to collaborate on final editing of your chapter by Publisher’s editorial project manager.

Chapters due: 30 October 2017
First round of reviews: 1 Nov – 30 Dec 2017
Revisions: 1 Jan - 1 Feb 2018
Second round of reviews: 1 March - – 30 May 2018
Final version due: 30 June 2018
Complete manuscript due: 30 Sep 2018
Expected publication: Dec 2018
For further details please contact editors at sevis2017@easychair.org