Call for Paper Conference

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Motivation
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Numerous modularization techniques have been developed to cope with complexity and increasing scale of software systems, such as Aspect-Oriented Software Development (AOSD)
and Feature-Oriented Programming (FOP). Using these advanced modularization techniques, designers intend to achieve better changeability and adaptability through improved modularity.
However, it remains unclear to what extent these new techniques have improved software productivity and maintainability in practice. It is even more challenging to determine their impact on emerging application domains such as collaborative software engineering, ultra-large systems, cyber-physical systems and cloud computing. This workshop emphasizes the need for improving and pushing the boundaries on the assessment of modern modularization techniques, especially in the context of emerging software domains.

The purpose of this workshop is to (i) stimulate innovative ideas of new and more effective modularity assessment methods to better evaluate contemporary modularization techniques; (ii) solicit experience reports from practitioners that help to better understand the impact of modularity assessment; (iii) discuss the potential impact of assessment techniques; (iv) improve our understanding on issues
such as how to effectively differentiate the applicability of assessment techniques in different circumstances; and (v) foster a collaborative environment for both practitioners and researchers interested in the effective modularity assessment from different levels and in different domains.

Goals
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The main goal of this workshop is to put together researchers and practitioners with different backgrounds in order to discuss open issues on the assessment of contemporary modularization techniques, such as:

1. Do contemporary modularization techniques have a role to play in emerging system domains? Can their benefits be assessed? How does the application of contemporary modularization techniques to these domains affect assessment strategies?

2. What attributes of these complex systems need to be measured and assessed?

3. Are current conventional metrics sufficient to assess software quality in such domains? How can the validity of such metrics be measured?

4. What new assessment mechanisms are necessary to assess contemporary heterogeneous modularization techniques in emerging system domains and to accommodate the associated development practices?

5. What new modularization techniques or improvements to existing ones are suggested by previous assessment results?

6. What resources and benchmarks are necessary to enable the effective and efficient assessment of modularization techniques in emerging domains? How can repeatability of studies be achieved over such complex domains?


Topics of Interest
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The workshop is intended to cover a wide range of topics, from theoretical foundations to assessment frameworks and empirical studies involving contemporary software modularity techniques. Topics of interest include the following (but not limited to):

* Lessons learned from assessing new modularization techniques
* Assessment of emerging systems
* Empirical studies and industrial experiences
* Comparative studies between new modularization techniques and conventional ones
* Assessment frameworks
* Software metrics and estimation models
* Validation of assessment techniques and mechanisms
* Assessment techniques, methods and tools to different phases of the software lifecycle
* Development of predictive models of defect rates and reliability from real data
* Infrastructure issues, such as measurement theory, experimental design, and analysis approaches
* Improvement of modularization techniques based on assessment.

Workshop Format and Submissions
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ACoM is a one-day long workshop and is strongly focused on discussion. Authors who plan to contribute with a paper are requested to submit a position paper in PDF format. The paper format must follow the ACM SIGPLAN (10pt) style guidelines. Papers must be written in English and please see the workshop website http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/ACoM.09/ for submission instructions. All accepted papers will be published on the website http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/ACoM.09/ prior to the workshop.

We are soliciting the submission of two categories of position papers:

1. Traditional position papers (up to 6 pages) related to workshop topics.

2. Very short position statement (1-2 pages), where the authors describe their "innovative thoughts", lessons learned, or points of view with respect to one or more workshop topics.

Papers in the category (1) will be refereed by at least three reviewers, and should describe work that is not yet advanced enough for a full conference paper. They are expected to have a more solid idea, even though it does not require strong validation ingredients. Papers in the category (2) will be mainly reviewed for topicality,
i.e. checked if they fit into the workshop topics, including some feedback from reviewers. Moreover we especially encourage authors to present their experience and/or novel ideas on how to assess new modularization techniques (shorter paper format).

Important Dates
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• Abstract Submission Deadline: 21st August 2009
• Paper Submission Deadline: 28th August 2009
• Notification of Acceptance: 1 week before OOPSLA early-registration cut-off
• Camera-ready: 2nd October 2009
• Workshop: 26th October 2009