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Workshop on Imperfect Information in Software Architecture Design
(WISAD @ ECSA 2010)


Call for Papers
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/WISAD10/

to be held in conjunction with ECSA 2010:
European Conference on Software Architecture 2010
http://www.ecsa2010.org/

August 23, 2010
Copenhagen, Denmark

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*DESCRIPTION*

The design of software systems is one of the most complex activities in engineering.
And since software systems are expected to fulfil an increasing amount of tasks in
more sophisticated environments, software designers are faced with handling daunting
amounts of complex information during development. Ideally, all the information that
is required during any one stage of software development is available without
containing any vagueness, ambiguity or conflicting specifications. In practice, the
available information generally does not fulfil this ideal. Requirement specifications
typically originate from various sources and occur in a myriad of shapes and forms,
such as business plans, user manuals and market studies, which do not necessarily
form a coherent specification of the software system. The available information
therefore at best forms an imperfect specification of requirements for the
software architecture.

This workshop aims to bring together researchers in the field of dealing with imperfect
information during software architecture design. We sollicit the submission of novel
research on how information sources of architecture design can contain imperfect
information, how they can be identified and how it can be modelled and analysed. This
includes the definition of a catalogue of types of imperfect information and models for
describing imperfect information accurately using concepts from, for example, probability
and fuzzy set theory. We also invite submissions of experience reports from industry on
the causes, consequences and ways of dealing with imperfect information during software
architecture design.


*TOPICS OF INTEREST*

The topics of the workshops include (but are not limited to) the following:

+ Identification of imperfect information, such as conflicts, ambiguities, vagueness and uncertainty
+ Models for imperfect information in architecture design
+ Management of imperfect information throughout the software lifecycle
+ Methods and tools for design with imperfect requirements
+ Maintenance and traceability of imperfect information
+ Imperfect information in non-functional requirements and quality issues
+ Imperfect information in prioritization and decision-making processes
+ Extensions of existing approaches with support for handling models for imperfect information
+ Visualisation of imperfect information in software architecture design



*IMPORTANT DATES*

+ 17 May 2010 (23:59 Apia, Samoa time): Paper submission.
+ 7 June 2010: Notifications sent to authors.
+ 1 July 2010 (23:59 Apia, Samoa time): Camera-ready version.
+ 23 August 2010: WISAD @ ECSA


*WORKSHOP FORMAT*

The workshop will be a one day event aimed at stimulating discussion between presenters,
discussants and other participants. After a paper has been presented, it is discussed by two
pre-assigned discussants, after which a free discussion with all participants follows. The
workshop is concluded with a discussion among all participants to identify key research
problems and areas to form a research agenda for the community.



*SUBMISSION GUIDELINES AND REVIEW*

Prospective participants are invited to submit a 3-8 page position paper in standard ACM
SIG Proceedings format (http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates). All
papers must be submitted in PDF format.

All submissions will be reviewed by members of the program committee and the organising
committee for quality and relevance to ECSA. Each paper will be reviewed by at least 3
reviewers. Accepted papers will be published in a second volume of the conference
proceedings with ISBN number and through ACM digital library (approval pending).

Submissions should be sent to j.noppen[at]comp.lancs.ac.uk.



*PRELIMINARY PROGRAM COMMITTEE*

Alessandro Garcia, PUC-Rio (Brasil)
Witold Pedrycz, University of Alberta (Canada)
Awais Rashid, Lancaster University (United Kingdom)
Andreas Rummler, SAP Research (Germany)
Jon Whittle, Lancaster University (United Kingdom)
Others to be announced


*ORGANIZING COMMITTEE*

+ Joost Noppen, Lancaster University, UK (Primary Contact Organiser, contact at j.noppen_at_comp.lancs.ac.uk)
+ Pim van den Broek, University of Twente, the Netherlands, (pimvdb_at_ewi.utwente.nl)
+ Mehmet Aksit, University of Twente, the Netherlands, (aksit_at_ewi.utwente.nl)