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ECSA 2024 - Joint Call for Papers
18th European Conference on Software Architecture (ECSA)
https://conf.researchr.org/home/ecsa-2024

Co-chairs
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Elena Navarro, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
Elisa Yumi Nakagawa, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
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The European Conference on Software Architecture (ECSA) is the premier European software architecture conference, providing researchers, practitioners, and educators with a platform to share the most recent, innovative, and significant findings and experiences in the field of software architecture research and practice.

The 18th European Conference on Software Architecture (ECSA 2024) will be held from September 2 to 6, 2024 as an in-person conference taking place in Luxemburg.


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ECSA 2024 - research track
https://conf.researchr.org/track/ecsa-2024/ecsa-2024-industry-program

Program co-chairs
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Patrizia Scandurra, University of Bergamo, Italy
Matthias Galster, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
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Abstract submission: April 18, 2024 (23h59, AoE)
Paper submission: April 25, 2024 (23h59, AoE)
Notification: May 30, 2024
Camera-ready paper: June 20, 2024 (23h59, AoE)
All dates are 23:59h AoE (Anywhere on Earth)

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Scope
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The theme for ECSA 2024 is “trustworthy software”. With the increasing complexity of software and the black box nature of software components, it becomes more and more difficult - but at the same time also more important - to prove and demonstrate that we can trust software. At the same time, legislators introduce certification and regulations of software-based technology (e.g., the Digital Services Act and the AI Act in the European Union, the Software Bill of Materials mandated by the US government, or domain-specific compliance and data privacy requirements in sectors like banking). Also, end users demand explainable and understandable software. ECSA 2024 explores how software architecture can help with building trustworthy systems that are maintainable and evolve over time. This includes socio-technical aspects of trust (e.g., what trust means for different types of stakeholders), how we define and measure trust as a quality attribute, how software architecture can support transparency in software to increase the trust of technical and non-technical stakeholders, etc. In detail, we are interested in topics around provenance at the architecture level, data sovereignty and data ownership and control (e.g., in systems that utilize Large Language Models), explainable software and explainable AI from a software architecture perspective, software supply chains (e.g., Google’s SLSA) and architectural implications such as dependencies and security, how software architecture can support certification, governance and regulatory compliance. We are interested in learning about software architecture principles and practices, assurance methods from and for industry to architect trustworthy software, and methods to show the suitability of the software architecture for its intended application, including risk-driven architectures, and governance tactics to mitigate security threats in design decisions. Furthermore, we are interested in research and practical experiences in particular domains of trustworthy systems (e.g., large-scale national digital infrastructures and national digital ID systems).

The Program Committee of ECSA 2024 seeks submissions of original and unpublished high-quality papers on all topics related to software architecture and in particular the theme of ECSA 2024 outlined above. We particularly encourage papers that demonstrate that diversity in gender, culture, religion, country, etc. are key factors for success and innovation in software architecture.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

- Foundational principles of software architecture
- Relationship of requirements engineering and software architecture
- Quality attributes and software architectures
- Architecture practices for secure, explainable, and trustworthy software
- Architecture design and analysis
- Architecture description languages and meta-models
- Architecture verification and validation
- Management of architectural knowledge, decisions, and rationale
- Architecture patterns, styles, and tactics; reference architectures
- Architecture viewpoints and views
- Architecture conformance
- Software architecture virtualization and visualization
- Architecture-centric process models and frameworks
- Software architecture and agile, incremental, iterative, and continuous development
- Component-based models and deployment; middleware
- Software architecture and system architecture
- Software tools and environments for architecture-centric software engineering
- Ethics, cultural, economic, business, social, human, and managerial aspects of software architecture
- Architecture and technical debt
- Software architecture education
- Cross-disciplinary approaches to software architecture
- Architectures for reconfigurable and self-adaptive systems
- Architectural concerns of autonomic systems
- Software architecture applied to new and emerging areas, such as the cloud/edge, big data, blockchain, cyber-physical systems, IoT, autonomous systems, systems-of-systems, energy-aware software, quantum computing, AI-enabled systems
- Empirical studies, systematic literature reviews, and mapping studies in software architecture
- Diversity, equity, and inclusion in activities related to software architecture


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Paper Submissions
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ECSA 2024 seeks four types of papers for the research track:

* Research papers (max. 16 pages in LNCS style) which describe novel contributions to software architecture research (submissions should cover work that has a sound scientific/technological basis and has been validated).

* Education and training papers (max. 16 pages in LNCS style) that address methodologies, experiences and best practices for teaching and training software architecture.

* Experience reports (max. 16 pages in LNCS style) that cover innovative implementations, novel applications, insightful performance results and experience in applying software architecture research advances to practical situations and systems

* Short papers(max. 8 pages in LNCS style) that present novel and preliminary work-in-progress or challenges in a topic of software architecture research, education, and training. Submissions must have a sound basis, but not necessarily be validated in full.

All submitted papers will undergo a rigorous double-blind peer review process. Papers will be selected based on originality, quality, soundness, and relevance. All contributions must be original, not published, accepted, or submitted for publication elsewhere. Contravention of this concurrent submission policy will be deemed a serious breach of ethics, and appropriate action will be taken in all such cases. Plagiarism checking will be conducted and any paper reporting more than a 20% match with published work will be desk-rejected.

To note is that research papers, education and training papers, and experience reports that are rejected in their categories may be re-evaluated as short papers only if the committee decides on rejection of the full paper on the basis that it presents preliminary work.

The research track of ECSA 2024 supports an Open Science policy. We encourage all contributing authors to disclose (anonymized and curated) data/artifacts to increase reproducibility. Note that sharing research artifacts is not mandatory for submission or acceptance. Upon submission to the research track, authors are encouraged:

- To make their artifact available to the program committee (via a link to an anonymous repository) – and provide instructions on how to access this data in the paper; or
- To include in the paper an explanation as to why this is not possible or desirable; and
- To indicate why they do not intend to make their data or study materials publicly available upon acceptance, if that is the case.

All contributions must be formatted according to the Springer LNCS style http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0. Page limits include figures and references.

Contributions need to be submitted in PDF format via EasyChair to the ECSA 2024 Research Track: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ecsa2024

Please select the "Research Track" in EasyChair for your submission and click "Continue".

The proceedings will be published by Springer as part of the LNCS series.

We plan to organize a Special Issue on the theme of ECSA 2024 and to invite authors of selected papers to submit an extended version of their research.



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ECSA 2024 - Industry Program
https://conf.researchr.org/track/ecsa-2024/ecsa-2024-industry-program

Co-chairs
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Pablo Oliveira Antonino, Fraunhofer IESE, Germany
Tommi Mikkonen, University of Helsinki, Helsinki
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Abstract submission: April 18, 2024 (23h59, AoE)
Paper submission: April 25, 2024 (23h59, AoE)
Notification: May 30, 2024
Camera-ready paper: June 20, 2024 (23h59, AoE)

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Scope
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The Industry Track at ECSA 2024 brings together practicing software architects and software architecture researchers from regional, European, and worldwide communities. We are seeking contributions from industry that share challenges, practical solutions, successful practices, failures, and lessons learned while analyzing, designing, implementing, evaluating, and evolving software architectures.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to the following themes:
- Experience with architectures for emerging technologies
- Domain-specific challenges for software architects and architectures
- Architecture specification and documentation
- Architectural patterns, tactics, and tools
- Practices and methods supporting architecture design, evaluation and evolution
- Integration of architectural practices and methods with other software engineering approaches/practices/methods (e.g. Agile)
- Social and organizational aspects

The ECSA 2024 Industry track aims to contribute to bridging the gap between academia and industrial practice by establishing an open communication and discussion environment. It will offer researchers and practitioners the opportunity to interact with fellow professionals and develop new ideas and skills for addressing industrial problems and collaborations.

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Paper Submissions
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There are three ways to contribute:

* Full Papers (up to 16 pages in Springer LNCS style) describing best practices and experience from applying novel approaches to large-scale industrial projects in the context of software architecture. Submissions will be selected based on originality, quality, soundness, practical relevance, and potential for discussion.

* Short Papers and Presentations (6-10 pages in Springer LNCS style) outlining presentations on practices and experience related to software architecture from the industry. Submissions will be selected based on originality, practical relevance, and potential for discussion.

* Software Architecture Showcases (6 pages in Springer LNCS style) demonstrating a specific real-world architecture (including its flaws) together with a discussion of the context, challenges, and/or process that led to its present form. It can be formulated as an abstract outlining the architecture to be presented, preferably together with links to externally available work products. Submissions will be selected based on the offered insights into real architectural work, work products, and learnings related to architecture.

All contributions need to be written in English, must be original, not published, accepted, or submitted for publication elsewhere. If accepted, each contribution needs to be presented by one of the authors who is registered at the conference.

Paper submissions must be made electronically via the online EasyChair submission site for the ECSA 2024 conference: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ecsa2024

All accepted papers will appear in the Springer proceedings as part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series. In addition, it is possible to include a summary of showcases in the proceedings, too.minor revision cycle where the extensions will be checked by the reviewers.


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ECSA 2024 - Doctoral Symposium
https://conf.researchr.org/track/ecsa-2024/ecsa-2024-doctoral-symposium

Co-chairs
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Barbora Buhnova, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Valentina Lenarduzzi, University of Oulu, Finland
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Paper and Recommendation Letter submission: May 2, 2024
Author notification: May 30, 2024
Camera-ready papers: June 13, 2024


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Scope
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The goal of the Doctoral Symposium is to provide a supportive setting in which PhD students can present and receive feedback on their research. During the symposium, PhD students will interact closely with established researchers in the field, receive feedback on their research, and get advice on managing their research. The symposium will also help participants to establish a network with their peers in the field of software architecture. The program will feature a keynote that will shed light on establishing yourself within the software architecture community and beyond.

The technical scope of the Doctoral Symposium is that of ECSA 2024, as represented by the topics in the ECSA 2024 Research papers CfP. Besides, we particularly encourage submissions that demonstrate that diversity in gender, culture, religion, country, etc. is a key factor for success and innovation in software architecture.

We encourage submissions from PhD students at any stage of their research. Based on the submissions, the program committee will invite the PhD students to give presentations of their PhD research and to interact with senior as well as other junior researchers.


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Submission
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To participate in the Doctoral Symposium, the contribution needs to be submitted by the submission deadline consisting of two parts: a research summary paper and a letter of recommendation. The summary research paper should be authored by the student as a sole author.

* Research summary paper (8 pages)

The research summary paper should cover the following aspects:

The research problem to be solved and its relevance in the software architecture field;
a discussion of related work with an explaining why the research problem has not been solved yet;
the scientific methods used to tackle the research problem;
an outline of the proposed solution;
the expected results;
a plan for the evaluation of results; and
a critical reflection on the work, including open questions and challenges that the PhD student meets in his/her work, and that can be discussed with the senior colleagues.
The submitted paper will be evaluated by the Doctoral Symposium Program Committee, and the following selection criteria will be used:

The originality of the proposed research, the novelty of the research approach, and relevance to ECSA; and/li)
the quality of the submission, including clarity, precision, and adequacy of the problem statement and critical reflection of the work, in relation to the PhD student’s study stage./li)
Letter of Recommendation (maximum 1 page)

* A recommendation letter that should be written by the advisor(s). The letter should include the name of the candidate, an appreciation of the PhD research, the status of the research, and an expected date for the dissertation submission.


The research summary paper with the letter of recommendation that is added to the paper in a common PDF file should be submitted electronically via the ECSA 2024 submission site: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ecsa2024

The proceedings of the Doctoral Symposium will be published by Springer as part of the LNCS series.

Please note that as a condition for paper publication, each accepted submission needs to be presented at the conference (in person) by the author, who shall register for the conference by the camera-ready paper deadline. Authors will have a 50% discount on the student registration or free registration if authors serve as ECSA volunteers.



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ECSA 2024 - Journal First
https://conf.researchr.org/track/ecsa-2024/ecsa-2024-journal-first

Co-chairs
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Jesper Andersson, Linnaeus University, Sweden
Robert Heinrich, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
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Abstract submission: May 30, 2024
Paper submission: June 6, 2024
Acceptance notifications: June 27, 2024
Camera-ready: July 4, 2024


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Scope
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ECSA 2024 continues the partnership with the Journal of Systems and Software (JSS) and IEEE Software to incorporate journal-first papers into its program. We invite authors of journal-first papers accepted by JSS or IEEE Software since January 2023 to submit their work for presentation at ECSA 2024, which will allow authors of journal-first papers to present their work to the community.

A journal-first paper submitted to ECSA 2024 must adhere to the following criteria:
- The paper must have been already accepted after peer review by JSS or IEEE Software.
- The paper is in the scope of the conference.
- The paper has not been presented at and is not under consideration for, journal-first programs of other conferences.


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Submission
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We invite authors of manuscripts that meet the above criteria to submit a summary of the original paper that highlights the contributions to the community together with a pointer to the original journal paper.

The submission must conform to LNCS style. ote that if you want the summary to be included in the ECSA 2024 proceedings companion volume, it must be 6-8 pages long. For the companion proceedings, ECSA 2024 will use a two-step process. Online proceedings (available before the start of the conference) will include all the accepted contributions (including Journal First summaries) to the companion proceedings. They will be published online on the ECSA 2024 web page (i.e., no formal proceedings). The accepted contributions will be accessible only to the ECSA 2024 workshop participants. After the conference, we organize an LNCS post-proceedings to publish the contributions.

Proposals must be submitted via the online EasyChair submission site for the ECSA 2024 conference, selecting the "JournalFirst" Track: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ecsa2024


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Evaluation
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Authors will be invited to present their paper at ECSA 2024 if the article is in the conference scope. As the papers have already been reviewed and accepted by the journal, we will not review the submission for technical content. We plan to include as many articles as possible in the journal first program. In case we receive an exceptionally high number, we may have to prioritize presentation proposals according to the fit to the conference theme and session structure.


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Presentation
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ECSA 2024 is planned as an in-person/physical conference. The journal paper presentation will happen as part of ECSA's main program.

As journal first presenter, you will have all the benefits of the conference presentation, such as outreach to a broader audience, interactions and discussion with peers, and peer feedback on your work.

At least one author of each presentation accepted for the journal-first program must register and attend the conference to present the paper. The summary of the journal-first manuscript will optionally be published in the proceedings as part of the ECSA 2024 companion volume.



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ECSA 2024 - Tools & Demos
https://conf.researchr.org/track/ecsa-2024/ecsa-2024-tools---demos

Co-chairs
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Jennifer Pérez, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
Apostolos Ampatzoglou, University of Macedonia, Greece
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Submission: June 6, 2024 (23h59, AoE)
Notification: June 27, 2024
Camera-ready: July 4, 2024

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Scope
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The 18th European Conference on Software Architecture (ECSA 2024) Tools and Demonstrations (Tools & Demos) Track provides an opportunity for both researchers and practitioners to present and discuss the most recent advances, ideas, experiences, and challenges in the field of Software Architecture by means of Tools & Demos presentations.

Tools & Demos papers are intended to address any aspect of: (i) tool support for Software Architectures, or (ii) demonstrate results about the application of architectural approaches. Papers submitted to this track can belong to two distinct categories:

* Tools: academic or industrial artifacts, with a specific purpose, that can be used by others. Tools should particularly show how scientific approaches related to software architecting have been or are being transferred into a working tool and how they advance the current state of the practice.

* Demonstrations: academic or industrial exhibition of some result that explains how a novel or existing approach related to software architecting has been applied and possibly benchmarked.
Tools&Demos should not be used as a means for commercial advertisement.

We will strive to keep ECSA’s tradition to select the Best Tools & Demo Paper,awarded during the conference. The selection of the best tool and demo paper will be made based on the votes of the attendants of the conference.

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Submission
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Submissions of Tools & Demos papers should describe the work, how it relates to other industrial or research efforts, including references, what the expected benefits are, and the web-page for the tool (if one exists). All submissions must conform to the LNCS template (https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines) and must not exceed 8 pages.

Tools & Demos submissions should provide a link to a video, with audio commentary, of maximum five minutes length, with high resolution (e.g., details of the tool’s functionality should be clearly visible). The video must be uploaded on a server (e.g., YouTube, Google Drive, Dropbox) and the link included in the submission for its evaluation (as a footnote in the first page of the submission or as links after the abstract of the submission). In addition, it is possible to provide open material, e.g., source code and/or a running instance of the tool. The links of the video and (if applicable) the additional material should be included in the contribution after the abstract and before the introduction sections.

Paper submissions must be made electronically via the online EasyChair submission site for the ECSA 2024 conference, selecting the “Tools&Demos Track”:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ecsa2024

The selection criteria of Tools & Demos papers will consider their originality, relevance for the ECSA audience, technical soundness, and presentation quality. Each submission will be evaluated by at least two members of the PC, in a single step review process.

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Proceedings
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The accepted papers will be included in the ECSA 2024 companion volume to be published at LNCS (https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs).

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Registration
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Please note that as a condition for paper publication, each accepted submission needs to be presented at the conference (in person) by one of the authors, who shall register for the conference by the camera-ready paper deadline.



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ECSA 2024 - Workshops/Tutorials
https://conf.researchr.org/track/ecsa-2024/ecsa-2024-workshops-tutorials

Co-chairs
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Colin C. Venters, University of Huddersfield
Uwe Zdun, University of Vienna, Austria
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Workshop proposal: February 8, 2024
Workshop proposal notification: March 7, 2024
Workshop papers submission: June 6, 2024 (23h59, AoE)
Workshop papers notification: June 27, 2024
Camera-ready copy: July 4, 2024
Workshop: September 18-19, 2023


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Scope
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The European Conference on Software Architecture (ECSA) is the premier European forum for presenting and discussing software architecture research and practice.

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit proposals for workshops and tutorials held in conjunction with ECSA 2024. Workshops and tutorials will be held on September 2-3, 2024 (right before the main conference on 4-5 September 2024).

ECSA workshops allow researchers and practitioners to exchange and explore innovative software architecture (scientific or engineering) ideas and challenges at an early stage.

Topics of interest are, but are not limited to:
- Software Architecture challenges for AI- and ML-based Systems
- Software Architecture challenges for Self-Adaptive Systems
- Software Architecture challenges for Cyber-Physical Systems
- Software Architecture challenges in Big Data and Cloud Computing
- Software Architecture challenges in IoT-based Systems
- Software Architecture challenges in DevOPS and MLOPS
- Software Architecture challenges in Blockchain Engineering
- Quality-of-service (QoS) measurements of Software Architectures
- Privacy and Security in Software Architectural Design
- Context-aware, Autonomous, and Smart Architectures
- Sustainability in Software Architectures
- Software Architecture Erosion and Architectural Consistency
- Technical Debt in Software Architecture Design
- Architecting the Digital Twin
- Continuous Architecting

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Workshop Proposal Submissions
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All proposals must conform to a maximum of eight pages following the LNCS format (see below), including references, appendices, and figures.
The proposal must include the following information in the order specified:

- Workshop title and acronym
- Contact information for the workshop organizers (name, affiliation, email) and the main contact
- Abstract (up to 200 words) for ECSA 2024 website (if workshop is accepted)
- Motivation and Objectives
-- Relevance of the workshop to the field of software architecture
-- Anticipated goals and outcomes (e.g., open research problems to pursue, validation objectives, empirical studies)
- Format
-- Workshop format (e.g., paper presentations, keynotes, breakout sessions, panel-like discussions) and plans for generating discussions
-- Duration - half day, one day or two days
-- Preliminary workshop schedule
-- Special services, logistic and/or equipment constraints
- Participation
-- Target Audience and expected background
-- Plans regarding the mix of industry and research participation
-- Expected minimum and maximum number of workshop participants
-- Plans for participant solicitation and dissemination
- Submission
-- Types of contributions (e.g., extended abstracts, position papers, research papers, etc.) and their estimated number.
-- Review and evaluation process deciding about the acceptance of submissions
-- Program committee, including tentative and already committed members
-- Strategy for the proceedings
- Organizers
-- Brief description of each organizer’s background, including relevant past experience in organizing conferences and workshops
-- Brief organizers’ bios
- Previous editions
-- Where and when the workshop has been offered previously, the past numbers of submitted and accepted papers, numbers of attendees
-- Number of registered attendees and websites of previous editions (if any)
- Draft Call-for-Papers (1 page)

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Submission instructions
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Submissions must follow the LNCS style (https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines). All proposals should be submitted before the submission deadline (see below) using the online submission site: EasyChair ECSA 2024 Workshop&tutorial track (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ecsa2024).

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Publication and proceedings
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ECSA 2024 will use a single review process for workshop proceedings. For accepted papers, the minimum number of pages for each workshop paper is 8, and the maximum is 16 pages.