Mining Software Repositories (MSR 2004) - Call For Papers

CALL FOR PAPERS

INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON MINING SOFTWARE REPOSITORIES (MSR 2004)
   http://msr.uwaterloo.ca/

   25th May, 2004
   Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

   Co-located with ICSE 2004,
   IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering
   http://conferences.iee.org/icse2004/

INTRODUCTION

Software repositories contain a wealth of valuable information for
empirical studies in software engineering: source control systems store
changes to the source code as development progresses, defect tracking
systems follow the resolution of software defects, and archived
communications between project personnel record rational for decisions
throughout the life of a project. Such data is available for most software
projects and represents a detailed and rich record of the historical
development of a software system. Participants in multiple sites, often in
multiple continents, develop software projects without ever meeting in
person, as is the case in many large commercial and Open Source projects.
This trend makes the use of tools to record all aspects of software
project more critical.

Until recently, data from these repositories was used primarily for
historical record supporting activities such as retrieving old versions of
the source code or examining the status of a defect. Several studies have
emerged that use this data to study various aspects of software
development such as software design/architecture, development process,
software reuse, and developer motivation. These studies have highlighted
the value of collecting and analyzing this data. Yet each of these studies
has built its own version of methodologies and tools to address the
formidable challenge of utilizing such data to perform their empirical
research. Several international efforts have identified the development of
approaches to extract, share, and study this data as a research priority.

The goal of this one-day workshop is to bring together researchers, and
practitioners to consider methods to use data stored in software
repositories to further understanding of software development practices.
We expect the presentations and discussions in this workshop will
facilitate the definition of challenges, ideas and approaches to transform
software repositories from static record keeping repositories to active
repositories used by researchers to gain empirically based understanding
of software development, and by software practitioners to predict and plan
various aspects of their project.

Position papers should be at most 5 pages and may address issues including
but not limited to the following:
* New approaches to analyze the data stored in software repositories to:
        + Assist in program understanding and visualization
        + Predict and gauge the reliability and quality of software systems
        + Study the evolution of software systems
        + Discover patterns of change and refactorings
        + Understand the origins of code cloning and code design change
        + Model software processes for development, defect repair, etc.
        + Assist in project planning and resource allocation
* Case studies on extracting data from repositories for long-lived projects
* Proposals for exchange formats, meta-models, and infrastructure tools
to ease the sharing of the extracted data and to enable reuse and
repeatability of results throughout the community
* Suggestions for particular large software repositories to be shared
among the community for research evaluation and benchmarking purposes
* Approaches to integrate data between repositories and with other software
project data such static or dynamic analysis data
* Requirements and guidelines for users and developers of source
control systems to ease the analysis of the stored historical data

Authors of selected papers will be invited to extend their submission for
publication in a major international journal - details to follow soon,
please check the workshop's website.


ORGANIZERS

Ahmed E. Hassan and Richard C. Holt
School of Computer Science
University of Waterloo
Ontario, Canada

Audris Mockus
Software Technology Research Dept.
Avaya Labs Research
NJ, USA

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

   * Harald Gall (U. of Vienna, Austria)
   * Les Gasser (U. of Illinois, UC, USA)
   * Daniel German (U. of Victoria, Canada)
   * James Herbsleb (CMU, USA)
   * Katsuro Inoue (Osaka U., Japan)
   * Philip Johnson (U. of Hawaii, USA)
   * Dewayne Perry (U. of Texas, USA)
   * Andreas Zeller (Saarland U., Germany)

IMPORTANT DATES

   * Intent to submit: 27th February 2004
   * Deadline for submission: 8th March 2004
   * Paper notification: 29th March 2004
   * Final papers due: 12th April 2004
   * Workshop date: 25th May 2004

WEBSITE

For more details - http://msr.uwaterloo.ca

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