C A L L F O R P A P E R S :
R E F S Q ' 9 8
Fourth International Workshop on Requirements Engineering:
Foundation for Software Quality
June 8-9 1998
Pisa, Italy
Preceding the CAiSE*98 conference.
[An updated version of the CFP is available at
http://www.ifi.uib.no/konf/refsq98/cfp98.html
including a workshop preparation kit.]
P U R P O S E
The ultimate measure of software quality is the degree to which user
requirements are fulfilled by a system, its fitness for use. Early
elicitation and correct definition of requirements prevents costly
rework during later development stages and provides the foundation for
building high quality systems. Therefore, requirements engineering is
considered as a more and more crucial part of the system life cycle.
During requirements engineering the users and engineers have to find a
way from an initially opaque and diverse system understanding to
exact, reconciled and at least partially formalized software
specifications. A multitude of methods from software engineering,
ethnology, social sciences and psychology have been adapted to support
this process, and to improve the requirements specification as a
foundation for higher software quality. Most of these methods are
relying on adequate specification languages which are expressive and
formal enough so that the represented quality requirements can be
verified or validated.
At the REFSQ'94, REFSQ'95 and REFSQ'97 workshops researchers and
practitioners from various disciplines presented approaches to improve
the definition and implementation of quality requirements. The
success of the earlier REFSQ's has encouraged us to provide a
follow-up workshop REFSQ'98 as a stage for the discussion of
quality-related problems in requirements engineering as they have
developed over the last year. In particular, we like to encourage
people from the requirements engineering, software engineering and
information systems fields to present their approaches to higher
software quality and to discuss how requirements engineering can
contribute to it.
G O A L
The main goal of REFSQ'98 is to bring together people working in the
fields of requirements engineering, software engineering and
information systems focussing on the
* specification of quality requirements;
* their traceability back to user needs and forward to the design;
* their realization by SE and IS development methods;
* the measurement of their achievement, as well as
* consolidating the achievements of the three previous REFSQ workshops.
T H E M E S
REFSQ'98 invites contributions from research and industry within the
following four main themes:
* Managing the quality of RE processes.
Relevant topics include: change management, procurement, RE for
COTS, process modelling and monitoring, RE project organisation,
quality models of RE and the RE process, environments for supporting
RE processes, etc.
* RE methods and techniques.
Relevant topics include: RE using scenarios, goals and agents,
RE with multiple viewpoints, traceability, etc.
* Quality assurance and RE.
Relevant topics include: models for quality assurance,
considering quality assurance in RE, software quality and
RE, specification of software quality requirements,
measuring the quality of requirements, etc.
* Mapping requirements specifications to software architecture and
design.
Relevant topics include: transformation and mapping methods,
the interplay between requirements and software quality features,
formal representation methods, etc.
Note that the list of topics for each theme is not intended to be
exhaustive. High-quality papers on other topics within any of the four
themes are also welcomed.
P A P E R S
Papers of three types can be submitted to the workshop:
* Full papers
Full papers should emphasize what is new and significant about
the chosen approach and adequately compare it with similar work.
Integration of the contributions with mainstream SE and RE methods
and products (like SA, OMT, ER, and the like) are especially
encouraged.
The maximum length of a full paper is 6000 words.
* Position papers
Position papers should state the author's research position with
respect to
- view of current RE practice,
- relations between current RE practice and RE research, and/or
- research methodology and ontological assumptions.
Papers should emphasise which topics that are of particular concern
to the RE community at present, and why.
The maximum length of a position paper is 2000 words.
* Industrial problem statements
People from industry are especially encouraged to submit problem
statements. Industrial problem statements should focus on perceived
mis-matches between current RE practice and research and/or on
emerging areas of concern for RE practitioners.
An industrial problem statement may be about one page long, but more
comprehensive statements will also be considered.
W O R K S H O P F O R M A T
The workshop will be an interactive forum. Attendance will be limited
to 30 people and all participants must have a paper accepted for the
workshop. Authors which do not attend the workshop will not have their
papers published in the proceedings.
The workshop language is English.
The workshop will be organized in conjunction with the CAiSE*98
conference, and all workshop participants must also attend the main
conference.
The accepted papers will be made available electronically to all
workshop participants before the workshop, so that presentations can
be kept short. Each presentation will be summarized and commented on
by a discussant, on behalf of all the other authors in the same
session. The discussant will be followed by a plenary discussion of
the paper. In addition, there will be a plenary discussion at the end
of each session.
At the end of the workshop there will be a general discussion, including
a brainstorming session about areas or topics the participants would
like to see more RE research on.
Email sessions between the participants will be organised before the
workshop to prepare for fruitful and focussed plenary discussions and
brainstorms. For more information, see the workshop preparation kit
at http://www.ifi.uib.no/konf/refsq98/kit98.html .
I N S T R U C T I O N S F O R A U T H O R S
Send your full paper (max. 6000 words), position paper (max. 2000
words) or industrial problem statement (approx. 1 page) by e-mail or
via normal post before March 9th (arrival date) to:
REFSQ'98
c/o A L Opdahl
Department of Information Science
University of Bergen
N-5020 Bergen
Norway
Email submission is encouraged, as the accepted papers will later be
distributed to the other participants electronically.
Papers will be published in the REFSQ'98 workshop proceedings, and the
papers will be made available electronically for the participants
before the workshop. We also intend to provide paper preprints at the
beginning of the workshop, but this is dependent on the funding we
receive.
I M P O R T A N T D A T E S
Submission deadline: March 9th 1998
Acceptance notification: April 9th 1998
Confirmation of participation: April 24th 1998
Camera ready paper due: May 9th 1998
O R G A N I Z A T I O N
Eric Dubois Andreas L. Opdahl Klaus Pohl
Dept of Computer Science Dept of Inf Science Informatik V
FUND Namur Univ of Bergen RWTH Aachen
Namur N-5020 Bergen D-52074 Aachen
Belgium Norway Germany
Tel. +32-81-72 41 11 +47-5558-4115 +49-241-80-21512
Fax. +32-81-72 49 67 +47-5558-4107 +49-241-8888-321
edu@info.fundp.ac.be Andreas.Opdahl@ifi.uib.no pohl@informatik.rwth-aachen.de
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