Call for papers, Future’s Track

  • A future’s paper is an invited “vision statement” in a special collection called “the future”
  • 3 pages minimum, 8 pages max ( by invitation from an Associated Editor_
    • (Non-invited authors may submit a 1 page proposal of what they might say).

We caution Ph.D. students that “futures” does not mean “Ph.D. prospectus”; i.e. it does not mean as-yet-undeveloped preliminary notes. Rather, a Futures paper should be based on extensive experience with some area.

Track Associate Editor Contact Appointed
The future of generative AI and SE Xin Xia xin.xia.zju@gmail.com April 16
The future of Automation + Qualitative SE John Grundy john.grundy@monash.edu April 16
The future of SE development Burak Turhan turhanb@computer.org April 16
The future of software analytics Hongyu Zhang Hongyu.Zhang@newcastle.edu.au April 16

Review Criteria

Authors of futures papers should apply the following checklist before submission.

  • Is the paper current and timely? (We don’t really want to publish something that could have been written 5,10 years ago)
  • Is it a useful vision:? (Essential requirement)
  • Is it a breathtaking vision? (Optional, but desirable).
  • Is it a useful vision? i.e.
    • Does it list relevant work ?
    • Does it offer numerous open challenges?
    • Does it rank challenges most to least pressing?
  • Does it miss anything that would be useful to add ? (But don’t go crazy on this one— don’t want these papers to get too long).
    • e.g. what are the key over/under-researched areas to date?
    • e.g. what are real-world ASE deployments to date/needed in future?
    • e.g. the usual suspects: security, open science, ethics, LLMs, etc
  • In the writing, are there any anti-patterns?
    • Is the paper short (Definitely less than 9, ideally less than 5 pages. This is an optional requirement but short and to the point is better);
    • Is there some IMPORTANT paragraph buried in the body (when it really should be on p1)?