[ecoop-info] Special Issue on The Next Generation of Software Architecture @JSS: deadline March 3, 2019

[Elena Maria Navarro Martinez]

CALL FOR PAPERS
---------------

Journal of Systems and Software
-------------------------------

Special Issue on The Next Generation of Software Architecture
-------------------------------------------------------------

Software Architecture has been a popular and relevant topic within
Software Engineering since it was first established in the mid 1990's.
First, the discipline had a descriptive approach, in which
architecture was conceived as a reusable abstraction (model) of a
system. This approach made possible to reason and act upon the system
as a whole; also, to build more elaborate structures, raising the
complexity level of software design. Then, the discipline evolved
towards a prescriptive approach, which emphasized the importance of
architectural design decisions and their impact on system qualities,
as well as the role of architectural knowledge as the basis of common
understanding within software. Both approaches have become established
and have become a standard in software development.

With the advent of the third decade of software architecture, new
developments and technologies raise new challenges for the field, as
they require new architectural solutions which go beyond the existing
expertise. The rise of big data presents new concerns, affecting
complexity, velocity, and scale.  Complexity is also present in the
requirements of demanding hybrid structures, such as autonomous and
self-adaptive systems, context-aware and cyber-physical environments,
or large-scale systems-of-systems, such as smart cities. Velocity
requires advanced approaches for real-time processing, such as
event-driven and streaming architectures; and considering different
paradigms, provided as reactive or functional notions. Scalability
requires novel abstractions, such as containers and microservices, and
presents cloud computing as a reality. The cloud itself defines a new
landscape, with its own requirements for software architecture, and
the potential of the serverless promise. At the same time, the
ubiquity of mobile devices and the IoT describes a decentralized
prospect, which has found such expressions as the distributed
blockchain and fog computing. And together with all these, the
ultimate integration of artificial intelligence concepts seems to
advance the next generation in software development.

The improvements and substantial progress in the field of architecture
has allowed software itself to reach an unprecedented complexity
level, which is firmly set in the basis of these challenges.
Therefore, despite its success in the last decades, the renewed
interest from the industry shows that much work remains still to be
done to achieve the vision of software architecture as a full-fledged
engineering discipline.

We invite to this special issue high-quality contributions with
innovative and significant findings and experiences in the field of
software architecture. We accept as submissions original and
previously unpublished papers as well as extended versions of papers
presented at the 12th European Conference on Software Architecture
(ECSA 2018).

Objectives and Topics
---------------------
The aim of this special issue is to document new contributions to
software architecture research. We seek high-quality and original
contributions on principles, methods, foundations, techniques and
tools as well as empirical studies, systematic literature reviews and
mapping studies in the software architecture field.

All submissions should be supported by appropriate arguments and
validation through case studies, experiments, or systematic
comparisons with other approaches already in practice. Topics of
interest include, but are not limited, to:

* Foundational principles of software architecture
* New developments in architectural design, analysis and evaluation
* Architectures for reconfigurable and self-adaptive systems
* Architectural concerns of autonomic systems
* Software architecture and big data
* Software architecture and the cloud
* Software architecture and virtualization
* Architectures for cyber-physical systems
* Architectures for ultra-large scale, long-lived systems and
  systems-of-systems
* Micro Service-oriented Architectures (M/SOA) and services
* Decentralized architectures and their application to distributed
  ledgers
* Management of architectural knowledge, decisions, and rationale
* Innovative architecture-centric process models and frameworks
* Architectural design, analysis and evaluation
* Architecture description languages and meta-models
* Formal methods in software architecture
* Cross disciplinary efforts and software architecture
* Architectural patterns, styles and tactics, reference architectures
* Architecture refactoring and reengineering, reverse engineering
* Architecture-based evolution
* Architecture-centric model driven engineering
* Architecture transformation and refinement
* Component-based models and deployment, middleware
* Software architecture and system architecture, including
  software-defined networking
* Software tools and environments for architecture-centric software
  engineering
* Industrial applications, case studies, best practices and experience
  reports
* Empirical studies, systematic literature reviews and mapping studies
  in software architecture.

Important Dates
---------------
* Paper submissions: March 3, 2019
* Notification: July 15, 2019

Guest Editors
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Carlos E. Cuesta; Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain
carlos.cuesta at urjc.es<mailto:carlos.cuesta at urjc.es>

David Garlan; Carnegie Mellon University, USA
garlan at cs.cmu.edu<mailto:garlan at cs.cmu.edu>

Jennifer Perez; Technical University of Madrid (UPM), Spain
jperez at etsisi.upm.es<mailto:jperez at etsisi.upm.es>

Editors-in-Chief
----------------
Paris Avgeriou and David Shepherd

Special Issues Editor
---------------------
W.K. Chan

Submission Guidelines
---------------------
All submitted papers should follow the guidelines for publishing in
the Journal of Systems and Software and be prepared according to the
Guide for Authors (http://ees.elsevier.com/jss). When submitting
papers via the on-line submission system, the authors should choose an
article type from the pull-down menu. Please select "VSI: ECSA 2018"
that indicates that you are submitting to the special issue.  Papers
should be between 15 to 20 pages in the final publication format and
must be original, must not have been previously published or be under
consideration for publication elsewhere. In case a paper has been
already presented at a conference, it should be extended by at least
30% new technical contributions, before submitted for this special
issue.

This call for papers can also be found on the Journal of Systems and
Software website
(https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-systems-and-software/
call-for-papers/special-issue-next-generation-software-architecture).

Decisions
---------
Submissions will be reviewed by at least three experts in the field.
Primary evaluation criteria are: high-quality of the submission,
innovative aspects to the domain of software architecture, practical
application of the proposed idea, and thorough evaluation. The guest
editors in consultation with the Editor-in-Chief and the Special
Issues Editor will make final decisions.

Contact
-------
If you have any questions concerning the topics and scope of this
special issue please do not hesitate to contact the guest-editors
(mailto:vsi.ecsa2018 at gmail.com)