[ecoop-info] Call for Papers: Behavioral Science of Software Engineering (IEEE Software Special Issue)

[Tom Zimmermann]

IEEE Software seeks submissions for an upcoming special issue on
Behavioral Science of Software Engineering.

Submission deadline: April 1, 2020
Publication: November/December 2020

Fundamentally, software is limited only by human imagination and ingenuity. Understanding human reasoning and the social context in the software engineering (SE) process is crucial to promoting innovation and productivity - and there is a well-established, international community that conducts empirical studies of the psychology of SE, applying cognitive and social psychological theory to software development in order to make sense of practice and to lead to new insights, methods, and tools. This community (including researchers in both industry and academia) is now beginning to incorporate a behavioral science perspective on software engineering, as the discipline moves to larger developments, with larger development teams who are often geographically distributed.

This special issue invites the community to provide a snapshot of how such work might affect SE, addressing key themes that have persisted over time as well as themes that have emerged as computing technology has evolved. Authors are invited to reflect on how psychology of programming research has been adapted to use in industry and how the wider perspective of behavioral science is becoming more mainstream - revealing insights that may be adapted and leveraged in practice.

IEEE Software invites articles covering any aspect of behavioral science of SE. The invitation is for not just research articles, but also practice articles addressing SE from a cognitive or social psychology perspective. Topics include, but are not limited to:

  *   representations and methods to support reasoning in software development
  *   cognitive biases - their manifestation in SE and potential mitigators
  *   reasoning about flaws and error
  *   cognitive and social factors affecting task prioritization in SE - including the balance between social and technical priorities
  *   the implications of human psychology for the integration of AI/machine learning in SE
  *   social identity and its impact on innovation, productivity, security, etc.
  *   signaling in development environments
  *   social structures in open source/proprietary projects and ecosystems
  *   information needs in software development teams
  *   measures reflective of behavioral science/psychological constructs, as used in SE
  *   immersion and flow in SE
  *   collaboration, coordination, and communication in SE
  *   applying behavioral theories in SE practice
  *   diversity and inclusiveness in SE
  *   the role of (big) data in facilitating behavioral science queries in SE
  *   applications of social network analysis

We look forward to you submissions!

Submission guidelines
Please visit the Author Information page.
https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/so/write-for-us/14426?title=Author%20Information&periodical=IEEE%20Software

Guest editors
Contact the guest editors at sw6-2020 at computer.org<mailto:sw6-2020 at computer.org>.

Marian Petre, The Open University
Jim Buckley, Lero
Luke Church, University of Cambridge
James Herbsleb, Carnegie Mellon University
Margaret-Anne Storey, University of Victoria
Thomas Zimmermann, Microsoft