[ecoop-info] CFP: Next Generation Modularity for Requirements and Architecture

[Awais Rashid]

NEMARA 2012: Workshop on Next Generation Modularity Approaches for Requirements and Architecture
A workshop to be held at AOSD 2012, Potsdam, Germany
http://sites.google.com/site/nemara2012/

Deadline for submissions: 06 January 2012
Notification of acceptance to authors: 13 January 2012
Deadline for camera ready copies for ACM Digital Library: 25 January 2012
Workshop: 27 March 2012

Overview, motivation and topics of interest
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As the Internet becomes increasingly pervasive in our daily lives, we are seeing the rise of the Digital World Phenomenon, where the former notions of cyberspace and physical world merge together. This new digital world brings new challenges for software systems and their developers. There is now an open space of services, which are highly adaptive and can be combined in ad-hoc ways to develop complex systems. The complexity of this open space of services is compounded by the fact that increasingly end-user developers are creating and deploying services and applications to be used by third parties. Furthermore, infrastructures such as the Cloud are leading to what has come to be known as Internet-scale applications.  New advanced modularisation approaches are needed due to the change in the nature of software systems. Further, the need for distributed application integration requires modularity over multiple language/design approaches, which is substantially different from the traditional modularisation approaches in the single application/single language perspective.

This workshop aims to explore whether the current modularity mechanisms to aid modelling and analysis of software system requirements and architectures as sufficient for this changing landscape. If not, what shape should the next generation modularity mechanisms for requirements and architecture take so that they are able to cope with this changing face of software. The workshop aims to take a retrospective look on modularity in requirements and architecture and develop a research agenda for the next 5-10 years.

All topics relevant to requirements analysis and architecture design are, therefore, within the scope of the workshop with the caveat that the discussion must focus on modularity retrospectives or new modularity mechanisms. Similarly, topics that analyse the relationship or impact of such new modularity mechanisms on detailed design are also within scope.

Goals of the workshop
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The goals of the workshop are threefold:

1.     Establish an overview of the effectiveness and limitations of existing modularity mechanisms for requirements analysis and architecture design when developing software for the emerging digital world that we live in.
2.     Provide a forum for approaches applying traditional and/or new modularity mechanisms to tackle the challenges of analysing requirements and designing architectures in the changing landscape to be serviced by software in modern society.
3.     Bring together a community of researchers and practitioners interested in next generation modularity for requirements and architecture.

Format
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The expected results of the workshop are one or two synthesis papers capturing the retrospective on existing modularity techniques and their effectiveness in meeting the challenges for software systems in the digital world, new emerging techniques in this space and a research agenda for the community for the next 5-10 years. We will achieve these results through the specific workshop activities as well as pre- and post-workshop activities highlighted below. We will aim to publish the synthesis papers in major conferences or journals, ideally targeting the modularity visions track at AOSD 2013.

Pre-workshop, all attendees will be asked to read the position statements/papers and add their discussion questions, if any, to the workshop website already (through this we aim to encourage pre-workshop discussions amongst participants). The organisers will cluster the position statements/papers around the two themes of retrospectives and new approaches. The workshop morning will be structured around these two themes with authors briefly presenting their views followed by a roundtable discussion amongst all participants. Key summary points will be captured at the end of each discussion. The afternoon will be structured into two parts. The first part will involve a brainstorm around open research questions arising from the discussions in the morning with the explicit goal of capturing a research agenda. The second part will focus on developing outlines for one or two synthesis papers and assigning authorship responsibilities and agreeing target venues, dates and timetables for preparing the synthesis papers. The writing of the synthesis papers will continue post-workshop.

Submission guidelines and review process
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The workshop solicits short 1-2 page position statements from all participants. Longer papers (4-6 pages) that provide an in-depth analysis of issues or detailed description of a new modularity approach are also welcome. The papers will be reviewed by the workshop organisers (and additional expert reviewers if needed). Subject to quality and relevance, all authors of accepted position statements and papers will be invited to join the workshop. 

All submissions should be sent in PDF to nemara (at) comp (dot) lancs (dot) ac (dot) uk.

Organisers
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Awais Rashid (Contact Person), Lancaster University, UK
João Araújo, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
Jörg Kienzle, McGill University, Canada
Bedir Tekinerdoğan, Bilkent University, Turkey
Ana Moreira, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal