[ecoop-info] SoSyM Theme Issue on Models for Quality of Software Architecture

[Happe, Jens]

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               Journal on Software and Systems Modeling
                       http://www.sosym.org/

                          Theme Issue on 
             Models for Quality of Software Architecture 
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Important Dates
===============
     * Intent to submit: January 15, 2012
     * Paper Submission: January 31, 2012
     * Notification: May 25, 2012
     * Special issue date: Late 2012


Scope and Topics
================

High quality of system architecture is essential for the long term success of 
a software product. Software engineers need to design and implement secure, 
maintainable, usable, efficient, and reliable software systems. They have to 
design architectures that can fulfill quality requirements, judge quality 
tradeoffs and ensure that the implementation adheres to the architecture. In 
case of long living software systems, they have to monitor, evaluate, and 
improve quality continuously throughout the entire software lifecycle. Models 
play a key role in supporting software engineers to master these tasks.
 
The goal of this special theme issue is to emphasize the deep relationship 
between system modeling and the quality of system architecture.  For example, 
how can model-driven techniques for system development be used to assess and 
improve the quality of system architecture?  What are the connections between 
software modeling tools and quality assessment tools and environments? Papers 
that are bridging the gap between theory and practice and case studies 
illustrating the fundamental links between architecture quality and system 
modeling are particularly encouraged. 

In this theme issue of SoSyM, we invite original submissions that present 
novel model-based approaches to support software engineers in developing high 
quality software architectures for high-quality systems. Topics of interest 
include, but are not limited to:

Evolving Architectures
     * design decisions and their influence 
       on the quality of software architecture
     * maintaining software architectures in the presence of change
     * architecture and model refactorings 
       and their implications for quality
     * architectural patterns and their quality impacts
     * architectural standards and reference architectures
     * model-driven architecture (MDA) and quality aspects

Architecture Evaluation:
     * quality assessment of legacy systems and third party applications
     * lessons learned and empirical validation 
       of theories and frameworks on architecture quality
     * empirical validation of testing, prototyping, 
       simulation for assessing architecture quality
     * models and specification techniques to evaluate quality 
       of large and heterogeneous applications
     * attributes of software architectures
     * languages for architectural modeling that allow 
         the evaluation of quality characteristics
     * processes for evaluating architecture and model quality
     * evaluating the effects of architectural adaptations at run-time
     * applications to industrial case studies and use cases

Architecture Management:
     * assessment and enforcement of architectural conformance 
       throughout the software lifecycle
     * traceability of software architecture to requirements 
       and implementation
     * integration and assessment of large and heterogeneous 
       software architectures

Application Domains:
     * component-based and service-oriented systems
     * software product-lines
     * pervasive and autonomic systems
     * industrial control systems


Information for authors
=======================
Papers must be written in a scientifically rigorous manner with adequate 
references to related work. Submitted papers must not be simultaneously 
submitted in an extended form or in a shortened form to other journals or 
conferences. It is however possible to submit extended versions of previously 
published work if less than 75% of the content already appeared in a non-
journal publication, or less than 40% in a journal publication. Please see 
the SoSyM Policy Statement on Plagiarism for further conditions.


Making a submission
===================
Communicate your intent to submit a paper by emailing the theme issue editors 
the following information before the Intent to Submit deadline: 
Title, Authors, and an Abstract.

Prepare your submission with either Word or LaTeX using Word and
LaTeX templates. Possible submission formats are:
 * Word (.doc, without macros)
 * Rich Text Format (.rtf)
 * PostScript (.ps, special fonts must be embedded)
 * PDF (saved as readable in version 5.0 or later)
   Submit your work using the online submission system 
   manuscript central:
 * In step 1, select "Special Section Paper" as the manuscript type
   and select "Dr. Bernhard Rumpe" as the "Editor-in-Chief" (EIC).
 * In step 4, add "Dorina Petriu" (petriu at sce.carleton.ca) 
   or "Jens Happe" (jens.happe at sap.com) as editor
   and choose "Designate as Preferred Editor".
 * In step 5, make sure field "Cover Letter" includes the line:
   "Submission for Theme Issue on QoSA".

   
Editors
=======
Dorina Petriu, Carleton University, Canada
Jens Happe, SAP Research Karlsruhe, Germany


Editors-in-Chief
================
Robert France, Colorado State University, USA
Bernhard Rumpe, RWTH Aachen University, Germany