Doctoral Symposium

Overview
The APSEC 2010 Doctoral Symposium is an international forum for PhD students working in all areas of Software Engineering.

The forum is intended to bring together PhD students and give them the opportunity to present and discuss their research in a constructively critical atmosphere, and to meet fellow researchers at a similar stage of their career.

More precisely, the goals of the APSEC 2010 Doctoral Symposium are:

• to give PhD students a chance to showcase their research, to provide them with feedback from a panel of senior international researchers,
• to facilitate interaction among the participants, to offer PhD students the opportunity to attend the APSEC 2010 conference.

The doctoral symposium will operate in a workshop-like format.

Who should participate
The Doctoral Symposium welcomes PhD students who are somewhere in the middle of their doctoral research, that is:

• students who have settled on a dissertation topic, and whose PhD dissertation will benefit from the feedback received.

Submission instructions:
To apply as a student participant to the Doctoral Symposium, you should prepare a submission package consisting of two parts (described below), both of which must be submitted via Easychair.

Part 1 - Abstract
Your research abstract must be formatted according to the format guidelines. All submissions must be in English. Submissions must be in PDF format. Ensure your paper meets all the requirements for industry paper submissions specified Submit the paper through the web-based doctoral symposium paper submission system

Papers must be submitted electronically through EasyChair http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=apsec10ds We will not accept submission via email.

The abstract should cover:

• Research question - clearly formulate the technical problem to be solved.
• Motivation - justify the importance of the problem.
• State of the art - describe what existing work your research builds upon (citing key publications), and also briefly describe any existing solutions that have been developed or are currently being developed (citing key publications) and why they do not solve the problem.
• Proposed solution - sketch the proposed technical solution.
• Contributions - point out your (existing and planned) contributions to the solution of the problem, and state in what aspects the suggested solution is different, new or better as compared to existing approaches to the problem.
• Research methods - indicate the methods you are using or will use to carry out your research.
• Progress - describe the progress made in solving the stated problem and propose a plan to complete the research. The plan should include your strategy for evaluating your work and presenting credible evidence of your results to the research community.

The sections of the paper need not necessarily follow the above structure, but should feature the required content and allow to identify it easily. We understand that students at a relatively early stage of their research might have some difficulty addressing all of the content requirements, but should attempt to do so as best they can.

The research abstract should include the title of your work, your name, affiliation, email address, postal address, personal website, and a one paragraph short summary in the style of an abstract for a regular paper. Submissions should contain no proprietary or confidential material and should cite no proprietary or confidential publications.

Part 2 - Letter of Recommendation
Ask your (main) dissertation advisor for a letter of recommendation. This letter should include:

• your name,
• a candid assessment of the current status of your dissertation research,
• an expected date for dissertation submission.
• The letter should be in PDF format and should be sent directly by your advisor via e-mail to Didar Zowghi at didar@it.uts.edu.au and Alan Fekete at alan.fekete@sydney.edu.au. The e-mail should have the subject APSEC 2010 DOCTORAL SYMPOSIUM RECOMMENDATION.

Evaluation criteria
Upon receipt of the submissions, the Doctoral Symposium Committee will select participants using the following three criteria:

• The potential quality of the research and its relevance to Software Engineering.
• Quality of the research abstract (see Section above).
• The stage of the research.

Important dates

• Submission deadline (paper + recommendation letter) Friday, 3 September 2010
• Notification of acceptance Friday, 1 October 2010
• Final Version: Friday, 5 November 2010

Doctoral Symposium Committee

• Vincenzo Gervasi Pisa University
• Kevin Ryan, LERO, Ireland
• Aybuke Aurum, UNSW

Doctoral Symposium Co-Chairs

• Didar Zowghi, University of Technology Sydney
• Alan Fekete, University of Sydney