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D O C T O R A L   S Y M P O S I U M  @ R E' 0 9


Submission: May 11, 2009
Venue: September 1, 2009 in Atlanta

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O V E R V I E W

The RE Doctoral Symposium is an international forum for PhD students 
working in all areas of Requirements 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 RE 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 RE conference.

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


W H O   S H O U L D   P A R T I C I P A T E

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.


S U B M I S S I O N    I N S T R U C T I O N S

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 e-mail to Didar Zowghi and Patrick 
Heymans no later than May 11th, 2009, 23.59 Apia, Samoa time.

PART 1 -- RESEARCH ABSTRACT

Your research abstract must be formatted according to the IEEE CS 
proceedings format (see http://www.computer.org/portal/site/cscps/ for 
instructions and templates) and must be a maximum of four pages with 
main text in 10 point font, including all text, references, appendices, 
and figures. All submissions must be in English. Submissions must be in 
PDF format.

The research 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 and Patrick Heymans. The e-mail 
should have the subject RE'09 DOCTORAL SYMPOSIUM RECOMMENDATION.


E V A L U A T I O N   C R I T E R I A

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 
Requirements Engineering.
* Quality of the research abstract (see Section "Who should participate" 
above).
* The stage of the research.


I M P O R T A N T   D A T E S

May 11, 2009 Submission deadline (paper + recommendation letter)
May 31, 2009  Notification of acceptance
TBD Camera-ready copy
September 1, 2009 Doctoral Symposium in Atlanta


D S   C O M M I T T E E

Dan Berry, University of Waterloo, Canada
Al Davis, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, USA
Vincenzo Gervasi, Universita di Pisa, Italy
Olly Gotel, Pace University, USA
Barbara Paech, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Andres Silva, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain


D S   C O - C H A I R S

Didar Zowghi
School of Software
Faculty of Engineering & Information Technology
University of Technology, Sydney

Patrick Heymans
PReCISE research centre
Faculty of Computer Science
University of Namur, Belgium