The 20th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS 2017)

Sept 17-22, 2017

Austin, Texas

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/models2017

Call for Papers

Contributions related to all aspects of model-driven engineering are cordially invited to the 20th edition of MODELS!

MODELS is the premier conference series for model-driven software and systems engineering. Since 1998, MODELS has covered all aspects of modeling, from languages and methods, to tools and applications. Attendees of MODELS come from diverse backgrounds, including researchers, academics, engineers and industrial professionals. MODELS 2017 is a forum for participants to exchange cutting-edge research results and innovative development activities around modeling and model-driven software and systems. This year’s 20th Anniversary edition of MODELS will provide an opportunity for the modeling community to further advance the foundations of modeling, and come up with innovative applications of modeling in emerging areas of cyber-physical and cyber-secure systems, embedded systems, socio-technical systems, cloud computing, big data, security, open source, and sustainability. We invite you to join us at MODELS’17 in Austin, Texas, USA and to help shape the modelling methods and technologies of the future!

Foundations Track Papers

We invite authors to submit high quality contributions describing significant, original, and unpublished results in the following categories:

1. Technical Papers: Technical papers should describe innovative research in model-driven engineering activities. Papers in this submission category should describe a novel contribution to the field and should carefully support claims of novelty with citations to the relevant literature.

Evaluation Criteria: Technical papers are evaluated on the basis of originality, soundness, relevance, importance of contribution, strength of validation, quality of presentation and appropriate comparison to related work. Where a submission builds upon previous work of the author(s), the novelty of the new contribution must be described clearly with respect to the previous work. Technical papers need to discuss clearly how the results were validated (e.g., formal proofs, controlled experiments, rigorous case studies, or simulations). Where possible, authors are requested to make the artifacts used for the evaluation publicly accessible.

2. New Ideas / Vision Papers: New ideas papers describe new, non-conventional model-driven engineering research positions or approaches that depart from standard practice. They are intended to describe well-defined research ideas that are at an early stage of investigation. Vision papers are intended to either provide new evidence that common wisdom should be challenged, present new unifying theories about existing modeling research that provides novel insight or that can lead to the development of new technologies or approaches, or apply modeling technology to radically new application areas.

Evaluation Criteria: New ideas and vision papers will be assessed primarily on their level of originality and potential for impact on the field in terms of promoting innovative thinking. Hence, inadequacies in the state-of-the-art and the pertinence, correctness, and impact of the idea/vision must be described clearly. The following are the specific evaluation criteria for each of these two papers:

• New Ideas Papers: While the idea that is described does not need to be fully validated, a presentation of preliminary results that provide initial insights into the feasibility and/or impact of the idea is expected.
• Vision Papers: Vision papers are expected to provide a detailed, convincing research road map towards the realization of the vision.

Practice and Innovation Track

The goal of this track is to fill the gap between foundational research in model-driven engineering and industrial needs. We invite authors from academia and industry to submit original contributions reporting on the innovative application of MDE in industrial, government, or open-source settings, as well as the development of innovative engineering solutions to enable the use of modeling in such contexts.

Examples include:

• Scalable and cost-effective methodologies and tools
• Industrial case studies with valuable lessons learned
• Experience reports providing novel insights

Each paper should provide clear take-away value by describing the context of a problem of practical and industrial importance, and the application of modeling that leads to an innovative solution. The paper should discuss why the solution to the problem is innovative, effective, or efficient and what likely practical impact it has or will have; it should provide a concise explanation of the approach, techniques, and methodologies employed; and explain the best practices that emerged, tools developed, and/or software processes involved. Studies reporting on negative findings must provide a thorough discussion of the potential causes of failure, and ideally a perspective on how to solve them.

Topics of Interest

MODELS 2017 seeks submissions on diverse topics related to modeling for software and systems engineering, including, but not limited to:

• Evidence-based education research for curricular concerns on modeling topics.
• Collaborative modeling research to address global and team management issues (e.g., browser-based and cloud-enabled collaboration research and tools).
• New paradigms, formalisms, applications, approaches, frameworks, or processes for model-driven engineering.
• Modeling with, and for, new and emerging systems and paradigms such as cyber-security, cyber-physical systems, cloud computing, data analytics, big data, systems engineering, social media, devices and services, mobile applications, open source software, sustainability and modeling for social good.
• Development, use, and evolution of domain-specific modeling languages.
• Evaluation and comparison of modeling languages, techniques and tools.
• Evolution of general-purpose modeling languages and related standards.
• Definition of the syntax and semantics of modeling and model transformation languages.
• Tools, meta-tools and language workbenches for model-driven engineering, including model management aspects.
• Definition, usage, and analysis of generative and reengineering approaches.
• Integration of modeling languages and tools (hybrid multi-modeling approaches).
• Quality assurance (analysis, testing, verification) for functional and nonfunctional properties of models and model transformations.
• Development of systems engineering and modeling-in-the-large concepts.
• Modeling in software engineering; applications of models to address general software engineering challenges.
• Modeling for development challenges such as collaboration, scalability, security, interoperability, adaptability, maintainability, dependability, reuse, energy efficiency,…

Submission and Evaluation Process

The submission and evaluation process for MODELS 2017 is similar to past MODELS conferences, with the specific details below.

Submission Process

Papers must be submitted electronically through the MODELS 2017 EasyChair submission web pages. The submission pages will be available on the conference website in early 2017.

Both “Foundations” and “Practice and Innovation” papers must not exceed 10 pages (including figures and appendices, excluding references). New Ideas / Vision Papers must not exceed 7 pages (including figures and appendices, excluding references). All papers may include 1 additional page for references. All submissions must be in English. Submissions must adhere to the IEEE formatting instructions, which can be found at:

https://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/publishing/templates.html.

Submissions that do not adhere to these limits or that violate the formatting guidelines will be desk-rejected without review. Accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings published by IEEE. Authors of best papers from the conference will be invited to revise and submit extended versions of the papers for publication in the Journal of Software and Systems Modeling.

Review Process

The MODELS 2017 review process will use two phases in order to provide high quality reviews. The reviewing and discussion process is monitored by one or two Program Board members assigned to each paper.

In the first phase, all papers that conform to the submission guidelines will be peer-reviewed by at least three members of the Program Committee and evaluated on the basis of originality, soundness, relevance, importance of contribution, evaluation, quality of presentation and appropriate comparison to related work. The Program Committee and Program Board will then identify those papers most viable for publication in MODELS 2017 and advance them to the second phase. Authors of papers that do not progress will be notified promptly, giving authors as much opportunity as possible to further develop their work. Authors of papers that proceed to the second phase may be given the opportunity to respond to some of the questions mentioned by PC members in their reviews. The author response is taken into account in the final decision phase. However, authors are not permitted to revise the content of their paper submission at any time. During the second phase of evaluation, the Program Board will consider the recommendations and online discussion of the Program Committee, as well as the author response, and select the papers to be notified for acceptance to the conference.

Important Dates – Foundations/Practice and Innovation

The following are the milestone dates for both Foundations, and Practice and Innovation Papers:

Please note that:

• Abstract submission is mandatory.
• All deadlines are hard. No extensions will be granted.
• All dates are according to time zone “Anywhere on Earth”, i.e., UTC-12.
• All accepted papers must be presented by an author who is registered as a “Regular” participant (student presenters must register as a Regular participant).
• For more information about the evaluation process, specific instructions for submission as well as the other tracks for MODELS 2017, please visit:http://www.modelsconference.org/

Organizers

General Chair

• Don Batory, University of Texas, Austin, USA
  batory@cs.utexas.edu

Program Chairs

• Jeff Gray (Foundations Track), University of Alabama, USA
  gray@cs.ua.edu
• Vinay Kulkarni (Practice and Innovation Track), Tata Consultancy Services Research, India
  vinay.vkulkarni@tcs.com