The 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS 2018)

14.-19. October 2018

Copenhagen, Denmark

https://modelsconf2018.github.io/

Call for Papers

Contributions related to all aspects of modeling, modeling languages and model-driven engineering are cordially invited to the 21st edition of MODELS, in Copenhagen, Denmark 14.-19. October 2018.

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 2018 is a forum for participants to exchange cutting-edge research results and innovative practical experiences around modeling and model-driven software and systems. This year’s edition 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 systems, embedded systems, socio-technical systems, cloud computing, big data, security, open source, and sustainability. We invite you to join us at MODELS 2018, Copenhagen, Denmark 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We invite authors to submit high quality contributions describing significant, original, and unpublished results in the following categories: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 modelling or 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). Authors are strongly encouraged to make the artifacts used for the evaluation publicly accessible, e.g., through a Github repository or an alternative that is likely to remain available. There will be an artifact evaluation process, as discussed below.
2. New Ideas and Vision Papers: We solicit papers that present new ideas and visions. Such papers may describe new, non-conventional model-driven engineering research positions or approaches that depart from standard practice. They can describe well-defined research ideas that are at an early stage of investigation. They could also 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, even though the new idea need not be fully worked out, and a fully detailed roadmap need not be presented.

Practice and Innovation Track

The goal of this track is to fill the gap between foundational research in modeling and 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 a solution.

Evaluation Criteria: A paper in the P&I Track will be evaluated mainly from its practical take-away, the potential impact of the findings. 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 2018 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, the internet of things, 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, etc.

Submission and Evaluation Process

The submission and evaluation process for MODELS 2018 is similar to past MODELS conferences, with the specific details below.

Submission Process

Papers must be submitted electronically through the MODELS 2018 EasyChair submission web pages. The submission for Foundations and Practice & Innovation tracks can be found at:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=models2018

All papers—“Foundations”, “Practice and Innovation” and “New Ideas/Vision”—must not exceed 10 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 ACM formatting instructions (specifically the sigconf template), which can be found at:

https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template

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 ACM. 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

Unlike previous years, the MODELS 2018 review process will use a single phase with no rebuttals. There will be an extended discussion phase monitored by one or two Program Board members assigned to each paper. The Program Chairs will also be heavily involved in monitoring discussions and reviews, to ensure that quality reviews are produced.

All papers that conform to the submission guidelines will be peer-reviewed by at least three members of the Program Committee. The Program Board will monitor the reviews of papers assigned to them, to ensure that the reviews are constructive and sufficiently detailed so that authors can both improve their papers and understand the rationale behind final decisions. After reviews are completed, the Program Board will lead a discussion phase on papers assigned to them, in order to come up with recommendations. These recommendations will be discussed at the Program Board meeting, to be held in early July 2018, in order to come up with decisions on papers to be presented at the conference.

Authors of accepted papers will be invited to submit their accompanying artifacts (e.g., software, datasets, proofs) to the Artifact Evaluation process. The Artifact Evaluation process is run by a separate committee whose task is to assess how the artifacts support the results presented in the papers. Participation in the Artifact Evaluation process is optional and does not affect the final decision regarding the papers. Papers that successfully go through the Artifact Evaluation process will be rewarded with a seal of approval printed on the paper themselves. The artifacts will be archived.

Important Dates

The side panel with dates shows 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).

Organizing Committee

General Chair

• Andrzej Wąsowski, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Foundations Track Chair

• Richard Paige, University of York, UK

Practice and Innovation Track Chair

• Øystein Haugen, Østfold University College, Norway

Workshop Chairs

• Regina Hebig, University of Gothenburg | Chalmers, Sweden
• Thorsten Berger, University of Gothenburg | Chalmers, Sweden

Tools and Demos Chairs

• Sahar Kokaly, McMaster University, Canada
• Dimitris Kolovos, University of York, UK

Artifacts Evaluation Chairs

• Vadim Zaytsev, Raincode, Belgium
• Thomas Degueule, CWI, Netherlands

Tutorial Chairs

• Zinovy Diskin, McMaster University, Canada
• Steffen Zschaler, King’s College London, UK

Social Media Chairs

• Thanos Zolotas, University of York, UK
• Andreas Wortmann, RWTH Aachen, Germany

Posters Chairs

• Tanja Mayerhofer, TU Wien, Austria
• Mansooreh Zahedi, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Educators Symposium Chairs

• Martin Gogolla, University of Bremen, Germany
• Loli Burgueño, Universidad de Málaga, Spain

Industry Day Chairs

• Benoit Combemale, University of Toulouse, France
• Paolo Tell, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark
• Anders Ek, HCL Technologies, Sweden

Doctoral Symposium Chairs

• Silvia Abrahão, Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain
• Joel Greenyer, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany

ACM Student Research Competition Chair

• Ekkart Kindler, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark

Sponsorship Chairs

• Francis Bordelau, CMind, Canada
• Sebastian Voss, fortiss, Germany

Publicity Chairs

North America

• Eugene Syriani, University of Montreal, Canada

Latin America

• Kelly Garces Pernett, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia

Europe

• Christoph Seidl, TU Braunschweig, Germany

Australia and Oceania

• Georg Grossmann, University of South Australia, Australia

Asia

• Yingfei Xiong, Peking University, China

Proceedings Chairs

• Daniel Strüber, Uni Koblenz Landau, Germany
• Önder Babur, TU Eindhoven, Netherlands

Local Arrangements Chair

• Ahmad Salim Al-Sibahi, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Web Chair

• Ştefan Stănciulescu, IT University of Copenhagen (Denmark) | ABB Corporate Research Center (Switzerland)