ABOUT

Throughout the years, empirical software engineering experienced an evergrowing research adoption trend. Bridging the gap between software engineering theory and industrial practice, empirical methods are nowadays widely utilized to understand and enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of software engineering processes. With the growing adoption of empirical methods for software engineering research, it becomes paramount not only to adopt sound empirical research methods but also to open the discourse on how we, as empirical software engineering researchers, can adapt, improve, optimize, and evaluate our investigation practices.

The QUATIC Quality Aspects of Empirical Studies (QAES) thematic track is designed to provide a forum to discuss the use of empirical methods in software engineering research. The thematic track welcomes submissions addressing all topics across the full spectrum of the quality of software engineering empirical studies, from practices aimed at improving current empirical software engineering research to discussing new avenues of empirical software engineering or the evaluation of empirical software engineering studies. 

TOPICS

Among others, we invite submissions regarding topics related to:

• Current practices in specific empirical software engineering research methods

• Novel empirical software engineering research methods

• Adaptations of renowned empirical methods to the software engineering context

• Issues and considerations regarding empirical software engineering practices (e.g., sampling, threats to validity documentation)

• Considerations regarding the application of empirical software engineering methods in industry

• Lessons learned from applying empirical research methods to software engineering

• Strategies and methods for evidence-based software engineering and secondary studies

• Criteria and methods to evaluate the quality of empirical software engineering investigations

• Reflections on current empirical software engineering trends

• New and emerging trends in empirical software engineering research

• Study design selection and mixed methods in empirical software engineering

• Reproduction or replication of empirical studies with reflections on quality aspects and aggregated results

TRACK COMMITTEE

Chair: Marcos Kalinowski (PUC-Rio, Brazil) and Roberto Verdecchia  (University of Florence, Italy)

Program Committee: 

• Amiangshu Bosu, Wayne State University, USA

• Beatriz Bernárdez, University of Seville, Spain

• Clemente Izuireta, Montana State University, USA

• Gregorio Robles, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain

• Guilherme Travassos, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

• Marco Kuhrmann, Reutlingen University, Germany

• Marco Torchiano, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

• Maria Teresa Baldassarre, University of Bari, Italy

• Maya Daneva, University of Twente, Netherlands

• Michel Chaudron, Chalmers & Gothenborg University, Sweden

• Oscar Dieste, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain

• Patricia Matsubara, Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil

• Rafael Maiani de Mello, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

• Silverio Martínez-Fernández, UPC-BarcelonaTech, Spain

• Stefan Wagner, Technical University of Munich, Germany

• Valentina Lenarduzzi, University of Oulu, Finland