2020 ACM/IEEE 23rd International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS2020)

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We invite authors to submit high quality contributions describing significant, original, and unpublished results in the following categories: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 modeling 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 short 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 model-based engineering (MBE) and industrial needs. We invite authors from academia and/or industry to submit original contributions reporting on the development of innovative MBE solutions in industries, public sector, or open-source settings, as well as innovative application of MBE 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 importance, and the application of MBE that leads to a solution.

Evaluation Criteria: A paper in the P&I Track will be evaluated mainly from its practical take-away and the potential impact of the findings. More specifically,

• The paper should discuss why the solution to the problem is innovative (e.g., in terms of advancing the state-of-practice), effective, and/or efficient, and what likely practical impact it has or will have;
• The paper should provide a concise explanation of approaches, techniques, methodologies and tools employed;
• The paper should explain 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.

The submission process for MODELS 2020 is similar to past MODELS conferences, with the specific details below. We however follow the double blind review process and “New Ideas and Vision Papers” should be submitted as short papers as mentioned. In the double blind review process, authors will not be identified to reviewers and reviewers will not be identified to authors. Please consult the submission information section below to prepare your manuscript for the double-blind process.

Submission Guidelines

For Foundations and Practice & Innovation tracks, papers must be submitted electronically through the MODELS 2020 EasyChair web page.

• “Foundations” and “Practice and Innovation” papers must not exceed 10 pages for the main text, inclusive of all figures, tables, appendices, etc. Two more pages containing only references are permitted.
• “New Ideas/Vision” papers must not exceed 6 pages for the main text, inclusive of all figures, tables, appendices, etc. One more page containing only references is permitted.
• All submissions must be in PDF. The page limit is strict, and it will not be possible to purchase additional pages at any point in the process (including after the paper is accepted).
• Formatting instructions are available at https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template for both LaTeX and Word users. LaTeX users must use the provided acmart.cls and ACM-Reference-Format.bst without modification, enable the conference format in the preamble of the document (i.e., \documentclass[sigconf,review]{acmart}), and use the ACM reference format for the bibliography (i.e., \bibliographystyle{ACM-Reference-Format}). The review option adds line numbers, thereby allowing referees to refer to specific lines in their comments.
• Lastly, MODELS 2020 will employ a double-blind review process. Thus, no submission may reveal its authors’ identities. The authors must make every effort to honor the double-blind review process. In particular, the authors’ names must be omitted from the submission and references to their prior work should be in the third person. For more information, check the submission information page.

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. Selected papers from the conference will be invited to revise and submit extended versions of the papers for publication in the International Journal on Software and Systems Modeling (SoSyM).

Review Process

MODELS 2020’s double blind review process will use a single phase with no rebuttals. There will be an extended discussion phase monitored by one Program Board member 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 2020, 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 track. The Artifact Evaluation track 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

Foundation Track and Practice and Innovation Track have the following deadlines:

• May 15, 2020, Abstract submission
• May 22, 2020, Full paper submission
• July 13, 2020, Author notification
• July 31, 2020, Camera Ready Due

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).

Submission Information

MODELS 2020 will follow a double-blind reviewing process in which the identity of authors will not be known to the program committee at any time during the process. The papers submitted must not reveal the authors´ identities in any way. Hence, the authors should make every reasonable effort to keep the paper anonymous, but of course there is no need to guarantee that the authors’ identity is undiscoverable.

Why Double Blind?

There are many reasons for a double-blind review process at conferences, including to avoid (even unconscious) bias from the reviewers. Hence, to make the review process as fair as possible, we want to avoid either positive or negative bias of reviewers from the authors’ identities. Recently, many conferences have moved to a double blind process to avoid such bias, including ICSE, ICSME, FASE, ESEC/FSE, and ASE, among many others.

For more information on motivations for double-blind reviewing, see Claire Le Goues’s very well argued, referenced and evidenced blog posting in favor of double-blind review processes for Software Engineering conferences. See also a list of double-blind resources from Robert Feldt, as well as a more formal study of the subject by Moritz Beller and Alberto Bacchelli, as well as studies on the benefits of double blind in merit reviewing.

How to prepare your paper for double-blind reviewing?

● Omit all authors’ names and affiliations from the title page. Omit also acknowledgements, if they mention any names or organizations.

● Refer to your own work in the third person. You should not change the names of your own previously published tools, approaches, or systems, because this would clearly compromise the review process. Instead, refer to the authorship or provenance of tools, approaches, or systems in the third person, so that it is credible that another author could have written your paper.

● If possible, do not rely on external sources for supplementary material (your website, your GitHub repository, your YouTube channel, a companion technical report or thesis) in the paper. Such material might reveal author identities. It is possible to post a link to an anonymous GitHub repository, or anonymous web hosting services, but the repository should be checked carefully for any information that could reveal the author’s identity, and it could be helpful to warn the reader that accessing the repository could reveal the author’s identity. In any case, you will be able to submit supplementary material through the EasyChair submission site, but check the material carefully for anything that can reveal the author’s identity. Here are some additional tips on anonymization from ACM.

Authors having further questions on double blind reviewing are encouraged to contact the Program Chairs by email. Papers that do not comply to the double blind review process will be desk-rejected.

Attendance

If a submission is accepted, at least one author of the paper is required to attend the conference and present the paper in person.

Production of artifacts

After the notification, the authors of accepted papers will be invited to submit artifacts related to the paper to be evaluated by the Artifact Evaluation Committee.

Questions? Use the MODELS Technical Track contact form.