Doctoral SymposiumECOOP 2015

If you would like to be involved in the organisation of the Doctoral Symposium in 2016, please email the chair at tim@ecs.vuw.ac.nz

The 2015 Doctoral Symposium provides a forum for both early- and late-stage PhD students to present their research and get detailed feedback and advice. The main objectives of this event are:

• to allow PhD students to practice writing clearly and to present their research proposal effectively
• to get constructive feedback from other researchers
• to build bridges for potential research collaboration
• to contribute to the conference goals through interaction with other researchers at the main conference.

The 25th edition of the Doctoral Symposium will be held Sunday July 5th, 2015.

Event Format

This is a full-day event of interactive presentations where the morning session will be dedicated to junior students and the afternoon session will be dedicated to the senior students. Besides the formal presentations and discussions in sessions, there will be plenty of opportunities for informal interactions during breaks, lunch and (possibly) dinner. It is also planned that members of the academic panel will give short presentations on a variety of topics related to PhD studies and doing research.

Invited Talk

This year the symposium includes an invited talk from Mario Wolczko from Oracle Labs on the realities of industrial research in comparison to common student expectations. The talk will discuss how industrial research differs from academic research, the setup and goals of industrial research labs, and help students decide if industrial research is a career path they should be interested in.

Events

Call for Submissions

Potential topics are (but anyone interested in ECOOP is welcome):

• Architecture, Design Patterns
• Aspects, Components, Modularity, Separation of Concerns
• Collaboration, Workflow
• Concurrency, Real-time, Embeddedness, Mobility, Distribution
• Databases, Persistence, Transactions
• Domain Specific Languages, Language Workbenches
• Dynamicity, Adaptability, Reflection
• Frameworks, Product Lines, Generative Programming
• HCI, User Interfaces
• Language Design, Language Constructs, Static Analysis
• Language Implementation, Virtual Machines, Partial Evaluation
• Methodology, Process, Practices, Metrics
• Model Engineering, Design Languages, Transformations
• Requirements Analysis, Business Modeling
• Software Evolution, Versioning
• Theoretical Foundations, Formal methods
• Tools, Programming environments

The structure and length of submissions is discussed below, and differs between junior and senior students.

For Senior PhD Students

The goal of the doctoral symposium session is to provide PhD students with useful feedback towards the successful completion of their dissertation research. Each student is assigned an academic panel, based on the specifics of that student’s research, and a panel of PhD students who will prepare to participate in the discussion of the proposal and the presentation. The Doctoral student will give a presentation of 15 minutes, followed by 15 minutes of questions and feedback. The experience is meant to mimic a “mini-” defense interview. Aside from the actual feedback, this helps the student gain familiarity with the style and mechanics of such an interview (advisors of student presenters will not be allowed to attend their student’s presentations).

To participate, the students should be far enough in their research to be able to present:

• the importance of the problem
• a clear research proposal
• some preliminary work/results
• an evaluation plan

The students should still have at least 12 months before defending their dissertation. Students that are defending within a year won’t be able to incorporate the feedback they receive.

To participate, please submit:

• a 3-4 page abstract in the llncs format.
• a letter from your advisor. This letter should include an assessment of the current status of your dissertation research and an expected date for dissertation submission. The advisor should e-mail this letter to the chair.

Abstracts should be submitted to:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ecoopds15

The abstract should focus on the following:

1. Problem Description
   • What is the problem?
   • What is the significance of this problem?
   • Why can the current state of the art not solve this problem?
2. Goal Statement
   • What is the goal of your research?
   • What artifacts (tools, theories, methods) will be produced, and how do they address the stated problem? How are the artifacts going to help reach the stated goal?
3. Method
   • What experiments, prototypes, or studies need to be produced/executed?
   • What is the validation strategy? How will it demonstrate that the goal was reached?

Note that this is not a typical technical paper submission, and that the focus is not on technical details, but rather on research method.

In addition to the submission, the student will be assigned the submissions of two junior PhD students for which written feedback should be submitted no later than June 3rd. The student will also be expected to take active part in all discussions, and especially when discussing the reviewed submissions.

For Junior PhD Students

This session is addressed primarily to PhD students in the early stages of their PhD work. The goal is to allow participants to present their research ideas and obtain feedback from the rest of the attendees. Each participant will give a 10 minute presentation, followed by 10 minutes of discussions.

To participate, please submit:

• 6-10 page position paper in the lncs format, presenting your idea or current work;
• a support letter from your advisor. The advisor should e-mail this letter to the chair.

Position papers should be submitted to:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ecoopds15

The position paper should contain (at least):

• a problem description
• a detailed sketch of a proposed approach
• related work

As this is earlier-stage research, it is not necessary to have concrete results from this research presented in the paper. Instead, the goal of the paper is to inform the reader of a (well-motivated) problem and to present a high level (possible) solution.

In addition to the submission, the student will be assigned the submissions of two senior students for which written summaries together with a few questions (2-3) that could be discussed in connection to the presentations should be submitted no later than June 3rd. The student will also be expected to take active part in all discussions, and especially when discussing the submissions for which the summaries have been written.

If accepted for presentation, the student’s advisor must email the chair no later than June 22nd to confirm that the advisor attended at least one of the student’s presentation rehearsals.