Dear all,
it's getting spring, and summer is approaching. This also means: Time
for holiday planning ;-)
Please make sure that you will take two weeks of holidays in a row, the
HR department is interpreting this rule quite strictly. Doesn't have to
be in summer, of course, but any time of the year.
In general, as a reminder, make sure to record your holidays and other
abscences such as coference trips in inova time!
This also holds for those who do not have to record their usual working
hours (i.e., Post-Docs, PhD students).
Best,
Timo
Dear all,
if anyone wants to serve as sub-reviewer for ICSME 2025, please let me
know.
These are the papers I got (PDFs attached, please do not share):
(79) ADPP: Automated Data-centric Program Partitioning
(81) Towards Better Understanding of Code Changes: An Algorithm to
Remove Unintended Moves in GumTree
(117) Understanding Commercial Low-code Application Bugs
(122) Configurable Ensembles for Software Similarity: Challenging the
Notion of Universal Metrics
(146) Predicting Clone-proneness: An Exploratory Study with Deep
Learning Models
Best,
Timo
-------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht --------
Betreff: ICSME 2025 Research Papers review assignments
Datum: Mon, 17 Mar 2025 13:48:39 +0100
Von: ICSME Research Papers Track <icsme2025_research(a)easychair.org>
An: Timo Kehrer <timo.kehrer(a)inf.unibe.ch>
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Dear Timo Kehrer,
Thanks again for serving on the PC of ICSME 2025.
This is a rather long email regarding the paper assignments, review
instructions and review criteria, but please read it in full as it will
make your job as a reviewer easier.
We have received 188 submissions. 21 papers were withdrawn by the full
paper deadline. We removed 18 other submissions ourselves for which the
authors did not submit a full paper. Out of the remaining 149 papers, we
desk-rejected 3 papers for violating submission guidelines. This leaves
146 papers for review. Given the PC size, we have assigned 4-5 papers
per PC member. You will find your paper assignment at the end of this email.
1) FORMAT AND DOUBLE-BLIND REQUIREMENTS
Papers must strictly adhere to the two-column IEEE conference
proceedings format. Also, papers must be in PDF, anonymized, and must
not exceed 10 pages (including figures and appendices) plus up to 2
pages that contain ONLY references.
We have already screened papers regarding these requirements. If you
identify any missed cases, please report them to us as soon as possible.
For minor format violations (e.g., slightly different font or template),
we have decided to handle these during the camera-ready stage. Please
note such font/template violations in your reviews, but do not reject a
paper because of them.
Some papers are shorter than 10 pages. While these are shorter than the
typical full paper length, our CfP does not have a minimum page length.
Therefore, please judge these papers as full papers (i.e., whether the
provided content contains all the necessary information for a full
paper) rather than forming your opinion solely based on their length.
Also, report to us immediately any missed cases of Conflicts of
Interest. We ask you to NOT actively try to determine the authors of the
papers.
2) REVIEW FORM
Following the tradition of ICSME and other major conferences, our goal
is not to reject papers, but to accept them. Therefore, please be
*positive* and provide *constructive* reviews. To support you in
preparing quality reviews and to provide transparent reviews to authors,
the review form on EasyChair includes the following fields (for your
convenience we also include the descriptions of fields in the form on
EasyChair):
* Overall recommendation: Reject, Weak reject, Weak accept, Accept,
Accept & nominate for distinguished paper (only use ‘Accept & nominate
for distinguished paper’ if you believe a paper is outstanding and
should be considered for a Distinguished Paper award)
* Reviewer’s confidence: Expert, Knowledgeable, Some familiarity, No
familiarity
* Paper summary: Brief summary of the paper (as you understand it)
* Strengths (bullet list): Summarize the key strengths of the paper, in
light of the review criteria.
* Weaknesses (bullet list): Summarize the key weaknesses of the paper,
in light of the review criteria.
* Artifacts: Artifact provided and in line with what is declared in the
paper. Artifact provided, but not inline with what is declared in the
paper، Artifact not provided, but authors provide a convincing argument
as to why it cannot be provided. Artifact not provided, without
explanation (or a non-convincing explanation)
* Summary comments for authors: Please provide a summary of your
assessment to justify your overall recommendation. You may elaborate on
the strengths and weaknesses and refer to the evaluation criteria (see
below). Please do not mention your overall recommendation in the comments.
* Questions for the authors: Please fill in this section ONLY if answers
to these questions will affect your score/decision for this paper.
Otherwise, clearly indicate "No Questions."
* Confidential remarks for the program committee
* Review criteria: see below
3) REVIEW CRITERIA
For ICSME 2025 we use structured reviews, i.e., there will be a field
for each review criterion on the review form. For your convenience, we
also explain each criterion in the review form itself.
3.1) Originality and novelty
The extent to which the contribution is sufficiently original and is
clearly explained with respect to the state-of-the-art. Note that
originality is not about providing surprising or unexpected results or
the complexity of a proposed solution, but how the work advances the
body-of-knowledge. If a paper lacks important references, we ask
reviewers to provide suggestions, but avoid self-citations. When a
reviewer’s own work is extremely relevant, they should always contact
the PC co-chairs and provide potential alternatives of other related
work. Replications that bring new knowledge are welcome.
Do *not* reject papers just because:
– the work is preliminary (especially if an idea is very novel)
– the work is incremental (we always build on top of previous research)
– it reports negative results
– the idea is simple
– you think some other technique that doesn’t exist yet would be better
3.2) Importance of contribution (significance)
The extent to which the paper’s contributions can impact the field of
software maintenance and evolution, and, if needed, under which assumptions.
Do *not* reject papers just because:
– it does not include empirical evidence of impact (potential impact is
more important)
– you don’t like the topic or don’t find it interesting (would someone in
the community?)
– the impact is not immediate for the software industry, the immediate
impact may be in the software engineering research community (e.g.,
methodological contribution)
3.3) Soundness (proper use of research methods)
The extent to which the paper’s contributions and/or innovations address
its research questions and are supported by rigorous application of
appropriate research methods. Papers should employ rigor in their
research methodology (including choosing appropriate methods and
procedures). Soundness is relative to claimed contributions (e.g., if a
paper finds a correlation, and that is a notable discovery, do not
critique it for not also demonstrating causality).
Do *not* reject papers just because:
– the methods are not the ones you would have selected (are they
appropriate?)
– the results may not generalize (papers should clearly explain
assumptions and scope of contribution)
– Balance the novelty with the extent of the evaluation (very novel
papers may be more preliminary)
Furthermore:
– Avoid applying criteria for quantitative methods to qualitative
methods or industrial studies (e.g., critiquing a case study for a
“small N”).
– Avoid critiquing a lack of a statistically significant difference for
case study research; a lack of statistical difference can be a
discovery, too (but must be supported by enough statistical power).
– Avoid asking for the paper to do more than it claims if the
demonstrated claims are sufficiently publishable (e.g., “I would publish
this if it had also demonstrated knowledge transfer”).
– Avoid relying on inexpert, anecdotal judgements (e.g., “I don’t know
much about this but I played with it once and it didn’t work”).
– Do take into account the effort it took to run the study; this
contributes to the value of results.
3.4) Evaluation (where applicable)
The paper’s claimed contributions are supported by empirical evidence.
Papers claiming improvements (e.g., over state of the art or baseline
techniques) should also design proper empirical evaluations to confirm
that such improvements are achieved. Judge papers based on the match
between claims and evaluation.
Do *not* reject papers just because:
– further experiments would be possible, if the included ones are
sufficient to support the claims
some hypothetical baseline was not considered, if such a baseline is not
available and is not easily re-implementable
– alternative design choices or implementations could provide even
larger improvements
– there is no empirical evaluation in a paper claiming a purely
theoretical contribution (e.g., the authors demonstrate theoretically an
improved computational complexity)
3.5) Quality of presentation
The quality of writing, including clear descriptions, adequate use of
the English language, absence of major ambiguity, clearly readable
figures and tables, and adherence to the formatting instructions
provided. Papers should be clear and concise, comprehensible to diverse
audiences, contain sufficient information to understand how an innovation
works and to understand how data was obtained, analyzed, and interpreted.
Do *not* reject papers just because:
– it has easily fixable spelling and grammar issues.
– it does not use all of the page count
– it does not follow a particular paper structure or order of sections
Avoid asking for more detail unless you are certain there is space; if
there is not enough space, provide concrete suggestions for what to cut.
3.6) Comparison to related work
The extent to which the submission adequately reviews the prior literature.
Do *not* reject papers just because:
– minor prior related work is missing (only if missed work would have
altered the study)
– non-peer reviewed work (including arXiv preprints, theses, blog posts,
or tech reports) or work that has been accepted after the submission
deadline (you can point these out to the authors if relevant but they
are not alone grounds to reject)
3.7) Replicability (if relevant)
The extent to which the paper provides sufficient detail on methods and
experiments, and shares information and artifacts that are practical and
reasonable to share, to support replication and reproducibility.
4) AUTHOR QUESTIONS AND EARLY ACCEPTS/REJECTS
When filling in the review form, please use the “Questions for the
Authors” field wisely and ask questions *only* if you think that the
answers will affect your scores and decision about the paper. Otherwise,
clearly indicate "No Questions."
Also, author responses will be only required for papers where answers to
reviewers’ questions can affect the outcomes. For papers whose decision
is already clear, we will send out direct accept/reject notifications at
the beginning of the author response period.
5) REVIEW QUALITY
ICSME aims for an inclusive and transparent review process. We encourage
reviewers to be open, positive and professional:
* Review authorship: PC members were invited because of their expertise.
Therefore, we expect PC members to author their reviews, asking for
sub-reviewers only for additional feedback. This means that reviewers
may solicit help from others. However, reviewers should rewrite the
review in their own words, and adjust the scores accordingly. The
opinions should be represented as the PC member’s opinions, not those of
a sub-reviewer.
* Be clear about what is missing: Even if, in the view of a reviewer, a
paper does not meet the standards required for acceptance, we encourage
reviewers to highlight what, in their opinion, would be necessary to
make it acceptable for ICSME (while acknowledging that ICSME submissions
are subject to the limitations of conference papers regarding lengths,
etc.).
* Ethical issues: PC members should inform PC co-chairs if they detect
any evidence related to plagiarism, concurrent submission, etc.
* Update reviews: Reviews can be updated at any time, i.e., we encourage
reviewers to follow the submitted reviews of submissions assigned to
them and make adjustments even before the official discussion period.
In summary, quality reviews are:
* Constructive, explicitly identifying the merits of the work, as well
as feasible ways of addressing any of its weaknesses.
* Insightful, going deeply into the topic and the research methods.
* Organized, helping the authors clearly understand the reviewer’s
opinions of strengths and weaknesses of the work.
* Impartial, demonstrating a commitment to the reviewing criteria of the
conference, and not personal interests, speculation, or bias.
To protect authors' rights and research confidentiality, ICSME 2025 does
not currently allow the use of Generative AI or AI-assisted technologies
such as ChatGPT or similar services for peer review.
Reviewers, as well as authors and organizers, are expected to uphold the
IEEE Code of Conduct.
6) LEAD REVIEWERS / DISCUSSION LEADS
You will be designated as the lead reviewer for at most 2 of the papers
you review. We ask lead reviewers to do the following:
* Check reviews for any issues (e.g., quality, length) and work with
reviewers to improve if needed; if necessary, bring issues to our attention.
* Kickstart and moderate discussion among the reviewers.
* Build consensus where possible.
* Make a recommendation on the paper.
* Write a meta-review to summarize the discussion among reviewers and
explain the rationale behind their final recommendation (do not disclose
reviewer identities in the meta-review).
7) REVIEWING TIMELINE
* Assignment of papers: March 17, 2025
* First half of reviews due: April 2, 2025
* Second half of reviews due: April 22, 2025
* First review discussion period: April 23, 2025 - April 29, 2025
* Early decisions due: April 30, 2025
* Early decisions notification: May 7, 2025
* Author response period: May 8, 2025 - May 15, 2025
* Final discussion period: May 16, 2025 - May 27, 2025
Thank you again for helping us make ICSME 2025 a success. We appreciate
that reviewing is hard work. If you have any questions, please do not
hesitate to contact us.
Matthias Galster and Dan Hao
ICSME 2025 Research Track Program Co-Chairs
==============
Paper Assignment
==============
(Should the assignment in this email not match the paper assignment in
EasyChair, please reach out and report the mismatch.)
---------------------------------------------
(79) ADPP: Automated Data-centric Program Partitioning
(81) Towards Better Understanding of Code Changes: An Algorithm to
Remove Unintended Moves in GumTree
(117) Understanding Commercial Low-code Application Bugs
(122) Configurable Ensembles for Software Similarity: Challenging the
Notion of Universal Metrics
(146) Predicting Clone-proneness: An Exploratory Study with Deep
Learning Models
Dear all,
if anybody is extensively working with graphs, there will be a symposium
just next door in August, with low entry barrier for participation /
presentation.
Best,
Timo
-------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht --------
Betreff: SympGraph 25
Datum: Thu, 6 Mar 2025 08:07:44 +0100
Von: Riesen, Kaspar (INF) <kaspar.riesen(a)unibe.ch>
An: Riesen, Kaspar (INF) <kaspar.riesen(a)unibe.ch>
Dear Colleagues,
I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to inform you about the
upcoming
*1st Swiss Symposium on Graph-Based Representation in Computer Science
(SympGraph 25),*
a symposium dedicated to graph representations in computer science,
which will take place on August 21 this year at the University of Bern
(https://sympgraph25.inf.unibe.ch).
The overarching goal of SympGraph is to bring together PhD students and
other interested researchers who are conducting research in any form
using graphs as the underlying data structure. SympGraph offers
participating PhD students a platform to present their current research
projects, e.g. in a poster session or in the form of short oral
presentations. Two talks by renowned experts in the field of graph-based
data analysis will provide a framework for general exchange among peers.
The symposium will provide new insights for the doctoral students' own
research and – in the best case – the exchange will lead to new
collaborations.
We would be grateful if you could forward this information to your PhD
students and postdocs who might be interested in attending or submitting
contributions. We thank you in advance for your support and look forward
to welcoming your students and postdocs at SympGraph 2025.
Kind regards,
Kaspar
-------------------------------------------------------
PD Dr. Kaspar Riesen
Head of the Pattern Recognition Group
Institute of Computer Science
Faculty of Science
University of Bern, Switzerland
kaspar.riesen(a)unibe.ch
-------------------------------------------------------