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                               CALL FOR PAPERS

                 1st International Workshop on Visualisation
              in Software Product Line Engineering (ViSPLE 2007)

                         held in conjunction with the

       11th International Software Product Line Conference (SPLC 2007)

                       September 10, 2007, Kyoto, Japan

                        http://www.lero.ie/visple2007/
                        http://sec.ipa.go.jp/SPLC2007/

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Workshop Description
--------------------

Product line engineering has rapidly emerged as a viable and important
software
development activity during the last few years. Many companies use a
product
line approach so as to be able to build different variants of their
products for
use within a variety of systems. As the size of product lines is usually
large,
they could easily incorporate thousands of variation points and
configuration
parameters. This makes product line management and systematic product
derivation
extremely difficult.

This workshop aims at elaborating the idea of using visualisation
techniques to
achieve the economies of scale required to support variability
management and
product derivation in industrial product lines. Visualisation techniques
have
been proven effective to improve both the human understanding and
effective use
of computer software. They have also been used to amplify the cognition
about
large and complex data sets. The exploration of the potential of visual
representations such as trees and graphs combined with the effective use
of
human interaction techniques such as dynamic queries, direct
manipulation, and
details-on-demand when applied in a software product line context is a
novel
and challenging research direction.

The workshop particularly wants to attract and bring together
researchers and
practitioners from the information/software visualisation and software
product
line engineering communities to discuss problems and potential solutions
related
to visualisation support in software product line engineering.


Topics
------

The topics of interest for this workshop focus on visualisation and
interaction
techniques and tools for managing complex software product lines. Topics
include
but are not limited to:

- Understanding large software product lines: Visualisation techniques
and tools
  to support the understanding of large and complex software products
lines
- Representation of features: Visualisation techniques and tools for
  representing software product line features and requirements and
dependencies
  among them
- Representation of software architecture: Visualisation techniques and
tools
  for representing software product line architectures
- Variability representation: Visualisation techniques and tools for
coping with
  large numbers of variation points in software product lines
- Product derivation support: Visualisation and interaction techniques
and tools
  to support product development/derivation in software product line
engineering
- Product line evolution: Visualisation and interaction techniques and
tools to
  support the understanding of evolutionary aspects in software product
lines
- Industrial case studies: Industrial examples and experience reports
related to
  managing complex software product lines
- Visualisation of large data sets: General software visualisation
techniques
  and tools for managing large data sets and their potential
applicability in a
  software product line context


Submissions
-----------

We are seeking research papers and experience reports not exceeding 10
pages.
Additionally, we are interested in position papers not exceeding 6
pages.
Submissions should explain how the (proposed) research or solution
contributes
to the effective management of complex software product lines,
especially in the
context of industrial size product lines with a high number of
development
artefacts, variation points, and dependencies among them.

Submissions are selected based on originality, novelty, and relevance to
the
workshop topics, as well as on their suitability for stimulating
discussions.

Papers should be submitted in Microsoft Word or PDF format
electronically to
mailto:splc2007@lero.ie. Submitted papers must be unpublished and should
not be
under review elsewhere. The papers must also conform to the IEEE
proceedings
8.5x 11\", two-column format.

All presented papers are collected in a separate volume of the SPLC 2007
conference proceedings.


Important Dates
---------------

Deadline for submissions:    June 29, 2007
Notification of acceptance:  July 20, 2007
Final papers due:            August 1, 2007


Workshop Organisation:

- Steffen Thiel, Lero, University of Limerick, Ireland
- Patrick Healy, Lero, University of Limerick, Ireland
- Aaron Quigley, Lero, University College Dublin, Ireland 
- Daren Nestor, Lero, University of Limerick, Ireland
- Luke O\'Malley, Lero, University College Dublin, Ireland

Program Committee:

- Peter Eades, University of Sydney, Australia
- Jens Ehrke, Ehrke & Partner, Germany
- Patrick Healy, Lero, University of Limerick, Ireland
- Claus Lewerentz, University of Cottbus, Germany
- Karol Lynch, IBM, Ireland
- John MacGregor, Robert Bosch, Germany
- Liam O\'Brien, Lero, University of Limerick, Ireland
- Aaron Quigley, Lero, University College Dublin, Ireland
- Ernst Sikora, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
- Steffen Thiel, Lero, University of Limerick, Ireland

For more information please visit: http://www.lero.ie/visple2007/
(ViSPLE 2007)
                                   http://sec.ipa.go.jp/SPLC2007/ (SPLC
2007)