Software is playing an ever-increasing role in our day-to-day lives. Unfortunately, software systems often fail to deliver as promised. It is widely known that unresolved errors remain in many software systems that we are using every day.

QSIC 2008, to be held in Oxford, UK, will provide a forum to bring together researchers and practitioners working towards improving the quality of software to present new results and exchange ideas in this challenging area. It will adhere to the style of previous QSIC conferences and will include co-located workshops. IEEE Computer Society Press will publish the conference proceedings consisting of carefully reviewed manuscripts accepted by the program committee. Authors of selected papers may be invited to submit an extended version of their articles to a special journal issue.

Our preceding conferences were held in Hong Kong; Dallas, Texas, USA; Braunschweig, Germany; Melbourne, Australia; Beijing, China; and Portland, Oregon, USA. They received overwhelming responses from academia and industry. Selected papers of the conferences were published in special issues of recognized international journals. More historical information regarding QSIC can be found at here. 

CALL FOR PAPERS     

QSIC 2008 solicits research papers, experience reports, and workshop papers on various aspects of quality software. See the topics of interests, paper submission guidelines, and workshops. Submissions must not have been published or be concurrently considered for publication elsewhere. Each submission will be fully reviewed by independent reviewers and will be judged on the basis of originality, contribution, technical and presentation quality, and relevance to the conference. The proceedings will be published by IEEE Computer Society Press.

Please click here for a printable copy of call-for-papers. 

Dates: 

• March 31, 2008: Deadline for submission of papers (new, extended)

• May 18, 2008: Notification to authors

• June 6, 2008: Deadline for camera-ready versions (corrected)

• August 12-13, 2008: QSIC 2008 conference

TOPICS OF INTEREST

Topics of submissions include, but are not limited to:

			Software testing: automation, conformance, strategies, tools, standards, economics, performance and robustness, processes and standards
			Software quality: management and assurance, measurement and benchmarking, review, inspection and walkthrough, reliability, safety and security
			Methods and tools: design tools, testing tools, information systems engineering, quality tools
			Evaluation of software products and components: static and dynamic analysis, validation and verification
			Information and knowledge management: economics of software quality, knowledge engineering
			Formal methods: program analysis, model checking, model construction, formal process models
			Component software and reuse: requirements engineering, software architecture, middleware and application servers, reflective systems
			Emerging technology: pervasive computing, service oriented computing, grid software, intelligent systems
			Applications: component-based systems, digital libraries, distributed systems, e-commerce, embedded systems, enterprise applications, information systems, multimedia, Web-based systems, safety critical systems

SUBMISSION 

GUIDELINES

			Language: English
			Paper Length: long paper (maximum 10 pages) or short paper (maximum 6 pages)
			Font: no smaller than 10 pt
			Spacing: single line
			Format: pdf

ONLINE SUBMISSION

Submission of paper to the QSIC 2008 main conference is now closed.

Submission to the special tracks and workshop are still open. 

• The deadline for submission to the special tracks is 10 May 2008. 
• The deadline for submission to the ISEAT 2008 workshop is 8 May 2008. 

Click here for details about the special tracks and how to submit.

IMPORTANT DATES

Keynotes

Keynote Speaker: 

Prof. Lionel Claude Briand, Simula Research Laboratory, Norway.

Title: 

Novel Applications of Machine Learning in Software Testing

Abstract:

A great deal of software testing, especially when testing larger components, subsystems, or entire systems, is done using specification-based, black-box techniques. Such techniques are, in practice, not fully automated and error-prone. This talk will present three novel applications of machine learning in the context of black-box testing. The first one will focus on helping testers improve their black-box test specifications whereas the second one will then exploit such black-box specifications to help improve existing debugging techniques. The third application will show how approximate test oracles can be learned in the context of image processing software. Drawing from these experiences, this keynote address will then outline future research directions and draw more general conclusions regarding the current state of testing research. More specifically, it will argue that research could become more relevant by devising intelligent ways to support decision making rather than focusing almost exclusively on task automation.

Keynote Speaker:

Prof. Rob Hierons, Brunel University, UK.

Title: Testing in The Distributed Test Architecture

Abstract: 

Some systems interact with their environment at a number of physically distributed interfaces/ports and when testing such a system it is normal to place a local tester at each port. If the local testers cannot interact with one another and there is no global clock then we are testing in the distributed test architecture and this can introduce additional controllability and observability problems. For example, if a test case starts with input x at port p, this should lead to output y at p only and this is to be followed by input x' at port q then the tester at q cannot know when to apply x'. This is because it does not observe either the input or output from the previous operation and so cannot know whether x has been applied. Observability problems refer to fault masking that can occur as a result of each tester only being able to observe its own interface. While there has been interest in test generation algorithms that overcome controllability and observability problems, such algorithms lack generality since controllability and observability problems cannot always be overcome. In addition, previous work has only considered testing deterministic systems based on deterministic models despite distributed systems often being non-deterministic. This talk will describe recent work that has characterised the power of testing in the distributed test architecture in the contexts of testing from a possibly non-deterministic finite state machine and testing from an input output transition system. This work has the potential to lead to more general test generation algorithms for the distributed test architecture.

Invited Special Track

Formalisation of UML and Design Patterns

Chair:  Dr. Kevin Lano, Kings College, London, UK

Topics: 

The session will cover the following topics:

• Formalisation of UML, including semantics for UML notations, verification of models, and co-use of formal techniques with UML modelling.
• Model transformations, semantics of model transformations and verification of model transformations.
• Design patterns, including representation and formalisation of design patterns.

Important Dates:

• Submission deadline: 10th May, 2008
• Notification: 20th May, 2008
• Camera-ready version: 6th June, 2008

Submission: 

• Special track papers can be long (max 10 pages) or short (max 6 pages).
• Accepted papers will be published in the QSIC 2008 conference proceedings, by IEEE Press.
• Papers should be submitted in PDF format by email to: kevin.lano@kcl.ac.uk 

Workshops

ISEAT 2008: The Third International Workshop on Integration of Software Engineering and Agent Technology

Organizers: Dr. Michael Winikof and Prof. Zhi Jin. 

URL: http://iseat2008.amss.ac.cn/

Important dates for workshop submissions:

• May 8, 2008: Deadline for submission of workshop papers
• May 29, 2008 : Notification to authors
• Jun. 6, 2008: Deadline for camera-ready versions

Please submit workshop papers through workshop's websites

Tutorials

Tutorial 1: Adaptive Random Testing

By T. Y. Chen, 

Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies, 

Swinburne University of Technology, 

Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, Australia

Abstract:

Random testing is a basic testing technique. Motivated by the observation that neighboring inputs normally exhibit similar failure behavior, the approach of Adaptive Random Testing has recently been proposed to enhance the fault detection capability of random testing. The intuition of adaptive random testing is to evenly spread the randomly generated test cases. Experimental results have shown that adaptive random testing can use as fewer as 50\% of test cases required by random testing with replacement to detect the first failure. These results have very significant impact in software testing, because random testing is a basic and popular technique in software testing. In view of such a significant improvement of adaptive random testing over random testing, it is very natural to consider to replace random testing by adaptive random testing. Hence, many works involving random testing may be worthwhile to be reinvestigated using adaptive random testing instead.

Obviously, there are different approaches of evenly spreading random test cases. In this tutorial, we are going to present several approaches, and discuss their advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, the favorable and unfavorable conditions for adaptive random testing would also be discussed. Most existing research on adaptive random testing involves only numeric programs. The recent success of applying adaptive random testing for non-numeric programs would be discussed. 

Tutorial 2: Architecture-based Assessment of Software Reliability

By Swapna S. Gokhale

Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering

Univ. of Connecticut

Storrs , CT 06269

and

Veena B. Mendiratta

Bell Laboratories

Alcatel-Lucent

1960 Lucent Lane

Naperville, IL 60566

Abstract:

With the growing advent of object-oriented and component-based software development paradigms, architecture-based software reliability analysis has emerged as an attractive alternative to the conventional black-box analysis based on software reliability growth models. The primary advantage of the architecture-based approach is that it explicitly relates the application reliability to component reliabilities, which eases the identification of components that are critical from a reliability perspective. Furthermore, these techniques can be used for an early assessment of the application reliability. These two features together can provide valuable information to practitioners and architects who design software applications, and managers who plan the allocation of resources to achieve the desired reliability targets in a cost effective manner.

Journal Special Issue

Authors of selected best papers of QSIC 2008 will be invited to submit extended and revised version for consideration of publication in a journal special issue in the Journal of Information and Software Technology. 

Conference Venue 

Registration

• Please type or complete the registration form in block letters. The form must be signed and returned to Dr. Ian Bayley by email ibayley@brookes.ac.uk or fax to ++44 1865 484545.

• Payments must be made in US Dollar. We regret that payments in other currencies cannot be accepted. 

• Payment must be made by credit card only. We cannot process other forms of payment. 

• Registration will not be complete until the payment has been received. Cancellation and refund will not be entertained after registration. 

• In the situation where the accepted paper contains more than one author, substitution by another author will be acceptable.

• A student who registers as an author of a conference or workshop paper must pay the registration fee at the author rate on or before June 6, 2008.

• Registration Fees

Click here to download Registration Form for Word Format or PDF format. 

GENERAL CHAIR

PROGRAM CHAIR

STEERING COMMITTEE

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Doo-Hwan Bae, Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology , Korea

Xiaoying Bai, Tsinghua University , China

Fevzi Belli, University of Paderborn , Germany

Maarten Boasson, University of Amsterdam , The Netherlands

Jonathan Bowen, King's College London , UK

Kai-Yuan Cai, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics , China

Joao Cangussu, University of Texas at Dallas , USA

Alessandra Cavarra, Oxford University , UK

Keith Chan, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University , Hong Kong

W.K. Chan, City University of Hong Kong , Hong Kong

Jason Chen, National Central University , Taiwan

Jessica Chen, University of Windsor , Canada

Haiming Chen, Chinese Academy of Sciences , China

S.C. Cheung, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong

Byoungju Choi, Ewha Womans University , Korea

William Chu, TungHai University , Taiwan

Takeshi Chusho, Meiji University , Japan

Kendra Cooper, University of Texas at Dallas , USA

Marcio Delamaro, Centro Universitário Eurípides de Marília, Brazil

Jin Song Dong, National University of Singapore , Singapore

Abdeslam En-Nouaary, Concordia University , Canada

Jerry Gao, San Jose State University , USA

Sudipto Ghosh, Colorado State University , USA

Arnaud Gotlieb, IRISA-INRIA , France

Wolfgang Grieskamp, Microsoft Research , USA

Aiman Hanna, Concordia University , Canada

Xudong He , Florida International University, USA

Rob Hierons, Brunel University , UK

Michael Jiang, Motorola Labs, USA

Zhi Jin, Chinese Academy of Science , China

Bogdan Korel, Illinois Institute of Technology , USA

Victor Kuliamin, Russain Academy of Sciences , Russia

David Kung, University of Texas at Arlington , USA

Fei-Ching Kuo, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

Richard Lai, La Trobe University , Australia

Man Fai Lau, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

Yu Lei, University of Texas at Arlington , USA

Xuandong Li, Nanjing Univeristy , China

Shaoying Liu, Hosei University , Japan

Yan Liu, Motorola Labs, USA

Nik Looker, Leeds University , UK

Jose Maldonado, Universidade de São Paulo , Brazil  

Eda Marchetti, ISTI-CNR, Italy

Hong Mei, Peking University , China

Atif Memon, University of Maryland , USA

Simanta Mitra, Iowa State University , USA

Takako Nakatani, University of Tsukuba, Japan

Tien Nguyen, Iowa State University , USA  

Hideto Ogasawara, Toshiba Corporation, Japan

Amit Paradkar, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center , USA

Andy Podgurski, Case Western Reserve University , USA

Pak-Lok Poon, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University , Hong Kong

Isidro Ramos, Universidad Politecnica de Valencia , Spain

Marc Roper, University of Strathclyde , UK

Klaus-Dieter Schewe, Massey University , New Zealand

Wuwei Shen , Western Michigan University, USA

Paul Strooper, University of Queensland , Australia

Kenji Taguchi, National Institute of Informatics , Japan

Barrie Thompson, University of Sunderland , UK

Jeff Tian, Southern Methodist University , USA

Wei-Tek Tsai, Arizona State University , USA

Hasan Ural, University of Ottawa , Canada

Ji Wang, Changsha Institute of Technology , China

Qianxiang Wang, Peking University , China  

Michael Winikoff, RMIT University, Australia

Eric Wong, University of Texas at Dallas , USA

Min Xie, National University of Singapore , Singapore

Baowen Xu , Southeast University , China

Qiwen Xu, University of Macau , Macau

Dianxiang Xu, North Dakota State University , USA

Hongji Yang, De Montfort University , UK

Y.T. Yu, City University of Hong Kong , Hong Kong

Jian Zhang, Chinese Academy of Sciences , China

Xiangyu Zhang, Purdue University , USA

Yanlong Zhang, Manchester Metropolitan University , UK

Wenyun Zhao, Fudan University , China

Jianjun Zhao, Shanghai Jiao Tong University , China

Mohammad Zulkernine, Queen's University , Canada

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

ENQUIRIES

Please direct all enquiries to hzhu@brookes.ac.uk