Call for Papers: OSS 2010 Doctoral Consortium

Collocated with the 6th International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS 2010), a Doctoral Consortium will be organized on May 30, 2010 in .Notre Dame, IN, USA

GOAL
The goal of the Doctoral Consortium is to provide PhD students with an environment in which they can share and discuss their goals, methods and results before completing their research. Students can apply for the Doctoral Consortium by submitting a paper describing their research proposal. All submissions will be peer reviewed by at least two independent reviewers. Feedback on the proposal will be returned to all authors. Participants will be selected based on the quality of the proposed research, its potential significance and contribution to the OSS domain, and the potential benefit of the Doctoral Consortium to the PhD student's research.

PhD students that are accepted to the Doctoral Consortium, will give a presentation of their work. We aim to provide sufficient time for discussion (at least 20 minutes) to ensure that PhD students obtain quality feedback from the Doctoral Consortium co-chairs, the members of the program committee, as well as other PhD students. This feedback will allow them to enhance their own research proposal. We will also invite
other faculty members to attend the Doctoral Consortium to stimulate discussion. Subsequently, doctoral students whose advisory committee lacks sufficient expertise with current OSS research may benefit in a
number of ways from participating in the Doctoral Consortium with attending faculty.

The Doctoral Consortium will take place on May 30, allowing participants to attend the OSS 2010 conference after the Doctoral Consortium. This allows PhD students to further discuss their research with other researchers in the following days. As well, because of the diversity of the communities involved, the Doctoral Consortium will allow PhD students to make connections beyond their own disciplines. As
a result, we expect that participation will allow PhD students to develop a better understanding of the different research communities, which we believe will facilitate their participation in future
inter-disciplinary research.

We are currently trying to obtain funding for US-based students that would cover part of the travel and hotel costs. More information will be provided to students accepted for the Doctoral Consortium when available. Doctoral students outside the US are encouraged to seek funding with their local funding agency. A letter of recommendation canbe provided by the Doctoral Consortium chairs upon acceptance.

SCOPE
The scope of research topics of the Doctoral Consortium is the same as for the main conference. We therefore invite submissions related to all aspects of open source software including, but not limited to software engineering perspectives, emerging perspectives, social science, and studies of OSS deployment.

We invite submissions from PhD students in the early stages of their research (e.g., those who are at the end of their first year or in their second year), as well as in the late stages of their research (e.g.,
those who are close to graduating). PhD students who submit a paper to the Doctoral Consortium should at least have decided on a research topic or topic area, and have a proposal for an appropriate research method. Preferably, PhD students should still have the time to incorporate the feedback obtained during the Doctoral Consortium in their dissertation.

IMPORTANT DATES

• January 15, 2010: Submission deadline for papers

• February 26, 2010: Decision back to authors

• March 12, 2010: Registration

• March 19, 2010: Camera ready papers due

• May 30, 2010: Doctoral consortium

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
Papers submitted to the Doctoral Consortium should be between 3,000 and 4,000 words, not including references, and should be formatted using the same template as the main conference. Templates and an example paper can be downloaded from the "Author's Kit" section on the website of the Doctoral Consortium. Each submission must include title, author name(s) and affiliation, abstract, list of keywords and a complete list of references. Papers will be subjected to a single-blind review (in which the authors don't know the reviewers, but the reviewers know the authors).

Submissions should at least discuss the following elements: the background of the research, the motivation for the research, the research question(s) addressed in the study and a description of the
proposed research method. Students in the later stages of their research are encouraged to include an overview of their completed research activities.

All manuscripts must be submitted electronically using the EasyChair website. Paper submission will open one month before the actual submission deadline. Detailed submission instructions will be provided in the "Paper submission" section of the Doctoral Consortium website. Submissions in both Word and PDF format are welcomed. Please note that the camera-ready version of papers accepted to the Doctoral Consortium must be submitted in either Word (.doc) or LaTeX format. The Doctoral Consortium website can be found at http://www.ua.ac.be/oss2010dc

ACCEPTANCE
Accepted papers will be included in the proceedings of the Doctoral Consortium. Submitting a paper to the Doctoral Consortium represents the author's agreement to allow the Doctoral Consortium Chairs to publish the paper in the Doctoral Consortium proceedings without compensation to the author. The parties understand that the author is granting a nonexclusive license and all copyrights remain the property of the
author.

Authors of accepted papers are required to register for and attend the Doctoral Consortium. They will also be asked to give a presentation on their work for about 20 minutes, which will be followed by a 20 minute
discussion during which PhD students are given feedback on their work by faculty members and other PhD students.

Should you require additional information, please contact Kris Ven, kris.ven @ ua.ac.be

DOCTORAL CONSORTIUM CHAIRS

• Walt Scacchi, University of California, Irvine, USA

• Kris Ven, University of Antwerp, Belgium

• Jan Verelst, University of Antwerp, Belgium

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

• Kevin Crowston, Syracuse University, USA

• Joseph Feller, University College Cork, Ireland

• Daniel M. German, University of Victoria, Canada

• Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain

• Björn Lundell, University of Skövde, Sweden

• Maha Shaikh, London School of Economics, UK