Requirements Engineering (RE) is the branch of systems engineering concerned with desired properties and constraints of software-intensive systems and with goals to be achieved in the environment, and assumptions about the environment. It is concerned with these aspects from the problem analysis stage to the implementation and maintenance stages of a system. Additional variety is added because of differences in issues that arise in different domains, ranging from public administration software to workflow systems, groupware and embedded systems and control software.

The importance of requirements engineering has been recognized several decades ago. In the 1990s, research in RE gained momentum with the start of a series of conferences on RE and a journal on RE. Research results include the analysis of the use of scenarios in RE, the combination of formal and informal techniques for requirements specification of critical attributes, and the use of negotiation techniques for attribute specification. Current research includes the specification of requirements for product families and the relationship between requirements and architectures.

The RE conferences are a platform for research to present novel results, for transfer of research results to industrial practice, and for the presentation of industrial experiences that can inform new research directions.

RE 03 will contain technical paper tracks and an industry presentation track. Two kinds of technical papers can be submitted, research papers and experience papers.

• Research papers must present an original research result in a clear way. They must indicate the research method used as well as the significance of the contribution to the field. Examples of research methods used are case study research, empirical research, experimental research and analytical research.
• Experience papers must preserience papers must present a significant experience in a clear way. They must indicate the lessons learned from the experience. Examples of experience papers are a success or failure report about the transfer of known research results to industrial practice, and a report about an industrial experience that is generalizable to other contexts.

• Requirements elicitation techniques
• Requirements validation techniques
• Requirements management and traceability
• Requirements evolution
• Requirements, software architecture and business architecture
• Requirements prioritizing and negotiation
• Combination of formal and informal specification techniques
• Requirements for high-assurance systems
• Making formal techniques usable
• RE for mechatronics systems
• Specification of quality attributes
• Requirements metrics
• Tool support for RE
• Prototyping, animation and execution of requirements
• Requirements for business systems (workflow, groupware, e-commerce systems)
• Requirements for web-based systems
• Requirements for ubiquitous computing
• Requirements for product families
• Requirements engineering case studies and experiences
• Cognitive, social and cultural factors in RE
• Requirements engineering education

Evaluation criteria

Research papers will be evaluated on their originality, significance, technical soundness of result, soundness of research method and clarity of presentation. Special attention will be paid to the validation of the results.

Experience papers will be evaluated on the novelty of the contribution, significance for practice, technical soundness, and clarity of presentation. Special attention will be paid to the (positive or negative) lessons learned.

Submission information

Electronic submissions will be accepted at the RE'03 paper submission site. Authors without web access must make advance arrangements with the Programme Chair at least one week before the deadline. Submissions exceeding 10 pages will not be accepted. Submissions must follow the IEEE Computer Society Press Proceedings Author guidelines (see http://computer.org/cspress/instruct.htm). Each submission must contain an abstract. It must also contain an indication, written below the abstract, of the paper type (``Research'' or ``Experience'').

Accepted papers must be accompanied by a signed IEEE copyright release form. Revised and extended versions of the best papers will appear, depending upon focus, in a special issue of the Requirements Engineering Journal or in IEEE Software.

See the submission page for information on how to submit industry track contributions, workshop proposals, tutorial proposals, doctoral symposium papers, posters, research demos and panel proposals. For any other queries, please contact info@re03.org.

Technical paper abstract (mandatory)	31st		January	2003
Exhibition	first come first server until booths are all occupied
Full paper submission	7th		February	2003
Industry track submissions	1st		March	2003
Workshop proposal submissions	29th		March	2003
Tutorial proposal submissions	29th		March	2003
Doctoral symposium submissions	29th		March	2003
Notification sent to authors	11th		April	2003
Poster submissions	26th		April	2003
Research demo submissions	26th		April	2003
Camera-ready papers received	13th		June	2003

IEEE	IEEE Computer Society	Springer Requirements Engineering Journal	Monterey Bay Aquarium
University of Twente	more to be added...

ACM SIGSOFT

International Council on Systems Engineering

IFIP WG 2.9 (Software Requirements Engineering)

more to be added...