Call for papers: special issue on Collaborative and social aspects of software development

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies

Guest editors: Pablo Romero and Judith Good

General Theme

In recent years, collaborative and social approaches have been employed in software development to address issues such as changes in requirements, the need for on-time and continuous deliveries and the emergence of human-centric development methodologies. These approaches have led to the empowerment of individuals, the creation of small, self-organised teams and an increase in face-to-face communication and customer involvement, among others.

In academia, collaborative learning has become an important pedagogical approach. Additionally, the teaching of programming has been influenced by professional software development methodologies and techniques that employ and value collaboration, notably eXtreme Programming. As a result, collaborative approaches have been adopted in the teaching and learning of programming.

Research to date has offered a generic and descriptive account of collaborative and social approaches, frequently highlighting their benefits. What is needed now is more detailed information which can explain how and why these benefits occur, the factors affecting them and how this knowledge can be applied in the design of methodologies, techniques and tools to study and support collaboration.

Topics

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, we intend to focus this special issue on the intersections and relationships between the following topics of collaborative and social aspects of software development:

• Studies of XP and Agile methodologies;
• Studies of collaborative learning in programming;
• Evaluation of co-located and remote tools for collaborative software development (not just integrated development environments but also online tools such as instant messaging, blogs, wikis, etc);
• Collaboration in program design;
• Mixed background collaboration (collaboration between programmers and non-programmers);
• External representations and visualisations for social use in software development;
• Methodologies for the study of collaboration in programming.

Submissions

Original papers presenting unpublished material relating to research in, but not restricted to, these topics are invited for consideration for the special issue.

Manuscripts should not exceed 8000 words.

Special attention in the review process will be paid to how contributors:

• Present some innovation related to one or several of the topics presented above;
• Relate their contribution to previous work in the field.

Papers should be submitted in the IJHCS format, and will be refereed in the standard way. Details of the IJHCS format can be found in the journal, and are available from http://authors.elsevier.com/journal/ijhcs. All manuscripts should be submitted through Elsevier's online Editorial Manager: http://ijhcs.edmgr.com

• To submit to the Special Issue, please select Article Type "SI: Aspects of Software Development" and clearly state in the "Enter Comments" section that the paper is intended for the "Collaborative and Social Aspects of Software Development" Special Issue being edited by Pablo Romero and Judith Good.
• If you are a first time user of the Editorial Manager, you will have to register yourself as an author on the system by going to: http://ijhcs.edmgr.com and clicking on the register button.
• If you have any problems with the system please contact Fred Kop, Journal Manager, at ijhcs at elsevier.com

Important dates

• Submission deadline: 27 November 2006 **** EXTENDED DEADLINE ****
• Notification to authors: 23 February 2007
• Final submission: 2 April 2007

Guest Editors

Pablo Romero, HCT group, Sussex University. E-mail: pablor at sussex.ac.uk

Judith Good, HCT group, Sussex University. E-mail: judithg at sussex.ac.uk

Please feel free to contact the Editors by e-mail if you have any questions.