New this year:

• we are interested in extended abstract papers (2 pages max), describing the main topic and content of a talk that will be delivered at the workshop.
• there will be a “variability session”: the goal will be to identify commonality and variability of SPL curriculums. The concrete outcome will be a variability model as a basis for deriving custom curriculum.

The selected extended abstracts will be included in volume 2 of the SPLC conference proceedings published by ACM. Deadline: May 28, 2019

Teaching and Software Product Lines (SPLs)

Education has a key role to play for disseminating the constantly growing body of Software Product Line (SPL) knowledge. Teaching SPLs is challenging and it is unclear how SPLs can be taught, what are the possible gaps and difficulties faced, what are the benefits, or what is the material available. This workshop aims to explore and explain the current status and ongoing work on teaching SPLs at universities, colleges, and in industry (e.g., by consultants). Participants will discuss gaps and difficulties faced when teaching SPLs, benefits to research and industry, different ways to teach SPL knowledge, common threads, interests, and problems. The overall goal is to strengthen the important aspect of teaching in the SPL community.

Recent surveys on teaching of SPLs provide some insights, but much more things remain to be done.

SPLTea’14 attracted more than 30 people (http://spltea.irisa.fr/2014/) in Florence (Italy). SPLTea’15 (Nashville, USA) attracted more than 20 people for designing an open repository of resources dedicated to SPL teaching: http://teaching.variability.io.

The workshop aims at bringing together researchers and practitioners to discuss their experiences in SPL teaching. We also aim to learn from other communities, i.e., we want to attract submissions that discuss teaching experiences in general and their applicability to the SPL field.

Topics and Submissions

New this year: We are accepting extended abstract submissions (2 pages max) in ACM SIG Alternative Proceedings Style. Abstracts should describe the main topic and content of a talk that will be delivered at the workshop. We welcome opinionated and provocative talks that encourage discussions about the topic of teaching SPLs. Submissions will be selected based on relevance to the workshop topics and suitability to trigger discussions. Papers should be submitted as PDF files via EasyChair.

Why extended abstracts? There are two reasons. First, we expect to attract many submissions with such a lightweight format. The writing effort is less important than in a 4-pages or 8-pages format. Usual, formal requirements tend to discourage some people while the goal should remain simple – sharing experiences and exchanging on the topic. Second, extended abstracts do not preclude authors to submit a longer version to other events like conferences or journals (actually it can help participants to prepare such extensions).

We are interested in experience reports, which identify and structure open challenges and research questions, focusing on all topics related to teaching in the context of SPLs. Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Experiences with teaching SPLs to students or practitioners
• Best practices for teaching SPLs
• Innovative curricula or course formats
• Impact of the online education movement (MOOCs) on teaching SPLs
• Innovative methods for teaching SPLs in online courses
• Integration of SPL research into teaching and training
• Ensuring graduated students meet industry needs through the understanding of SPL techniques
• Innovative use of social media for knowledge management in SPL teaching
• Opinions about teaching SPLs

Submissions will be selected based on the relevance to the workshop topics and the suitability to trigger discussions. Papers should be submitted as PDF files via EasyChair

The selected extended abstracts will be included in volume 2 of the SPLC conference proceedings published by ACM.

The comprehensive call for papers

Important dates