12th European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming Brussels, Belgium, July 20 - 24, 1998

Guidelines for Workshop Proposals

Workshops provide a forum for researchers and practitioners to meet and discuss focused issues in an atmosphere that fosters interaction, exchange, and problem solving. Workshops also provide the opportunity for representatives of a technical community to coordinate efforts and establish collective plans of action.

All topics related to object-oriented technology are potential candidates for workshops. More specifically, workshops typically fall into the following categories:

• A workshop may address a specific subarea of object-oriented technology in depth. Examples of such subareas include object-oriented analysis and design methods, object-oriented databases, concurrent object-oriented programming or theoretical aspects of object-orientation.
• A workshop may cover areas that cross the borders of several subareas in computer science, software engineering and related fields. Examples of such areas include testing of object-oriented software, management of object-oriented software projects, teaching object-oriented programming, and so on.
• A workshop may focus on the applications and deployment of object-oriented technology in areas such as telecommunications, mobile computing or real-time systems. Workshops reporting on industrial experiences are particularly welcome.

Workshop topics are by no means limited to the examples mentioned above. However, in each case the proposed area is supposed to have enough impetus to yield new results which can be considered important and worth more detailed investigation.

What should a proposal look like?

Workshop proposals should be sent in ASCII or HTML format, and they should consist of four pages/parts:

Cover Page

Name of the proposed workshop

Names and addresses of the organizers

Intended number of participants

Requested AV equipment

Abstract

Why it is relevant to ECOOP' 98 and a short overview of the rationale for the workshop and the major topics. In particular, statements about the review process and ways to ensure creativity during the workshop would be appreciated.

The abstract should preferably not exceed 200 words.

Call For Papers

A preliminary version of the Call for Papers that the organizers must prepare if the workshop is accepted.

Should provide a brief overview of the proposed workshop including a description of the goals of the workshops and the work practices.

May repeat some of the statements made on the abstract page, but should be targeted specifically to potential workshop participants.

Organizers

Short biography of each organizer

References to similar workshops organized at ECOOP or related conferences, including the number of participants.

If a workshop is accepted, the organizers will be requested to prepare a WWW page that will contain the latest information about the workshop. The web pages of each workshop will be linked to the ECOOP'98 workshop web site.

Workshop Reader

For already two consecutive years, an ECOOP Workshop Reader has been published. This Workshop Reader collects reports from the various workshops, and as such provides an excellent snapshot of the trends in the community. We will do our best to contact editors for publishing the 3rd ECOOP'98 Reader.

Workshop proposers should be prepared to write a summary report, and organise a selection and review procedure for the papers submitted to the workshop.

Proposals should be submitted to

Additional recommendations

Workshop organizers should in particular take care to foster the creative potential which is tentatively present in a workshop. Remember that a workshop is NOT a conference!

The success of a workshop depends greatly on the results generated on-site. A number of interrelated issues should be taken into account in order to provide a good framework for such on-site creativity.

Time allocation

During the workshop, enough time should be reserved for collaborative work. Such creative sessions should have a precise topic and objective and their results should be written down so that they can be reported later.

Reasonable expectations

One should not count on people's instantaneous and proactive participation. For many reasons, participants tend to prefer a consumer role much more than a producer role during a workshop. Thus prescreened presentations, even formally reviewed papers, should usually precede any creative sessions.

Task forces

Large groups tend to behave like an audience, whereas groups of four to eight people are much more likely to interact. When planning collaborative sessions, consider having several smaller groups rather than one large group in order to foster the generation of new ideas.

Presentation selection

Quality should obviously be the primary criterion for selecting the presentations. However, in order for a workshop to be productive, consider also having presentations on some new, controversial topics to spark discussion.

Participant selection

Although the number of workshop participants does not need to be restricted to the selected presenters, the overall size of the workshop should remain small enough to foster creativity. Usually this means less than 20 participants.

Deadlines

• Workshop proposals: December 1, 1997
• Notification of acceptance: January 15, 1998
• Workshop call for papers: February 15, 1998

Additional Information

For additional questions or clarification, or for your suggestions, please feel free to contact the Workshop Chair.