Motivation

As mobile platforms, which include mobile operating systems, development environments, and apps become more complex and business-critical, use of well-defined techniques becomes essential to assure their quality. Because of their novelty, developers remain largely unfamiliar with mobile development platforms, leaving their apps prone to new kinds of bugs. Moreover, although mobile apps are implemented using existing platforms (e.g., Eclipse) and languages (e.g., Java, Objective C), they differ from traditional client-server and event-based desktop applications. The structure of mobile apps centers instead around particular software components offered by the mobile development frameworks (Activity, Service, Content Provider in Android), which require specific management rules and a particular lifecycle. For example, reported bugs encountered in real Android applications shows that frequent bugs are due to incorrect management of the ‘Activity’ component lifecycle.

Focus Areas

Specific techniques are hence necessary for effective quality assurance of mobile software. Moreover, the techniques should be cost-effective, providing both rapid and effective approaches for revealing failures. This workshop will focus on fundamental research that helps to understand and advance the nature of quality assurance techniques for mobile software, as well as practical solutions that are readily deployable on existing mobile platforms.

Workshop Format

The workshop will start with a 90-minute keynote address session, followed by a 90-minute 3-paper session, then lunch, followed by another 90-minute 3-paper session, ending with a combined 90-minute tools and discussion/breakout session. Submissions will include full-length (10 pages) research papers and short (4-page) tool papers. All papers will be peer reviewed (3 reviewers for research and 2 reviewers for tool papers).

Accepted research papers will appear in the Supplemental Proceedings of ISSRE 2013. All of them will also be submitted for inclusion in the IEEE Xplore and to all of the A&I (abstracting and indexing) partners (such as the Ei Compendex). All accepted papers must follow the IEEE Computer Society Format Guidelines: http://www.computer.org/portal/web/cscps/formatting

What is a Flipped Workshop?

Our traditional workshops/conferences format has been for participants to physically attend these events, listen to researchers talk about their research papers/results and answer a few questions in 20-30 minute sessions, and (later) read the papers at leisure. This format has been very successful. Can we do better given all the advances in technology? The FLIPPED WORKSHOP format explores this question while maintaining the high standards of a research and scientific workshop.

The 1st International Flipped Workshop on Quality Assurance of Mobile Software and Applications is the first flipped workshop. Become a part of history by participating. If successful, we will see many more workshops imitate and enhance this "flipped" format.

Now imagine that participants watch a video of the researcher talk about research papers/results BEFORE attending the event. At the event, they spend the 20-30 minutes asking the researcher detailed questions in a highly interactive session.

FAQs Regarding "Flipped"

• Question: What does this mean for authors of papers?
  Answer: All authors must still submit papers. At least one author must attend the workshop to maintain high quality.

• Question: What does this mean for presenters?
  Answer: Presenters will be given the option to send a video of their talk a few weeks before the event so that attendees can watch the video. We understand that not every presenter has access to resources to create a video, so we will have a few traditional "unflipped" sessions.

• Question: What does this mean for attendees?
  Answer: Attendees will be able to watch the posted videos before the session and post questions. All registrants will have the ability to "like" a posted question. The top liked questions will be asked first. There will be ample opportunity for attendees to ask "live" questions.

• Question: What does this mean for registrants who cannot attend?
  Answer: All registrants, including ones who are unable to attend the event, will have the opportunity to post questions too. Their questions will be asked in the order liked. If we have the ability, we will provide an audio/video connection to the registrants.

• Question: What does this mean for the Program Committee?
  Answer: They still review the submitted papers using the old-fashioned format. This is essential in order to maintain high quality of the event.

• Question: What does this mean for the event organizers?
  Answer: More work!

More Questions? Send an email to flipmobile2013@easychair.org