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TechDebt 2021
Wed 19 - Fri 21 May 2021
co-located with ICSE 2021

Call for Tools

The 4th International Conference on Technical Debt will be held virtually (originally in Madrid, Spain), on May 19-21, 2021, collocated with ICSE 2021.

Technical debt is a metaphor that software developers and managers increasingly use to communicate key trade-offs between time to market and quality issues.

While other software engineering disciplines—such as software maintenance and evolution, refactoring, software quality, and empirical software engineering—have produced results relevant to managing technical debt, none of them alone suffice to model, manage, and communicate the different facets of the design trade-off problems involved in managing technical debt. Similarly, while many software engineering practices can be used to get ahead of technical debt, organizations struggle with managing technical debt routinely and strategically.

Tools play a critical role in understanding the management, monitoring, and measurement of technical debt in real-world situations. We invite researchers, practitioners and organizations to showcase new techniques, methods, and tools that can aid practitioners and decision makers in these critical tasks to participate in TechDebt 2021.

Submission types

Tools track accepts two types of submissions:

  • Tool presentation papers (up to 5 pages): describe innovative and original tools addressing technical debt issues or aiming at the management of technical debt. Submitted tool papers will be peer-reviewed and accepted submissions will be published in the conference proceedings.
  • Extended abstract (1-2 pages): describe innovative and original initial tools idea for which there is not yet a prototype in order to obtain early feedback. Extended abstracts provide practitioners with an opportunity to showcase a tool-specific perspective. Extended abstracts are not peer reviewed and will not be published in the conference proceedings.

Suggested content for both types of submissions, the program committee and chairs will look for:

  • The alignment to the overarching technical debt theme of the conference.
  • How the purpose of the tool is addressed and how validation experiences with practitioners have been planned or conducted (if applicable)

Submission process

In EasyChair, on top of specifying the type of submission, indicate how you will participate in the conference session (you may select one or both):

  • Panel participant: In the panel discussion we will engage participants and the audience on how the showcased tools help address technical debt challenges.
  • Tool demonstration: If you propose to showcase your tool or product from your organization, please let us know your requirements *(such as space, equipment, …). A dedicated demo session will be part of the Tools track.

All accepted papers will also have the possibility to bring a poster during the conference.

Papers and extended abstract must be submitted electronically via the TechDebtConf2021 EasyChair site. Submissions must be in PDF and conform to the ACM formatting guidelines applied for ICSE 2021. Submissions may not exceed the number of pages specified above (including all text, references and figures). Purchases of additional pages in the proceedings are not allowed.

Formatting instructions are available at https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template for both LaTeX and Word users.

The official publication date is the date the proceedings are made available in the ACM or IEEE Digital Libraries. This date may be up to two weeks prior to the first day of ICSE 2021. The official publication date affects the deadline for any patent filings related to published work.

Accepted papers must be presented in person at the conference by one of the authors. Accepted submissions will be published as part of the ICSE co-located events proceedings.

Important dates

  • January 27 January 31, 2021: Tool presentation papers (up to 5 pages) (extended)
  • February 24, 2021: Notification of acceptance or rejection
  • March 22, 2021: Camera-ready papers
  • March 30, 2021: Extended abstracts (up to 2 pages)
  • April 10, 2021: Notification of acceptance or rejection for Extended abstracts
  • May 23–24, 2021: TechDebt Conference

Further inquiries

All inquiries may be directed to track chairs:
Marcus Ciolkowski: marcus.ciolkowski@qaware.de
Valentina Lenarduzzi: valentina.lenarduzzi@lut.fi

Dates
Tracks
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Wed 19 May

Displayed time zone: Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna change

16:00 - 16:50
Opening + TD Management - 1Technical Papers / Tools at TechDebt Room
Chair(s): Maria Teresa Baldassarre Department of Computer Science, University of Bari
16:00
10m
Day opening
Conference Opening
Technical Papers
Antonio Martini University of Oslo, Norway
Media Attached
16:10
20m
Full-paper
Business-Driven Technical Debt Prioritization: An Industrial Case Study
Technical Papers
Rodrigo Rebouças de Almeida Federal University of Paraiba, Rafael do Nascimento Ribeiro Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte - UFRN, Christoph Treude University of Adelaide, Uirá Kulesza Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte
Pre-print Media Attached
16:30
20m
Full-paper
Preventing Technical Debt by Technical Debt Aware Project Management - Evaluation of a Framework for Managing Technical Debt Developed by Practitioners
Technical Papers
Marion Wiese Universität Hamburg, MIN Fakultät, FB Informatik, Matthias Riebisch Universität Hamburg, MIN Fakultät, FB Informatik, Julian Schwarze Gruner + Jahr GmbH
Pre-print Media Attached
17:00 - 17:50
TD Characteristics and ContextsTechnical Papers at TechDebt Room
Chair(s): Apostolos Ampatzoglou University of Macedonia
17:00
20m
Full-paper
Frequency and Impact of Technical Debt Characteristics in Companies Producing Mechatronic Products
Technical Papers
Fandi Bi Technical University of Munich, Birgit Vogel-Heuser Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Litong Xu
Pre-print Media Attached File Attached
17:20
20m
Full-paper
Impact of Opportunistic Reuse Practices to Technical Debt
Technical Papers
Rafael Capilla Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Tommi Mikkonen University of Helsinki, Carlos Carrillo Technical University of Madrid, Francesca Arcelli Fontana University of Milano - Bicocca, Ilaria Pigazzini University of Milano-Bicocca, Valentina Lenarduzzi LUT University
Media Attached File Attached
17:40
10m
Short-paper
Security Debt: Characteristics, Product Life-Cycle Integrations and Items
Technical Papers
Jabier Martinez Tecnalia, Nuria Quintano Tecnalia, Alejandra Ruiz Tecnalia, Izaskun Santamaria Tecnalia, Iker Martinez de Soria Tecnalia, José Arias Tecnalia
Pre-print Media Attached
18:00 - 19:20
Industrial PanelTechnical Papers / Tools at TechDebt Room
Chair(s): Carolyn Seaman University of Maryland Baltimore County
18:00
10m
Talk
A Decision Support System Towards a Systemic Perspective on Technical Debt Management
Technical Papers
Media Attached
18:10
60m
Other
Industrial Panel
Technical Papers
S: Florian Deissenboeck CQSE GmbH, Jan Bosch Chalmers University of Technology, S: Ramsés Gallego Micro Focus, S: Robert Lagerstedt Robert Bosch AB, S: Rodrigo Rebouças de Almeida Federal University of Paraiba
Media Attached
19:10
10m
Short-paper
Architectural Archipelagos: Technical Debt in Long-Lived Software Research Platforms
Technical Papers
Marcelo Schmitt Laser University of Southern California, USA, Duc Minh Le Bloomberg, USA, Joshua Garcia University of California, Irvine, Nenad Medvidović University of Southern California, USA
Pre-print Media Attached

Thu 20 May

Displayed time zone: Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna change

16:00 - 16:50
KeynoteTechnical Papers at TechDebt Room
Chair(s): Alexander Chatzigeorgiou University of Macedonia
16:00
50m
Keynote
Technical Debt in the Age of Ops
Technical Papers
K: Jan Bosch Chalmers University of Technology
Media Attached
17:00 - 17:40
Smells, Patterns and Metrics - 1Technical Papers at TechDebt Room
Chair(s): Juan Garbajosa Technical University of Madrid
17:00
20m
Full-paper
Experiences on Managing Technical Debt with Code Smells and AntiPatterns
Technical Papers
Jacinto Ramirez Lahti Solita Ltd, Finland, Antti-Pekka Tuovinen University of Helsinki, Tommi Mikkonen University of Helsinki
Pre-print Media Attached
17:20
20m
Full-paper
Worst Smells and Their Worst Reasons
Technical Papers
Davide Falessi California Polytechnic State University, Rick Kazman University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
Pre-print Media Attached
17:40 - 18:20
Social EventTechnical Papers at TechDebt Room
Chair(s): Antonio Martini University of Oslo, Norway
17:40
40m
Social Event
Social Event
Technical Papers

Media Attached
18:20 - 19:00
Smells, Patterns and Metrics - 2 Technical Papers at TechDebt Room
Chair(s): Valentina Lenarduzzi LUT University
18:20
20m
Full-paper
Predicting Relative Thresholds for Object Oriented Metrics
Technical Papers
Sultan Alhusain Saudi Electronic University
Pre-print Media Attached File Attached
18:40
20m
Full-paper
Characterizing Technical Debt and Antipatterns in AI-Based Systems: A Systematic Literature Review
Technical Papers
Justus Bogner University of Stuttgart, Institute of Software Engineering, Empirical Software Engineering Group, Roberto Verdecchia Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Ilias Gerostathopoulos Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Pre-print Media Attached

Fri 21 May

Displayed time zone: Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna change

17:00 - 17:50
TD Management - 2Technical Papers at TechDebt Room
Chair(s): Rafael Capilla Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
17:00
20m
Full-paper
Carrot and Stick approaches revisited when managing Technical Debt in an educational/training context
Technical Papers
Yania Crespo University of Valladolid, arturo gonzalez University of Valladolid, Mario Piattini University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
Pre-print Media Attached
17:20
10m
Short-paper
The Need for Holistic Technical Debt Management across the Value Stream: Lessons Learnt and Open Challenges
Technical Papers
Somayeh Malakuti ABB Corporate Research, Germany, Jens Heuschkel ABB Corporate Research Center, Germany
Pre-print Media Attached
17:30
20m
Full-paper
Assessing Smart Contracts Security Technical Debts
Technical Papers
Sabreen Ahmadjee University of Birmingham, Carlos Mera-Gómez ESPOL Polythecnic University, Rami Bahsoon School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham
Pre-print Media Attached
18:00 - 19:30
Working session, awards and closingTechnical Papers / Tools at TechDebt Room
Chair(s): Antonio Martini University of Oslo, Norway
18:00
90m
Other
Working session, awards and closing
Technical Papers
Antonio Martini University of Oslo, Norway, Davide Taibi Tampere University , Narayan Ramasubbu University of Pittsburgh, USA
Media Attached