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Publication strategies. Carlo Ghezzi Politecnico di Milano, Italy carlo.ghezzi@polimi.it. Outline: why not follow SE best practices?. Stakeholders and goals Who set the goals? What are the goals to achieve? Requirements Operationalization of goals in a desirable process Implementation
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Publication strategies Carlo Ghezzi Politecnico di Milano, Italy carlo.ghezzi@polimi.it NSEFS-07
Outline: why not follow SE best practices? • Stakeholders and goals • Who set the goals? • What are the goals to achieve? • Requirements • Operationalization of goals in a desirable process • Implementation • Your job NSEFS-07
The global scientific community Your department You Stakeholders and goals NSEFS-07
How to evaluate people based on publications? • (Of course, publications are not the only criterion to be considered) • Quality vs. quantity metrics • Easier to evaluate quantity than quality! • But quantity is self-referential, it does not lead to the ultimate goals • Quality evaluated by • In-depth scrutiny • Reviewers, interested peers • Default rating based on the publication venue Publication strategy is important here NSEFS-07
The role of publication venues • Your work must be good … but it gets the attention it deserves if the publication venue has a good reputation • archival journal • flagship conference • specialized workshop where the main experts meet • … NSEFS-07
Domain knowledge (1) • Each area has its top archival journals and other less prestigious , perhaps more specific, journals and magazines • Each area has its top conferences and more focused symposia/workshops • Conferences, symposia, workshops are venues where you can meet your peers and where you become part of the community NSEFS-07
Domain knowledge (2) • Conferences/symposia/workshops require shorter papers than journals • They accept "less complete", "less mature" results • They have shorter (and predictable) turnaround time NSEFS-07
Requirements for a strategy • Clearly understand scopes of different publication venues • Aim at covering both journals and conferences/symposia/workshops • Follow an incremental publication strategy for your work • early notification of your work • early feedback • start with workshop papers, as a way for you enter the field • significant intermediate results appear in the major conferences of the field • complete research, from conception to evaluation, appears in journal papers NSEFS-07
Constraints • Never republish the same material • Make sure that each time you have a significant amount of material to add • typically a journal requires 20-30% new material that wasn't in the originating conference paper(s) • later comments on "ethical issues" • Avoid the LPU ("least publishable unit") syndrome NSEFS-07
The peer review process paper submission paper to reviewers reviews collected decision made NSEFS-07
More on peer reviews (1) • Peer reviews aim at assuring quality • Quality depends on venue -> different thresholds • carefully read the requirements specified in the journal/conference web site and comply with them • satisfy time constraints/formatting/length… NSEFS-07
More on peer reviews (2) • Peer reviewers do a voluntary job • help them to help you • don't give them an easy way to reject your work, submit your best (final) version • provide them useful feedback (only possible for journals) • accompanying letter for resubmissions NSEFS-07
Implementation Build your publication portfolio NSEFS-07
ACM/IEEE top journals Other SE journals Top flagship conferences Specialized conferences Workshops ASE, SP&E, SCP, SPIP, JSS JSM, REJ, ESE, IEE Proc. Sw. ICSE ESEC/FSE TOSEM TSE ISSTA RE SM … Often attached to conferences My biased suggested (selected) targets for SE JACM TOPLAS TC … OOPSLA, POPL … IEEE Sw IEEE Computer NSEFS-07
Writing style pills: audience • Each venue has a reference audience, and you write for an audience • Target themes may differ • Emphasis on theory/principles vs. tools/empirical studies • Journal/conference NSEFS-07
Writing style pills: structure • Title and abstract • short and informative • Introduction • the problem, the current status, the proposed solution, the outline • State of the art • be fair and complete, go back to sources • there is more than the web and wikipedia! • The proposed solution • Comparison with competing approaches • Limitations and future work NSEFS-07
Writing style pills: "details" • Get rid of grammatical errors and spelling errors • ask a native language friend for help • spell check!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! • Make figures readable • Comply with font size and page limit requirements NSEFS-07
Personal recommendations (1) • Find your way through the publication jungle • Favor established venues with high reputation and strong records over "easier" targets • Aim at top journals but get there in a stepwise manner via conferences NSEFS-07
Personal recommendations (2) • Don't be frustrated by rejections • good ideas and good work are a necessary but not sufficient precondition for an acceptable paper • Don't be obsessed by publication • be confident in what you are doing • the purpose of publication IS NOT species selection • Strictly adhere to the ethical code NSEFS-07
Ethical code (1) • The ends don't justify the means • NO double submissions • Corollary • Do not submit to a journal until the conference paper that subsumes the journal paper is presented • Ask for permission if you wish to submit prior to presentation • NEVER report data/facts that are unsubstantiated • NEVER report as yours work done by others NSEFS-07
Ethical code (2) • You do not live in isolation • There is no justification for ignoring previous work and history of the field • Give proper credits to previous and contextual work • but then when you are a referee, don't reject a paper simply because it did not refer to one of your minor papers… NSEFS-07
Ethical code (3) • Take reviews seriously • Peer reviews are fundamental to improve scientific work • Help the community as a reviewer • You may say no, but more often you should say yes NSEFS-07