XP 2021 Empirical Studies Submissions

Important Dates

• Submissions deadline: 30^th of April, 2021
• Notifications: 7^th of May, 2021
• Conference: 14^th-18^th June , 2021

Are you struggling with collecting data from participants in one of your studies? XP 2021 is your chance to collect data from a potentially large pool of practitioners and academic experts in Agile Software Development.

The annual XP conference is a premier event which regularly attracts a large number of software practitioners and researchers. There is a range of events at the conference in which participants learn new techniques or come together to discuss particular issues of interest. These events, together with the main conference, offer a rare opportunity to conduct empirical studies with attendees of the conference and collect high-quality empirical data.

To leverage this opportunity, XP 2021 will offer the Recruiting for Empirical Studies track for the third time.

To participate in this track, researchers are invited to submit their research plans for conducting empirical studies engaging conference participants.

How The Track Works

Authors of accepted research plans will be able to recruit participants during XP 2021. At least one author from accepted plans must register, attend, present their planned data collection method and be available to be contacted by potential participants. The conference will only act as a catalyst for participants recruitment and not necessarily as the venue during which data collection will happen. The track will act as a catalyst for participants recruitment and will enable researchers to promote their research to facilitate their own data collection approach.

Research Plan Structure

Research plans should include the following information:

• Motivation behind the research and how it is relevant to the Agile Software Development community or researchers and practitioners
• The goal of the research envisioned by the study, the research questions and a description of the research methodology (and reference to guidelines followed in the research, where possible)
• A description of how the authors plan to attract conference attendees to participate in the study.
• Data collection procedure including but not limited to:
  • Description of the study participants’ characteristics and minimum numbers
  • Description of planned data collection methods and why they were selected
  • Overall description of how the data collection will take place
• Description of how data handling follows ethical considerations and data protection regulations. For example, Ethical Approval proof and compliance to GDPR.

Examples of research plans can include studies collecting data from coding sessions, qualitative studies involving developers, questionnaire-based interviews or focus groups; These studies can occur during, after or before XP 2021.

The track is an opportunity to facilitate researchers to recruit participants attending XP 2021. However, researchers have to arrange with recruited participants the follow up for conducting the research, for instance with one-on-one meetings, surveys, or dedicated group sessions.

Research Plan Submission

Submissions should be made via EasyChair (use the submit button at the bottom of this page) in the form of a research plan (4 pages in LNBIP format) If necessary, authors can refer to further online material (such as a detailed study protocol).

Research plans will be reviewed by at least two reviewers; one academic and one practitioner. The significance, rigor, and originality of the proposed research will be assessed along with the suitability of the planned research to the theme of XP 2021.

We are negotiating the possibility of have a special section in Information and Software Technology (IST) for research from this track.

Accepted Research Plans

If research plans are accepted, authors should prepare a 5 min promotional videorecording where they introduce the following:

• their research objective
• the type of participants they need to recruit
• what the participants are expected to do
• how they can be contacted.

The video will be shared on the conference communication channels, e.g., a dedicated slack channel and twitter.

In addition, authors will present their research plan during the conference.

Co-chairs:

• Nour Ali, Brunel University London, UK  (xpempiricalstudies@agilealliance.org)
• Silvia Bordin, Italy (xpempiricalstudies@agilealliance.org)

Questions?

If you have any questions or comments, please contact the track co-chairs.