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CALL FOR PAPERS

Special issue on Collaborative and Social Aspects of Software 
Development.

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies

Special issue editors: Pablo Romero and Judith Good

General Theme
In recent years, collaborative and social approaches have been employed 
in software development to address issues such as changes in 
requirements, the need for on-time and continuous deliveries and the 
emergence of human-centric development methodologies. These approaches 
have led to the empowerment of individuals, the creation of small, 
self-organised teams and an increase in face-to-face communication and 
customer involvement, among others.
In academia, collaborative learning has become an important pedagogical 
approach. Additionally, the teaching of programming has been influenced 
by professional software development methodologies and techniques that 
employ and value collaboration, notably eXtreme Programming. As a 
result, collaborative approaches have been adopted in the teaching and 
learning of programming.
Research to date has offered a generic and descriptive account of 
collaborative and social approaches, frequently highlighting their 
benefits. What is needed now is more detailed information which can 
explain how and why these benefits occur, the factors affecting them 
and how this knowledge can be applied in the design of methodologies, 
techniques and tools to study and support collaboration.

Topics

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, we intend to focus this special 
issue on the intersections and relationships between the following 
topics of collaborative and social aspects of software development:

- Studies of XP and Agile methodologies;
- Studies of collaborative learning in programming;
- Evaluation of co-located and remote tools for collaborative software 
development (not just integrated development environments but also 
online tools such as instant messaging, blogs, wikis, etc);
- Collaboration in program design;
- Mixed background collaboration (collaboration between programmers and 
non-programmers);
- External representations and visualisations for social use in 
software development;
- Methodologies for the study of collaboration in programming.

Submissions

Original papers presenting unpublished material relating to research 
in, but not restricted to, these topics are invited for consideration 
for the special issue. Manuscripts should not exceed 8,000 words.
Special attention in the review process will be paid to how 
contributors:

- Present some innovation related to one or several of the topics 
presented above;
- Relate their contribution to previous work in the field;
Papers should be submitted in the IJHCS format, and will be refereed in 
the standard way. Details of the IJHCS format can be found in the 
journal, and are available from 
http://authors.elsevier.com/journal/ijhcs. All manuscripts should be 
submitted through Elseviers online EditorialManager: 
http://ijhcs.edmgr.com.

Electronic submission instruction

- To submit to the `Collaborative and Social Aspects of Software 
Development' Special Issue, please clearly state in the `Enter 
Comments' section when submitting your paper online that it is intended 
for the `Collaborative and Social Aspects of Software Development' 
Special Issue being edited by Pablo Romero and Judith Good.
- If you are a first time user of the Editorial Manager, you will have 
to register yourself as an author on the system by going to: 
http://ijhcs.edmgr.com and clicking on the register button. You should 
then follow the instructions for submitting a new manuscript, 
remembering to state that this is for the Special Issue.
- If you have any problems with the system please contact Fred Kop, 
Journal Manager, at the IJHCS Editorial Services Office at 
[log in to unmask]

Important dates

- Submission deadline: 27 October 2006
- Notification to authors: 19 January 2007
- Final submission: 2 March 2007
Note that these dates are provisional, and may change in the near 
future. Up-to-date information is available on the web at 
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/events/ijhcssi/index.html

Guest Editors

Pablo Romero,
HCT group, Sussex University
E-mail: [log in to unmask]

Judith Good,
HCT group, Sussex University
E-mail: [log in to unmask]

Please feel free to contact the Editors by e-mail if you have any 
questions.

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