6th International Workshop on

Search-Based Software Testing

22 March 2013, Luxembourg

Held in conjunction with ICST 2013 - IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation

Program Schedule — Friday, 22 March

09:00-10:30 Keynote and Discussion Session — Distinctive Themes and Opportunities in Search-Based Software Testing

In this session we will explore current themes that distinguish SBST from other testing techniques, and discuss future opportunities for SBST. To provide a structure for this discussion, we have invited three short position keynotes:

10:30-11:00 Coffee

11:00-12:30 Tool Competition Session

12:30-14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:30 Technical Paper Session

About the Workshop

Search-Based Software Testing (SBST) applies metaheuristic search techniques—such as hill climbing, simulated annealing, and genetic algorithms—to automate aspects of the software testing process. The International Workshop on Search-Based Software Testing has been held in conjunction with ICST every year since 2008 as a forum for SBST researchers and industrial practitioners to share experience. During that time the field has expanded and matured: many SBST techniques are now considered mainstream testing approaches. In recognition of this progress, the format of the 2013 workshop has been enhanced to include an assessment of the current capabilities of SBST and to encourage a discussion of future directions.

Call for Papers

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit full papers (maximum of 10 pages) to the workshop on original research—either empirical or theoretical—in SBST, practical experience of using SBST, or SBST tools.

We will also welcome short papers (maximum of 4 pages) on any one of the following topics:

New this year, we invite developers of tools for Java unit testing at the class level—both SBST and non-SBST—to participate in a tools competition! Competition entries are in the form of short papers (maximum of 4 pages) describing an evaluation of your tool against a benchmark supplied by the workshop organisers. See the competition website for further details. The results of the tools competition will be presented at the workshop. We additionally plan to co-ordinate a journal paper jointly authored by the tool developers that evaluates the results of the competition.

In all cases, papers should address a problem in the software testing/verification/validation domain such as (but not limited to) generating testing data, prioritizing test cases, minimizing test suites, verifying software models, testing service-orientated architectures, constructing test suits for interaction testing, and validating real-time properties. The solution should apply a metaheuristic search strategy such as (but not limited to) random search, local search (e.g. hill climbing, simulated annealing, and tabu search), evolutionary algorithms (e.g. genetic algorithms, evolution strategies, and genetic programming), ant colony optimization, and particle swarm optimization.

Accepted papers will be published in IEEE Digital Library in the form of post-proceedings.

Paper Submission

All papers must conform to IEEE conference format.

Long Papers must be a maximum of 10 pages; Short Papers (extended abstracts, discussions of a recent result, and tool competition entries) must be a maximum of 4 pages.

Please submit papers in PDF format via the SBST 2013 EasyChair Website

Dates

Paper Submission: Monday, 28 January 2013 (submission will remain open while it is 28 January anywhere in the world)
Author Notification: Monday, 11 February 2013
Camera-Ready: Thursday, 28 February 2013
Workshop: Friday, 22 March 2013

Prizes

Prizes will be awarded for the best workshop presentation and the winner of the tool competition.

Venue

SBST 2013 is held in conjunction with ICST 2013. The venue is Abbaye de Neumünster, Luxembourg.

Organizers

General Chair: Tanja Vos, Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain
Program Chair: Simon Poulding, University of York, UK

Program Committee

Robert Alexander, University of York, UK
Wasif Afzal, Bahria University, Pakistan
Mariano Ceccato, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Italy
Francisco Chicano, University of Malaga, Spain
Massimiliano Di Penta, University of Sannio, Italy
Robert Feldt, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
Gordon Fraser, University of Sheffield, UK
Vahid Garousi, University of Calgary, Canada
Mark Harman, University College London, UK
Gregory Kapfhammer, Allegheny College, USA
Bogdan Korel, Illinois Institute of Technology, USA
Yvan Labiche, Carleton University, Canada
Kiran Lakhotia, University College London, UK
Phil McMinn, University of Sheffield, UK
Simon Poulding, University of York, UK
Paolo Tonella, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Italy
Richard Torkar, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
Joachim Wegener, Berner & Mattner Systemtechnik GmbH, Germany
Tanja Vos, Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain
Shin Yoo, University College London, UK

Previous SBST Workshops

SBST 2012, Montréal, Canada
SBST 2011, Berlin, Germany
SBST 2010, Paris, France
SBST 2009, Denver, Colorado, USA
SBST 2008, Lillehammer, Norway