EuroPLoP

Early Bird registration for EuroPLoP 2011 has opened

2011-05-15T07:29:00.000-07:00

Once again, numerous authors have submitted their papers in domains like software development, education, business organization and many others.
This year the fee is EUR 800 if you book before May 23, EUR 900 after that date.
After the Early Bird phase the number of places available will be strictly limited so to make sure you get a room you should book now.
For further details about the registration please see the Q&A of 2010.

2 weeks left for EuroPLoP 2011 submissions

2011-01-30T12:12:00.000-08:00

There are just two weeks left until the submission deadline for EuroPLoP 2011. If like me you're planning to submit a paper, now is a good time to start wrapping up the writing process and preparing your submission. Personally, I still need to add a couple of sections and a few images to my paper, and go through the references section to get everything in order.

Don't forget...February the 15th is the deadline for submission.

EuroPLoP 2009 Proceedings available in print

2011-01-14T11:04:00.000-08:00

I am please to be able to tell you the proceedings of EuroPLoP 2009 are
now available in print to buy (at a very modest price) from Lulu.

Click here: EuroPLoP 2009 proceedings

You can also download the same book as a PDF for free.

This is the first time we have used Lulu to self-publish the proceedings
and would like to hear your opinions on the finished product.

Q&A

2010-05-22T20:42:00.000-07:00

Registration is now open and we're getting some questions asked. I'd like to share the answers.

Q: I have not submitted a paper to EuroPLoP, can I still attend?
A: Yes, about 20% of those attending do not have a paper at the conference. You will still be expected to read others papers and participate in helping improve their papers.

Q: Can more than one author come for one paper?
A: Yes, if a paper has more than one author they are all welcome to attend

Q: Where can I see the papers submitted?
A: Hold on, the papers are still being worked on. We will make them available to those attending the conference nearer the time of the conference. Indeed, you will have to read some of them to participate.

Q: What does the program look like?
A: Pretty similar to previous years, the preliminary program is online.

Q: How to I get to Kloster Irsee?
A: Directions from the airport.

Q: Can my partner come? Can we get a double room?
A: Yes, you will need to specify this in your registration

Q: How much does EuroPLoP cost?
A: This year it is €900 is booked before May 26, €950 after that date. Note also, after May 26 there number of places available will be strictly limited so if you want to come you should book now.

Q: What does the fee cover?
A: Conference fees, accommodation, food (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snakes), drinks (beer, wine, coffee, soft drinks, the lot) - I think thats everything, the key point is, apart from getting too and from Irsee everything is covered.

Q: Is it true you have games?
A: Yes, two or three times a day - and we like you to join in.

Registration now open

2010-05-21T15:35:00.001-07:00

Registration for EuroPLoP 2010 is now open:

http://www.hillside.net/europlop/submission/register.cgi

After submitting the online form, please send a fax to Kloster Irsee with your payment information.

Early registration ends on May 26, 2010.

One author per paper must register for the conference by May 26.

If you want to arrange a different form of payment than credit card, please contact Adeline.Cywinski@Kloster-Irsee.de at Kloster Irsee.

Michael and Paris

EuroPLoP 2010

Notifications

2010-05-07T06:22:00.000-07:00

Our goal was to send out notifications today. However, we are running a few days behind schedule and will be sending out notifications early next week.

Michael and Paris

EuroPLoP 2010 chairs

EuroPLoP 2009 proceedings now online

2010-03-17T14:25:00.000-07:00

The proceedings of EuroPLoP 2009 are now online at CEUR, volume 566.

http://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/Publications/CEUR-WS/Vol-566/

This is the first time EuroPLoP has published proceedings online so I'm immensely proud.

If you have any comments or other feedback please let me know.

allan

Shepherding starts

2010-03-04T17:32:00.000-08:00

EuroPLoP 2010 is looking for a shepherds to help our authors improve their papers.

If you are willing and able to shepherd a paper please contact one of the Chairs, Michael Weiss (weiss@sce.carleton.ca) or Paris Avgeriou (paris@cs.rug.nl).

Submission now open

2010-02-05T20:00:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe, but true. The submission deadline for EuroPLoP is nary two weeks away (Feb 15). The submission is now open and ready to receive your submissions. Just click on the submission tab on the conference website. If you have any questions, please email me at weiss@sce.carleton.ca or Paris at paris@cs.rug.nl. We are also looking for focus group proposals at this time.

LaTeX for EuroPLoP submissions

2009-12-18T06:02:00.001-08:00

For anyone preparing their final submissions using LaTeX, Juhola Arto has these helpful instructions:

Should any LaTeX/LyX user ask, these incantations worked for me (with LyX).
The special pagenumber is in the footer, centered, also, I placed the copyright notice in the last ch.

A LaTeX preamble for EuroPlop papers (with standard "article" document class):
------------------
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc} % T1-coded fonts (=ec)
\usepackage{mathptmx} % Selects Adobe Times Roman as the default text font

% These commands will generate the special footer for the pages after the title page
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\fancyhf{} % Clears all header and footer fields
\fancyfoot[C]{F1-\thepage} % The special footer definition
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt} % No decorative line after header regions
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt} % No decorative line before footers

% This command generates the special footer for the title page.
\fancypagestyle{plain}{%
\fancyhf{}
\fancyfoot[C]{F1-\thepage}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}}

------------------

EuroPLoP 2009 workshop names and numbers

2009-12-17T06:22:00.000-08:00

For anyone racing to submit their paper to for the conference proceedings, who just happens to have forgotten which workshop they were in, or what number their paper was, then... what you need is the workshops page from the conference website (click here).

Submitting submissions

2009-12-16T04:28:00.000-08:00

Postscript to the last blog entry.

Please use the online submissions system for sending your final submissions. This is the same system we used last year and will be available at http://hillside.net/europlop/europlop2009/submission.html shortly.

In the meantime if your paper is ready please e-mail it directly to Allan Kelly, allan@allankelly.net with the copyright form.

EuroPLoP 2009 - Submissions to proceedings

2009-12-16T04:12:00.000-08:00

The time has come to submit papers for the 2009 EuroPLoP proceedings. This year we will be placing our proceedings in the CEUR-WS online repository - see http://ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/Publications/CEUR-WS/ for more details.

The deadline for submissions is Friday 22 January 2010. This deadline is a cut-off date. Failure to submit a paper by this date will be taken to mean you do not wish to have your paper included in the proceedings.

If you would like your paper included in these proceedings you will need to do three things:
1. Revise your pre-conference paper with the feedback you received in the workshop at EuroPLoP 2009.
2. Format your paper accounting to these guidelines (a PDF download).
3. Complete and return this copyright release form (PDF download) to Allan Kelly.

Only papers which were reviewed in a writers workshop are eligible for inclusion. Papers included in the writing group but not taken to a workshop are not eligible for inclusion.

In addition reports from focus groups and open space discussions are also eligible for inclusion and should follow the same guidelines and copyright release procedure.

If you have any questions please contact: Allan Kelly, EuroPLoP 2009 Programme Chair, allan@allankelly.net

Another pattern community: Ontology(ists)

2009-11-06T06:57:00.000-08:00

I've know for a while that the Hillside/Hillside Europe pattern community - as found at PLoP, EuroPLoP and other *PLoP conferences - was not the only community of people inspired by Christopher Alexander's writing.

Well, in doing some preparation for placing the EuroPLoP 2009 proceedings in CEUR I found yet another one.

Ontology patterns: The proceedings of their 2009 conference are already in CEUR.

And they've set up their own pattern repository at Manchester University.

They seem to be aware of Hillside but they seem to be basing their work on Alexander and the Gang of Four Design Patterns book.

It seems to me, in the Hillside Patterns community, we have a lot we could teach these guys, and they probably have stuff they could teach us. I hope some of them turn up to EuroPLoP 2010.

EuroPLoP 2009 final deadline approaching

2009-11-05T09:41:00.000-08:00

This e-mail is going to all the 2009 participants real soon now...

Dear EuroPLoP participant,

We are now starting to gather together the final post-conference revisions of the EuroPLoP 2009 papers. The cut-off date for inclusion in the conference proceedings is 31 December 2009. Papers received after this date may not be included in the proceedings.

Our intention is to place the proceedings in the CEUR online repository. There are currently no plans to produce a paper copy of the proceedings. We will however review this decision once the proceedings are online.

* What you need to do now
If you have not already updated your paper to include the comments from your workshop please do it now. You have until 31 December 2009.

* What happens next
We are currently reviewing the formatting to be used in the CEUR repository and preparing the copyright release form. When this is done I will be in contact again - hopefully within a week or two. At that point you may need to reformat your paper.

* Questions?
If you have any question please contact myself (Allan Kelly, Programme Chair 2009, allan@allankelly.net) or Michael Weiss (Conference Chair 2009, weiss@sce.carleton.ca).

Thanks

allan kelly

OOPSLA Mini PLoP

2009-08-17T09:38:00.004-07:00

They are running a Mini PLoP at OOPSLA 2009. See http://refactory.com/OOPSLA_Mini_PLoP_Workshop.html for more details.

EuroPLoP came and went

2009-08-17T09:38:00.001-07:00

EuroPLoP 2009 came and went without comment on this blog. Sorry about that. I'll write something soon.

Today is the end of shepherding

2009-06-12T06:15:00.000-07:00

Today is the official end of shepherding for EuroPLoP 2009.

I will shortly contact all authors and ask them to submit the final version of their paper for the conference.

Calling all students

2009-05-26T02:57:00.000-07:00

Early bird registration for EuroPLoP has just closed. Now we have an idea of numbers I can say its going to be the biggest EuroPLoP for several years.

Unusually, we are under subscribed for the student places. These students get approximately half their fees covered by the conference organizers.

If you are a student, and would like to come to EuroPLoP, and don't mind helping out around the conference then please get in touch. Quickly!

Last few days for early bird discount

2009-05-19T00:45:00.000-07:00

There are only five days to register for EuroPLoP if you want the Early Bird discount. Register by Monday and it costs €990, after that it is €1090.

If you are an author, and your paper has been accepted you must register by Monday. Failure to do so will lead to rejection of your paper.

Your questions answered

2009-05-13T09:14:00.001-07:00

Registration is now open and we're getting some questions asked. I'd like to share the answers.

Q: I have not submitted a paper to EuroPLoP, can I still attend?
A: Yes, about 20% of those attending do not have a paper at the conference. You will still be expected to read others papers and participate in helping improve their papers.

Q: Can more than one author come for one paper?
A: Yes, if a paper has more than one author they are all welcome to attend

Q: Where can I see the papers submitted?
A: Hold on, the papers are still being worked on. We will make them available to those attending the conference nearer the time of the conference. Indeed, you will have to read some of them to participate.

Q: What does the program look like?
A: Pretty similar to previous years, the preliminary program is online.

Q: How to I get to Kloster Irsee?
A: Directions from the airport.

Q: Can my partner come? Can we get a double room?
A: Yes, you will need to specify this in your registration

Q: How much does EuroPLoP cost?
A: This year it is €990 is booked before 24 May, €1090 after that date. Note also, after 24 May there number of places available will be strictly limited so if you want to come you should book now.

Q: What does the fee cover?
A: Conference fees, accommodation, food (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snakes), drinks (beer, wine, coffee, soft drinks, the lot) - I think thats everything, the key point is, apart from getting too and from Irsee everything is covered.

Q: Is it true you have games?
A: Yes, two or three times a day - and we like you to join in.

Registration is now open

2009-05-11T19:16:00.000-07:00

The registration site for EuroPLoP is now open. Go here to register. To get the early bird rate, you must register by May 24, 2009. Note that all authors are required to register by that date.

EuroPLoP announcement mailing list

2009-05-08T10:01:00.000-07:00

One of the unusual things about EuroPLoP is that is has no mailing list. When we want to send an announcement out we normally use the Hillside Europe mailing list and cross post to some others. But not everyone is on these lists.

The website helps but how often do people check it?
This blog helps but again, not everyone reads it.

So we have created a mailing list for sending announcements about EuroPLoP.

The list is open to all and should be low traffic - just call for papers, deadline warnings, registrations open, etc. etc.

It is a Yahoo Group and its called EuroPLoP, please join today.

What is the writing group? And why am I in it?

2009-05-01T07:55:00.000-07:00

Most papers which are accepted to EuroPLoP are accepted in Writers Workshops. Papers which are reviewed in these workshops will be included in the conference proceedings. (I blogged about this last year, Will my paper be included in the proceedings?)

A few papers are instead accepted into the Writing Group. Indeed some authors request their papers are put into the Writing Group instead of the Writers Workshop.

Papers are directed to the Writing Group when the reviewers feel the paper is not ready for a Writers Workshop. Perhaps the paper is not clear enough, perhaps the author is new to patterns and didn’t quite “get it’ or perhaps it just needs more work.

The authors of these papers are assigned a Shepherd at the conference and another round of shepherding occurs. Since I became chair I have arranged for this to start on Wednesday afternoon and it continues through Thursday and Friday until Friday evening.

During this time the Shepherd meets with the author to discuss the paper and potential improvements. Unlike the original shepherding this occurs face-to-face at Kloster Irsee. The author then spends time editing and reworking the patterns. They meet and discuss as often as they need to – and can find time to.

On Friday evening the author submits a revised version of the patterns and there is another short review. If the patterns have improved the paper may be accepted for a Writers Workshop on the Saturday. In some cases a section of the paper is accepted but not the whole.

For a while it was common to accept just about any patterns from the Writing Group into the Saturday workshops. We stopped that a few years ago and its a very real review now and papers do get rejected.

The papers, paper sections and patterns that are accepted in the Saturday Writers Workshop will be included in the proceedings like all the others.

The Writing Group is not “second best” its just another way to improve papers, that is what EuroPLoP is all about.

EuroPLoP review deadline is this Monday

2009-04-16T03:04:00.000-07:00

The following e-mail has been send to all authors today:

I would like to remind you that next Monday (20 April) is the EuroPLoP deadline for second paper review. Please ensure you have uploaded a revised version of your paper to the EuroPLoP website by the close of Monday.

This can be done using the original submission site with the ID and password created when you submitted your original paper.

http://hillside.net/europlop/submission/submit.cgi

Once you have submitted your paper:

1. Please **CONTINUE working with your shepherd to improve the paper**. We expect authors and shepherds to continue work until 12 June.

2. Your revised paper will be reviewed for a second time by the conference PC (programme committee). Papers will be judged for quality and progress since the first submission. Based on this review we will issue firm acceptances to the conference - or possibly rejections.

3. Acceptances (or rejections) will be issued by 8 May. If your paper is accepted for the conference at least one author will be expected to register by 24 May. Failure to register by this date will be considered to as a withdraw of paper.

We are close to finalising the budget for this years conference and expect to announce the fee soon.

If you have any questions please contact either Michael Weiss (Conference Chair, weiss@sce.carleton.ca) or myself (Allan Kelly, Programme Chair, allan@allankelly.net).

Irsee, we have a problem

2009-03-15T07:59:00.000-07:00

We should be sending out the final shepherding notifications this weekend but we’ve hit a few technical problems. We expected to have all papers allocated to shepherd by now but we have a few papers still in search of a shepherd. (If your a shepherd, if your reading this, and you’ve not offered to shepherd a paper yet, please contact me!)

This should have been resolved this week but the Hillside mail server seems to have developed a fault – I keep getting mailed delayed messages in return.

Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, Joe Yoder looks after the server for Hillside and a quick mail to him would have fixed it. But guess what? My mails to Joe keep coming back with mail delayed.

If anyone sees Joe (or can give me his phone number!) please get in touch.

Normal service should be resumed real soon now.

Accept / Reject decisions gone

2009-03-03T07:30:00.000-08:00

I have just sent out all the EuroPLoP accept/reject decisions. If submitted a paper to EuroPLoP and don't have an message from me then get in touch. O, if you have a co-author check to see if they got the message first.

Below is the text of the latter, the bits in [[brackets]] only went to some authors.

Onto the shepherds....
----------------------------
Acceptance to EuroPLoP 2009 shepherding

Dear XXX,

We am please to inform you that your submission to EuroPLoP 2009 has been accepted into Shepherding. As you should know this is the first of three gateways a paper needs to pass in order to be workshopped at EuroPLoP.

We are currently seeking Shepherds for all accepted papers and provided a Shepherd is interested in working with you on your paper we will put you in contact soon. It is very rare that we cannot find Shepherd for an accepted paper.

You will also been assigned a member of the Programme Committee (PC) to monitor the Shepherding process. Normally the PC member will take no active part in the process. However, if you, or the Shepherd, experiences problems you should contact the PC member in the first instance.

You are expected to submit a second review copy of your patterns by 20 April 2009. The committee will review the paper for:
- Evidence of improvement over the initial submission
- Evidence that you, as author, are open to suggestions for improvement
- Evidence of useful, original patterns in a recognisable pattern form; or, for papers submitted to the applying patterns track, evidence that the paper contributes to the body of knowledge on applying patterns

Having submitted the second review, you and your Shepherd should continue working to improve the paper.

The PC will issue final acceptances (or rejections) by 8 May. If you are accepted into the conference you, or a co-author, will be expected to register by 24 May. Failure to do so will be considered as a withdrawal of your paper.

The final conference version of your paper must be submitted by 19 June 2009.

On 8 May your paper will either be accepted into a Writers Workshop at the conference or into the Writing Group. If your paper is accepted into the Writing Group you will be expected to undertake a second round of face-to-face Shepherding at the conference. If your paper improves enough over the first three days of the conference it will be admitted to the Writers Workshop on the last day.

Only papers which have been through a Writers Workshop will be included in the conference proceedings.

[[You should be aware that at this stage that the PC reviews so far make it likely your paper will be directed to the Writing Group.]]

[[Your paper was originally submitted to the applying patterns track. However the PC feel the paper is more appropriate to the general tracks. We therefore propose to move the paper.]]

If you cannot accept these conditions you should withdraw your paper today.

For more information about the conference, Writers Workshops and the review process please see the following links:
http://hillside.net/europlop/about.html
http://www.hillside.net/shepherding.html
http://europlop.blogspot.com/2009/03/paper-reviewing-and-acceptingrejecting.html

If you have any further questions please contact Allan Kelly or Michael Weiss.

Allan Kelly, allan@allankelly.net, Programme Chair
Michael Weiss, weiss@sce.carleton.ca, Conference Chair

Paper reviewing and accepting/rejecting

2009-03-02T08:52:00.000-08:00

We will be looking for Shepherd, and accepting and rejecting papers for EuroPLoP in the next few days so I wanted to write a few words about how we got to this point.

In the last 10 days we have been reviewing all the submissions to EuroPLoP 2009. When I say we I mean: the Conference Chair and myself, the Programme Chair, plus the conference programme committee and two specialists on the applying patterns track.

Each reviewer marked a selection of papers on a scale of 1 to 5 – 1 being strong reject and 5 being strong accept. Most reviewers looked at about 8 papers. We then looked at the average scores.

Papers below 2 were rejected immediately.

Papers above 3 we will be accepted for Shepherding.

The papers in the 2 to 3 range were more difficult. So we asked for some extra reviews. Some papers improved their score and some went down.

We have now decided to accept these papers, however, the authors will be told that there is a possibility their paper will be directed to the writing group. If they feel they cannot accept this condition they should withdraw their paper.

Acceptances and rejections will be going out soon. These are not acceptances into the conferences these are acceptances into Shepherding. During Shepherding we expect papers to improve in quality – that’s why we’re prepared to accept papers which have what might seem like low scores into the process.

In the next few days I will start allocating shepherds to the papers. During shepherding the author and shepherd work together to improve the paper. Authors need to submit a revised copy by 20 April and are expected to keep working keep on working on the paper with the shepherd.

After 20 April the we’ll review papers again and papers which are still scoring low may be rejected at this stage. Papers which score low may still have potential, these papers will be accepted into the writing group.

The writing group is an additional round of Shepherding that occurs at the conference itself. It differs from the first round because it happens face to face. Authors get two or three sessions with their Shepherd and they get time to work on their papers. If the papers are good enough by Friday evening they are accepted into the workshops on Saturday.

Shepherding, Writing Group and Workshops all aim to improve the paper. Workshops are not presentations, they are not reviews, they are directed discussions.

We’ve added one more condition to paper acceptance at EuroPLoP this year. This is a hard-nosed administration/financial decision.

Authors of accepted papers are expected to book their attendance by 24 May. Believe it or not this helps use keep the costs down.

Hillside Europe and the conference organisers (Chairs and PC) aim to keep the price of EuroPLoP low so we don’t make a profit and we try to trim and excess spending.

Once or twice in the past, papers have been accepted from authors who then don’t attend the conference. We understand when something happens, a personal emergency or such, and we try to refund their money if we can – but no guarantee. But when an author doesn’t book a place, and we hold a room for them it costs us money.

So this year we are asking authors to book early.

Submissions closed: What next?

2009-02-17T03:25:00.001-08:00

The EuroPLoP submission deadline has passed and the system is now closed. It was unofficially open for a day or two past the deadline so one or two stragglers could make their submissions.

For the next week or two the EuroPLoP programme committee will review the submissions and most will be allocated a Shepherd. The shepherd will work with the authors for the next three months to help improve the paper.

We will be putting out a call for shepherds soon, if you want to offer your help please e-mail us.

Half way through the shepherding process the committee will review the papers again to see how they have improved. We'll issue final acceptance/rejection notices at the beginning of May.

Full schedule is on this the EuroPLoP website.

Workshop on Secure systems methodologies using patterns

2009-02-17T03:20:00.000-08:00

Eduardo Fernandez of Florida Atlantic University, and PLoP regular, is organizing a workshop on security patterns at the end of August in Austria.

More on the website, 3rd International Workshop on Secure systems methodologies using patterns (SPattern'09).

Submission deadline is this Saturday

2009-02-11T01:03:00.001-08:00

A gentle reminder, 3 days to submit!

Price of EuroPLoP

2009-02-04T10:45:00.000-08:00

We've had a question about the cost of EuroPLoP 2009. The simple answer is: we don't have a budget yet so we don't have a price.

Last year the three and half days of conference, including accommodation, food and as much beer and wine (or soft drinks) you wanted was €950 - provided you booked in time to get the early-bird rate, otherwise it was €100 more.

We will certainly be aiming to have this years conference around the the same price but it will be a few weeks before we will have all the information we need to set the budget.

Submission system open: 14 days to submit

2009-01-30T13:31:00.000-08:00

Hopefully you've all been working on your patterns for the last six months and are just waiting to submit. Well now you can!

We are pleased to announce the new and improved EuroPLoP paper submission system is open. Just go to the EuroPLoP website (http://hillside.net/europlop/) and click on the submission tab and follow the instructions.

Submissions close on February 14 - so you get the draft finished, submitted and celebrate on the day with your significant other.

If you want to submit a draft now and revise it over the next two weeks please do, the system allows you to upload revised papers.

Right, if you'll excuse me I have to get back to my own paper....

EuroPLoP 2009 Website update

2008-10-28T09:07:00.000-07:00

EuroPLoP 2009 moves a set closer with an update of the website. Its a new fresh look for EuroPLoP. We'll be adding more information in the coming weeks.

For the moment the important thing is the call for papers (CfP) is online here - I will be sending the CfP out to various mailing lists soon.

EuroPLoP 2009: July 8-12

2008-10-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

We've not had time to update the website yet but we've started work on EuroPLoP 2009. It will be (as always) at Kloster Iresee in Germany and will start on the afternoon of Wednesday 8 July and end in the small hours of Sunday 12 July.

Actually, the formal end if late on the Saturday but almost everyone stays on to drink and talk late into the night. On the Sunday morning we hold a final breakfast and there are a couple of admin meetings.

Submission date is yet to be decided but it will be before the end of February 2009 so get writing!

Pictures from EuroPLoP 2008

2008-08-04T01:54:00.000-07:00

I've posted some pictures from EuroPLoP 2008 on Flickr - actually I posted them a week or more ago but forgot to link from this blog until just now.

Out of interest I did a Flickr search for other peoples EuroPLoP pictures and found quite a few.

Gregor has a good selection from this year.
Rui Lopes has lots of EuroPLoP 2006.
Keith Braithwaite has some nice ones of Kloster Irsee at EuroPLoP 2005.

Comments on EuroPLoP at

2008-08-04T01:47:00.000-07:00

Yishay Mor has some nice things to say about EuroPLoP on another blog.

Its nice to see these comments from a EuroPLoP first timer - reminds me of my own feeling the first time I went to EuroPLoP.

Movie reprise

2008-07-28T12:19:00.001-07:00

Here's a small reprise to the artistic activities at EuroPLoP. If you have been at the paint and create session, you may have seen a wheel like this - if not, you may enjoy the movie now...

It is a movie by Tony Hill (see a selection of additional movies here) and actually shows what the wheel pattern is all about (although we might discuss whether or not a wheel is a pattern).

Hearsay at Irsee

2008-07-16T00:31:00.001-07:00

I often think of EuroPLoP as three days of intensive create outpouring by a bunch of very intelligent people. Before we come to the conference most people (over 75%) have written a paper, they have revised the paper and many people have already helped others by shepherding the paper.

Then at the conference we review the paper and suggest improvements. These improvements and the debate is a creative process.

We also have focus groups were people get together to analyze problems and suggest solutions - more creativity.

And in between the workshops and focus groups we have an art studio anyone can visit, we have a evening of conference wide art creativity, people write songs and we produce our own magazine each day of conference. All creative.

The magazine is more of a newsletter, typically 4 or 6 pages and is called Hearsay - a play on the name of the venue, Irsee. Hearsay is a mix of jokes, funny stories, conference pictures and serious information which people want to share with other participants.

Normally these newsletter are only available at the conference but this year we've decided to put them on line, so here they are:

Hearsay is edited by the student helpers at the conference. This year we have André Santos and Andreas Ratzka to thank.

EuroPLoP 2008 - thank you!

2008-07-14T22:27:00.000-07:00

A big thank you to everyone who attended EuroPLoP 2008 - another great conference!

There are lots of people we need to thank for helping organize the conference. Lets start with the Programme Committee: Lise Hvatum, Andy Longshaw, Jim Siddle, Uwe Zdun, Klaus Marquardt, Ademar Aguiar, Didi Schuuetz, Michael Weiss, Arno Hasse, Tim Wellhausen, and Kristian Sorensen, thank you very much!

Special mention to Michael Weiss for looking after the website and creating an online submission system, and to Tim Wellhausen for helping with the sponsorship and financial side of the conference.

Then there are the shepherds, thank you shepherds!

A special mention to Uwe Zdun who received this years Shepherding Award.

A big thanks to our sponsors this year: Siemens, Schlumberger, John Willey & Sons and FernUniversitat in Hagen. Sponsorship is vital to keeping the costs per person down at EuroPLoP.

One final sponsor slipped in at the last minute, University Porto have not only sent Ademar Aguiar but a most interesting supply of Port Wine, thank you U Porto.

And thank you to everyone who attended and made this a great conference! I hope to see many of you again next year.

FAQ: Will my paper be included in the proceedings?

2008-05-19T10:37:00.001-07:00

After the conference Ehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifuroPLoP publishes a set of proceedings, like these.

All papers which are accepted for the Writers Workshop will automatically be included in the proceedings. Or rather, revised versions will be included. The idea is that the workshop gives the author feedback, the author uses that feedback to improve the paper, and it is that, improved paper, that is included in the proceedings.

Papers in the Writing Group are handled a little differently.

If a paper is accepted to the Writing Group then the paper and author are assigned a shepherd at the conference. The author has Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to get advice from the shepherd and improve the paper.

On Friday night the revised papers are judged by the Writing Group shepherds and those judged to have improved enough are be workshopped with other papers on Saturday. These papers are also - after revision - included in the proceedings.

The only papers which are not included in the proceeding are those which are do not improve enough during the Writing Group to be accepted into a Writers Workshop.

Some people get confused between the Writers Workshop and the Writing Group - I have myself on occasions, the terms are similar. Both are mechanisms for improving papers and both are good. However to get in the proceedings a paper must go through a workshop.

I hope that clears up any confusion.

Book BoF request

2008-04-28T06:03:00.000-07:00

Now that the EuroPLoP 2008 review deadline is fast approaching, I've started thinking about the conference itself - how to get there, what to take, etc. Something that I'd personally like to arrange is a Book BoF - if you haven't heard of a BoF before, it's an informal "Birds-of-a-Feather" meeting where people meet up to discuss a subject of mutual interest.

I've been developing a patterns-based book idea for a while now; it's slowly maturing and I'm confident that there's a book (or two) in the idea, however I'd like to find one or two committed co-authors to help out. The feedback I've received from shepherding (and especially writer's workshops) at *PLoP conferences has been invaluable, however I've felt a lack of feedback during the book development process because so far it's been all my own endeavour.

So if you want to get involved, perhaps to provide feedback, or to get on board as a co-author, please get in touch via email or catch me at the conference (assuming all goes well with my paper in the review!). I'm thinking that meeting for an hour in one of the conference rooms should work OK - once I have an idea of a time and place I'll be in touch with everyone who shows an interest.

Thanks,
Jim

Shepherding on its way

2008-04-10T02:00:00.000-07:00

Most authors have by now finished their first round of shepherding. This means that a shepherd has inspected the paper and provided initial comments to inspire the authors to improve their paper. You can find a list of papers that are currently shepherded at the EuroPLoP web site: List of papers.

Since shepherding started a bit late, we also decided to move the review deadline for the papers a bit. The new date is May 5th. This will give the authors a bit more time to finish at least one more iteration before the deadline.

EuroPLoP's first sponsors

2008-03-10T02:04:00.000-07:00

EuroPLoP 2008 has signed its first sponsors. The publishers John Wiley and Sons have agreed to sponsor the conference again.

We are also receiving sponsorship from FernUniversität in Hagen who will be supplying the computers used at the conference.

We hope to announce more sponsors in the near few weeks.

Submissions closed two weeks ago now and the EuroPLoP committee have been evaluating papers. We are pretty close to announcing which papers will be accepted into Shepherding and which papers will be rejected.

EuroPLoP deadline is today

2008-02-18T01:55:00.000-08:00

The deadline is here. We have some submissions but we still have space for more so if you are thinking of submitting please do so today.

It does seem there have been some connectivity problems with the website. We’re not sure why just now but it is working, it seems to be a time out issue rather than anything serious.

If you have any problems please send one of us an e-mail this will a) help us pin down the problems, b) let us know you have something to submit.

The deadline is 18 February

2008-01-29T02:14:00.000-08:00

It always seems to me that there is always a long long time between the EuroPLoP submission deadline and the conference itself. In fact it always seems the deadline is way too early.

As Conference Chair this year I thought it would be my chance to fix this!

Then Till and I sat down (OK, he in Germany, me in England but Skype is a wonderful tool) and Planned Backward (a pattern, by the way, from Mark Prince.)

We knew when the conference was and we looked at all the things that needed to be done between submission and conference. These are:

Collect submissions
Review submissions
Allocate shepherds
Shepherding, post review 2
Review shepherded papers
Shepherding, pre review 2
Confirm acceptance
Decide workshop groupings
Collect final papers
Print draft proceedings

Confirm acceptance is actually more important than it looks. For those who work in Universities and other academic institutions it is this acceptance that brings their funding to attend the conference. So they need acceptance as early as possible to get the funding sorted out and get their tickets booked while they are still cheap.

Then there are those people coming from outside Europe who need to get a Schengen visa to attend the conference in Germany. In some countries (e.g. the UK) it can take six weeks and a personal visit to get a visa from the German embassy. So these people need time too.

(Yes I know UK nationals don’t need a visa to go to Germany – hurray for Europe! – but if you are a non-EU citizen living in the UK you probably do. Anyway, its the only German embassy I have experience of and as far I know they are all like this, but I digress.)

When you put it all together the submission deadline needs to be that early. Strange but true.

Still, Till and I did our best to set the deadline as late as possible. However this does mean we have to break a EuroPLoP tradition. The deadline won’t be moving this year.

In past years the submission deadline has slipped back a week or two, this year we don’t have the time to do that.

Time to submit your paper...

2008-01-28T01:23:00.000-08:00

Michael, our web chair, has opened the submission page yesterday. This means that you can send us your paper. Please go to http://hillside.net/europlop/.

The artistic side of EuroPLoP

2008-01-08T02:04:00.000-08:00

EuroPLoP is to a large extent about creativity. This is why we will have George Platts with us again in 2008. He is the artist in residence of EuroPLoP and does a great job in freeing the participants' minds for new ideas.

In 2007, Osorio Abath Neto filmed some of these activities. His video is postetd at YouTube.

BTW: George has a large affinity to the patterns community and is also making artistic sessions at OOPSLA .

Have fun!

PLoP on Wikipedia

2008-01-07T23:53:00.000-08:00

Regular EuroPLoP attendees might be interested in contributing to the PLoP article on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_Languages_of_Programming

Dirk Riehle has started to push this article forward. Now it is your job to bring in the European touch in this article ;-).

Thematic Tracks for EuroPLoP 2007

2008-01-02T11:47:00.000-08:00

First of all: Happy new year!

This year, we have introduced thematic tracks to extend the common themes of EuroPLoP. Thematic track organizers will work hard on bringing together experts with an interest in the thematic track to push pattern research forward in this specific area. Besides the traditional themes of EuroPLoP (e.g., Software development, Software design and architecture, Software management and development processes, Human computer interaction, or Business and organizational questions) we will now host the following three thematic tracks:

"Pragmatic and systematic approaches in applying patterns"
Organized by Paris Avgeriou (University of Groningen, The Netherlands), Neil B. Harrison (Utah Valley University, USA), and Uwe Zdun (Vienna University of Technology, Austria)
Contact: Paris Avgeriou, paris@cs.rug.nl

The application of the different types of patterns in practice has not met the expectations of the patterns community. Most practitioners are aware of the GoF patterns and some idioms in specific programming languages or platforms, but few of them work systematically with patters for architecture, analysis, process etc. The discipline of software engineering is significantly lacking in incorporating patterns in standardized and well-proven processes, methods, techniques and tools. This thematic track aims at studying the application of patterns in practice and enforcing the links between the patterns community and the practitioners. It envisions papers that present not only patterns but also their practical applications in real industrial projects, as well as papers on systematizing the application of patterns. It aims at stimulating a general discussion on how to disseminate the patterns literature more in the higher education and training. It hopes to provide visibility to research attempts for integrating patterns in software engineering industrial practices.

Patterns for Collaboration Technology and Processes
Organized by Stephan Lukosch (FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany), Gwendolyn L. Kolfschoten (Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands), Gert-Jan de Vreede (Institute for Collaboration Science, University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA) and Robert O. Briggs (Institute for Collaboration Science, University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA)
Contact: Stephan Lukosch, Stephan.Lukosch@Fernuni-Hagen.de

Designing collaboration technology and processes is a challenging task that often is poorly understood by practitioners. In particular, the design of collaboration technology and processes heavily depends on human factors. As such it is highly non-deterministic and complex as it has to consider the mutual understanding of the group members. The key challenge in these settings is twofold: a) how to design productive group processes for collaboration, and b) how to model, embed, or implement these group processes in computer technology and in the organization. Over the past years, various pattern based approaches have been developed to support the design of collaboration technology and processes. Early patterns for groupware development focussed on low-level issues, e.g., on infrastructures required to implement groupware. More recently, there is a growing interest in the definition and use of high-level patterns describing HCI issues in the context of groupware systems as well as patterns that focus on the design and facilitation of group processes, e.g. thinkLets. In this thematic track, we want to explore the characteristics and challenges of both high-level and low-level patterns for collaboration technology and processes.

Patterns for Tools and Pedagogies for Higher Education
Organized by Symeon Retalis (University of Piraeus, Greece) and Christian Kohls (KMRC – Knowledge Media Research Center, Tübingen, Gemany)
Contact: Symeon Retalis, retal@unipi.gr

Design patterns are about educating novices so that they can act as experts. Naturally, they can also educate educators so that they improve their teaching. This can mean that patterns describe innovative best practice of teaching but it can also mean that patterns describe tools that support the interaction between teacher, learner, and the subject that should be learned.

This thematic track will bring together experts from two areas of pattern research. Professional educators are invited to submit patterns for designing and structuring courses and other learning episodes. Designers of learning tools (E-Learning, CSCL) and multimedia content can contribute their knowledge on how to support good pedagogy with technology.

The submission procedure for thematic tracks is the same as for general submissions. The submission deadline is February 18. Please contact the organizers of the thematic tracks for more details.

Deadline for thematic track proposal is tomorrow

2007-12-11T01:54:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow, December 12, is the deadline for thematic track proposals. We have received several proposals already, more are still welcome.

Also coming up soon, in January, is the deadline for EuroPLoP 2007 proceedings submissions. For those who don’t know, the EuroPLoP proceedings contain papers workshopped at EuroPLoP and subsequently revised to include the feedback. The proceedings are published in time for distribution at the following EuroPLoP.

Welcome to the EuroPLoP blog!

2007-12-02T08:02:00.000-08:00

This is the first time EuroPLoP (maybe any plop?) has had a pre-conference blog. So why have we decided to try it now?

The original suggestion came from Klaus Marquardt and we – the conference chairs, i.e. Till and myself – liked the idea so here we are. The blog is an experiment, we don’t know if it will work but its worth a try. Personally I hope the blog will achieve several things:

Create more of a pre-conference conversation between the organizers, the attendees and the rest of the world. This might encourage a few more people to come to EuroPLoP, and it might also help explain EuroPLoP – and all PLoPs in general – to a wider audience.
Keep people better informed about how the conference is coming together and what they can expect.
Open up the conference and demystify it for those who know nothing about it.
Promote patterns in general.

So what can you expect from this blog?

I don’t know how often we’ll post, at the moment it is Till, Michael and myself. We might open it up to some others from the conference organizing committee – the program committee or just PC – in future.

This year we are adding thematic tracks to EuroPLoP as another experiment. As soon as we have decided which tracks we are accepting and who the track chairs are we will encourage them to add something here,

We don’t know how often posts will appear. One of us will try and post when something interesting happens. There will probably be plenty of postings about deadlines, events and papers as we go.

I expect there might be some discussion of patterns too.

We’ll see.

Finally, can I please encourage readers to leave comments and ask questions. We can only address questions or change things if we know what people are thinking, so please, please, please, leave comments!

Off we go...

2007-12-02T01:15:00.001-08:00

We finally sent out the first call for participation. Please consider to submit a thematic track. This will be an excelent instrument for getting peer researchers and practitioners from your discipline involved in pattern writing.