All students who have already conducted research or plan to do so in agile software development are invited to participate. Experienced researchers from the board of advisors will review the research plans of Ph.D. students and give them detailed feedback and guidance. The most promising research plans will be invited to be presented at the symposium, where the students can get more direct feedback in the discussion. Furthermore, we will have an interactive session at the symposium with all present PhD students and advisors to work on their abilities to develop research plans.

Participation in the symposium is being solicited at three levels: finishers, starters, and observers.

Finishers

Finishers are doctoral students in the last years of PhD, preferably after a mid-point in their dissertation work (i.e. are at least 12 months from defending their dissertation or have a preliminary research design), who will present their work at the symposium and receive feedback from a dedicated mentor from the board of advisors, as well as from the other symposium advisors and other attendees.

Those wishing to participate as finishers are asked to submit: 

1. A letter of recommendation from the dissertation advisor(s), sent by e-mail directly to the PhD Symposium Chairs, including an assessment of the current status of the research and an expected date for the completion of the dissertation.
2. A short paper on their research plan including (up to 6 pages with LNBIP template):

• • Title and abstract
  • Introduction (motivation, rationale, background) to the research
  • Description of issues or points on which the author would like to get the most advice on
  • Relevant prior work (foundations, relevant research results, research gap this work tries to fill)
  • Research objectives, questions, and hypotheses (with rationale)
  • Research approach, study design, and arrangements
  • Data analysis methods and techniques
  • Validity threats and their control
  • Summary of the current status of the research and planned next steps
  • This paper has to be authored only by the student.

At the symposium, finishers are required to:

• submit and present a research plan,
• review and comment on up to two other research plans
• act as a scribe in one review session.

Starters

Starters are also doctoral students but, in the first years of their PhD, maybe not having yet publications core to their PhD, aiming at receiving early feedback on their research project.

Those wishing to participate as starters are asked to submit: 

1. A letter of recommendation from the dissertation advisor(s), sent by e-mail directly to the PhD Symposium Chairs, including an assessment of the current status of the research and an expected date for the completion of the dissertation.
2. A two-page summary of their research project (up to 2 pages with LNBIP template):

• Title and abstract
• Introduction (motivation, rationale, background) to the research
• Description of issues or points on which the author would like to get the most advice on
• Summary of the current status of the research project
• This summary has to be authored only by the student.

At the symposium, starters are invited to:

• to give a short talk about their research project, if time is available
• present a poster
• comment on other research plans

Observers

Observers are any other members of the agile software engineering research community who would like to attend the symposium are very welcome, including dissertation advisors, who are kindly requested not to interact during the presentation and discussion of their student’s work.