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Welcome to SciPub 2012!

One of the main challenges when you start as a PhD student is to understand how this scientific community works. What is a good scientific study in SE? What is a good paper? How do I review papers? What is the status of different conferences and journals? Where should I target my papers? How does review processes work? What is this thing called science? Is SE a science?

This course is based on seminars to which PhD students prepare and after which they write reports. The idea is to give hands-on practical advice and show examples of how the SE research community functions. Since the course is an initial course, limited in size and scope, we go broad rather than in depth. But at least you get a grounding in key activities and practices and can then go deeper as you see fit.

After completion of the course the students is expected to be able to:

  • Read SE research papers and describe their motivation, methods used and the results
  • State the strong and weak points of a SE study, the threats to validity as well as how the study can be improved
  • Identify the research paradigm and method used in a SE study and compare it to alternative methods
  • Write good and constructive reviews of scientific papers in SE
  • Apply review templates objectively even on their own research studies and papers
  • Select relevant publication targets for their research
  • Describe the strongest publication targets for SE in general as well as for their sub-area
  • Write and update publication strategies for their research
  • Define bibliometrics used to rank publication targets, journals and researchers

syllabus

The teacher

Robert Feldt

Robert will lead discussions and examine the course. He has a long background in Software Engineering both in academia (associate professor at Chalmers) and with 18 years of experience from software consulting. He has high standards and can be demanding but he really wants you to develop and grow and will go to great lengths to help you do that. Robert's interested in finding the "practical truth" about the area started early, when he was a PhD student himself at Chalmers. At that time there was not much information to be found, or at least the information was not aggregated. So Robert started collecting info and created a knowledge base (that has now grown into his advice page). He is passionate about giving the "bare truth" to students early so they can find their way in SE and have successful careers.

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