CFP JOEUC special issue on Scientific End User Computing

Call for Papers Special Edition of the Journal of Organizational and End User Computing on Scientific End User Computing The Journal of Organizational and End User Computing (JOEUC) seeks submissions for a special issue on the topic of Scientific End User Computing. Many organisations are heavily dependent on scientific software. Because of the complexity of the application domain, the development of such software must involve scientists, either working on their own as end user developers or in a team with professional software developers. Both modes of development pose challenges. Such challenges include (but are not limited to) the following: - the nature of scientists as end user developers. Such scientists might be called 'professional end-user developers': they tend to have few problems with actual coding as they are used to manipulating formal languages, but know little about other aspects of mainstream software engineering, such as testing or maintainability. The challenge here is how best to support such professional end-user development given that most scientists do not know, and are loath to learn formally about, software engineering - the necessary shift in management perspective. Deliverables are often not the software itself, but products that are several steps downstream from the software. The software becomes invisible to the managers, and yet is a vital component in or contributor to the end deliverable. An unfortunate result of software not being on the manager's radar, is that the importance of software skills is often not recognised. Managers may also lack the understanding necessary to make effective decisions concerning software development. The software engineering community has not helped in this aspect since they have traditionally isolated themselves from the needs of scientific software developers. However, some organizations have evolved software development processes for scientific software that merit study. These processes may be the ones that managers dealing with scientific software should be made aware of. - the choice of tools, methods, and strategies. The danger is the enormous potential for poor return on investment. Depending on the goals of the science and the downstream products, there may be a strategic mismatch between suppliers of commercial software and developers of scientific software. In addition, tools to support tasks such as testing have generally been developed to support development in contexts very different from that of scientific software. There are fundamental problems unique to testing scientific software that are not addressed by currently available software engineering testing tools or methods. To compound the problem, scientists developing software for their own use tend to be very casual about software testing. The challenge is to identify in the proliferation of tools and methods, those that actually work for scientists as end user developers and for scientific software development in general. - managing the issues of communication and collaboration in multi-disciplinary teams involving both scientist end user developers and professional software engineers. These two groups of developers have different models of software development and different understandings of concepts such as 'project success' and 'project management'. For this special issue we solicit papers that address the above challenges, or any other challenge relevant to scientific software development from the perspective of either the organisation or the scientist-as-end-user-developer. Types of studies include, but are not limited to - Empirical studies such as o case studies o controlled experiments o interviews and surveys - Analyses grounded in practice - Discussion of tools, techniques or strategies designed to support professional end-user developers Topics of interest include, but are not limited to - Particular characteristics of, and problems facing, scientists as professional end-user developers - Management issues in organizations that develop scientific software - Training and/or knowledge transfer in organizations that develop scientific software - Success or failure of software policies and/or standards adopted by organizations that develop scientific software - The particular characteristics of, and problems facing, multi-disciplinary development teams comprising software engineers and scientists - How tools, techniques and strategies have been usefully deployed for use by professional end-user developers Submission Procedure: Please follow author's guidelines for JOEUC found at: http://www.igi-global.com/development/author_info/guide.asp Submit your paper for the special issue on Scientific End User Computing to Diane Kelly at: kelly-d@rmc.ca Please put "JOEUC - Scientific EUC" in the subject line of the email. Include information for the contact author: Name, affiliation, phone number, email address. Submission deadline: February 1, 2010 First round of reviews completed: April 1, 2010 Revisions due: June 1, 2010 Final notification: July 1, 2010 Publication of Special Issue: towards the end of 2010 Guest Editors: Dr. Jeffrey Carver, University of Alabama, USA Dr. Diane Kelly, Royal Military College of Canada Dr. Judith Segal, The Open University, UKDr. Judith Segal, The Open University, UK Jeffrey Carver Assistant Professor University of Alabama (v) 205-348-9829 (f) 205-348-0219