Special Issue on Knowledge-based Software Engineering

Journal: Science of Computer Programming. Elsevier. Impact Factor 0,548.

Knowledge-based technologies provide a consistent and reliable basis
to face the challenges for organization, manipulation and
visualization of the data and knowledge, playing a crucial role as the
technological basis of the development of a large number of
information systems. On the other hand, software engineering comprises
different processes and techniques that support the specification,
development, and maintenance of software. Knowledge-based software
engineering is focused in automating the software engineering life
cycle, software engineering resources which are shifting towards
knowledge acquisition and the automated reuse of expert knowledge for
developing software artifacts. Knowledge in software applications is
becoming more significant because the domains of many software
applications are inherently knowledge-intensive and this knowledge is
often not explicitly dealt with in software development. This impedes
maintenance and reuse. Moreover, it is generally known that developing
software requires expertise and experience, which are currently also
implicit and could be made more tangible and reusable using
knowledge-based or related techniques. Examples of approaches that are
directly related to this tendency are knowledge engineering,
ontologies, conceptual modeling, domain analysis and domain
engineering, business rules, workflow management, to mention but a
few.
Nowadays, enterprises handle different types of knowledge that are
often inter-related, and which must be managed in a consistent way.
For instance, software engineering involves the integration of various
knowledge sources that are in constant change. Therefore, tools and
techniques are necessary to capture and process knowledge in order to
facilitate subsequent development efforts, especially in the domain of
software engineering. With the use of new proposals on how using the
knowledge in a multitude of ways and in all phases of software
development can be advantageous.

This special issue aims at exploring the recent advances in the
application of knowledge-based technologies in Software Engineering
area soliciting original scientific contributions in the form of
theoretical foundations, case studies, techniques, tools, and
applications of knowledge-based software engineering theory and
practice.

The topics of this special issue include but are not limited to:
• Knowledge Representation in Software Engineering
• Knowledge Acquisition in Software Engineering
• Knowledge driven Software Engineering
• Case-based reasoning in Software Engineering
• Ontology Engineering in Software Engineering
• Semantic Interoperability
• Semantic Data Models
• Semantic Service Oriented Architectures
• Natural Language Processing applied to Software Engineering
• Applications and Case-studies
• Decision support methods for software engineering
• Development processes for knowledge-based applications
• Empirical/evaluation studies for knowledge-based applications
• Knowledge engineering for process management and project management
• Knowledge management for business processes, workflows and enterprise modeling
• Knowledge technologies for service-oriented systems, Internet of
services and Internet of things Knowledge-based methods and tools for
software engineering education
• Knowledge-based methods and tools for testing, verification and
validation, maintenance and evolution in software engineering
• Knowledge-based methods for software metrics
• Knowledge-based requirements engineering, domain analysis and modeling
• Methodology and tools for knowledge discovery and data mining


Instructions for authors

Papers submitted must have not been published previously or under
consideration for publication, though they may represent significant
extensions of prior work. Manuscripts should be submitted online at
http://ees.elsevier.com/scico/ (see the EES User Guide for Authors).
Authors should select "SI on KB Soft. Eng." in the EES platform when
they will be asked for type of submission. All submissions will be
peer-reviewed following the double-blind review process. The objective
is to apply very high standards of acceptance while ensuring fair,
timely and efficient review cycles.

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission Deadline: March 15, 2015
Notification of review: July 15, 2015
Revision due: October 15, 2015
Notification of Final Acceptance: December 15, 2016
Camera-ready paper submission deadline: January 15, 2016
Expected publication: March 2016

Guest Editors

Rafael Valencia-García, Universidad de Murcia, Spain (valencia@um.es)
Giner Alor-Hernández, Instituto Tecnológico de Orizaba, México
(galor@itorizaba.edu.mx)