Does ICSE Accept the Right Contributions?

TL;DR

This study investigates whether ICSE's accepted contributions align with the field's priorities, revealing concerns about low-relevance papers and the scarcity of high-impact contributions through expert interviews.

Contribution

It provides qualitative insights into the alignment of ICSE's accepted contributions with the software engineering community's needs, based on expert opinions.

Findings

Approximately 75% of experts are dissatisfied with ICSE's alignment.

Frequent complaints include low-relevance contributions and lack of high-impact topics.

Experts highlight the need for better selection criteria to improve conference relevance.

Abstract

Background: There is a constant discussion regarding whether the ICSE Technical Research track is accepting too many contributions of some type and too few of some other type. Questions: Are ICSE and the contributions it is seeing well aligned with what is important for bringing software engineering forward? Method: 26 expert interviews with senior members of the ICSE community, evaluated qualitatively and reported with many quotations. Results: About three quarters of the respondents are not generally happy with ICSE's alignment. Two specific complaints that recur frequently concern a) many low-relevance contributions making it into the program and b) several types of high-relevance contributions hardly seen in the ICSE program.