Introduction

In previous OOPSLAs, experience reports have been a great success, and they generally attract the attention of a large segment of OOPSLA participants. It is our hope that OOPSLA ‘96 will continue the same tradition and introduce a strong and valuable track for OOPSLA '96 attendees.

Experience reports are short presentations by practitioners sharing their experiences in developing object-oriented applications and introducing object technology in their organizations. Experience reports are selected for their general interest, diversity, new or novel slant, and willingness by the presenters to share technical information. Experience reports may describe internal applications or commercial product developments. However, it is inappropriate for an experience report to have any commercial sales content.

The best proposals generally describe projects that have achieved some major milestone, reached a point of completion, or have been terminated. Early or premature results, with promise of being completed by OOPSLA generally are not appropriate for this forum. Also, experience reports should not cover specific details or techniques that more appropriately might be covered in a conference paper.

The requirements for submission this year differ slightly than those of previous ones. Successful proposals must identify two or three issues that represent the valuable contribution that the authors will present if the proposal is accepted. General conclusions such as "teams must be small", "interaction between team members is essential", "the use of a methodology helped the development", etc. will not be accepted as a valuable contribution to the experience report track this year.

Experience report proposals should be brief but to the point (not less than 4 and not more than 8 pages). The proposal must include a brief description of the overall development life cycle. This implies that if the experience is based on a prototype development or research in progress, then it is not suitable for this year’s Experience Reports track; a demonstration or a poster might be a more suitable forum. The proposal should articulate concisely the issues that will be presented to improve the chances of considering the report for further evaluation and review. The proposal must also include the specific lessons and insights gained in tackling the issues under consideration.

Because of publication schedule constraints, proposal must also include an abstract (in a separate sheet) of no more than 300 words suitable for publication in the advanced program in case the proposal is accepted. Authors of accepted experience reports are required to submit their presentation material to the Experience report Chair for review prior to the conference and according to the attached schedule.

It is important to note that the review process of experience reports include personal interview with the potential presenters; thus proposals must include contact information of the person(s) who will be presenting the report if accepted. Contact information must include name, affiliation, address, electronic mail, phone and fax numbers where the presenter can be reached to answer further questions.

Deadlines and Submission Media

Proposals can be submitted via regular mail, e-mail, or by fax. However, a hard copy must be also mailed via air mail in case the quality of the fax or difficulty in printing the e-mail make it impossible to review the proposal.