/ase-topic-selection

name: ase-topic-selection
description: Use when deciding whether a software-engineering project belongs at ASE (IEEE/ACM Automated Software Engineering) or should be routed to ICSE, ESEC/FSE, ISSTA, a PL venue, or an SE journal, and when distinguishing ASE by its automation-centric contribution shape, its tool/technique emphasis, and its AI4SE/SE4AI scope.

ASE Topic Selection

Decide the venue before drafting. ASE — the **IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering** — is the home for research that **automates** software-engineering tasks: the analysis, design, implementation, testing, comprehension, and maintenance of software, and increasingly the two-way street of AI for SE and SE for AI. Its reviewers read for a **technique or tool that automates something**, evaluated on real subjects. A paper whose real center is a broad empirical observation, a testing-theory result, or a pure ML advance is respected and then rejected as off-center.

The routing question that matters most

The decisive ASE question is not "is this SE?" but **"is the contribution an *automation* — a technique or tool that does an SE task a human or a weaker tool did before?"** If the beating heart of the paper is a new automated mechanism (an analysis, a generator, a synthesizer, a repair technique, a learned model applied to an SE task), ASE is a natural home. If the heart is a finding, a theory, or a measurement study, a sibling fits better — even when the topic overlaps.

Sibling-venue routing table

| Signal in your project | Better home | Why | |---|---|---| | Core is a technique/tool that **automates** an SE task, evaluated on real systems | **ASE** | Automated software engineering is its named center; dual IEEE/ACM, IEEE-Xplore+ACM-DL proceedings | | Broad empirical or foundational SE contribution; the lesson is a finding, not a tool | **ESEC/FSE** | The general-SE flagship; PACMSE journal model, empirical breadth | | Equally broad SE technique, but ICSE's cycle/stage fits and you want its reach | **ICSE** | The other general-SE flagship; different calendar and (IEEE-side) format | | Depth in testing theory, program analysis foundations, or fault detection | **ISSTA** | Deeper testing/analysis expertise, round-based reviewing | | The automated mechanism *is* a program-language/compiler advance | **PLDI / OOPSLA / POPL** | PL venues own the language-mechanism contribution | | The contribution is a new model/architecture; the SE task is a benchmark | **an ML venue** | Model-as-contribution routes out of SE | | Study too long or too nuanced for the page budget | **TSE / TOSEM / EMSE** | Journals with no page ceiling; some feed ASE's Journal-First track |

Contribution shapes ASE rewards

• **Technique + tool + evaluation on real subjects** — a new analysis, test-generation, synthesis,

repair, or comprehension technique, embodied in a tool and run on real systems against credible *tool* baselines (the TestEra / runtime-monitoring lineage in the exemplars library).

• **Automated technique with a disciplined empirical evaluation** — pairing an automatic method with

an honest comparison and effectiveness metric (the Tarantula fault-localization lineage).

• **Learning-based automation with the SE task as the point** — learned code representations or

models applied to a real SE task, where the *task* result, not the architecture, is the contribution (the code-clone-detection lineage).

• **AI4SE / SE4AI** — using AI to automate SE tasks, or applying SE automation to build, test, and

maintain AI/ML systems; a growing ASE center of gravity.

• **Tooling infrastructure and datasets** — often routed to the co-located **Tools and Datasets**

track when the contribution is a usable artifact more than a research claim.

The model-swap and re-label tests

Two quick tests sharpen a borderline verdict:

• **Model-swap test:** if your paper leans on an LLM or learner, ask whether the automation still

stands as a contribution when the model is swapped. If the design (the analysis, the coupling, the oracle) survives, it is ASE-shaped; if only the model result remains, route to an ML venue.

• **Re-label test:** could this be submitted to FSE unchanged and read as a broad empirical SE

paper, or to ISSTA as a testing-depth paper? If its heart is *automation machinery*, ASE fits; if its heart is a finding or testing theory, route accordingly.

Which co-located track fits

• **Research Papers** — a full technique/tool contribution with real-subject evaluation.
• **NIER (New Ideas and Emerging Results)** — a bold new direction not yet backed by a full

evaluation (4 pages): groundbreaking, reflection, or late-breaking-advances.

• **Tools and Datasets** — a usable tool or dataset as the contribution (short, demo-oriented).
• **Journal-First** — work already accepted at TSE/TOSEM/EMSE (after 1 Jan 2025) presented at ASE.
• **Industry Showcase / Doctoral Symposium** — practitioner results and PhD-stage work.

Cheap reconnaissance before committing

[Scope]   scan the last two ASE programs (dblp conf/kbse, conf.researchr.org) for your subarea
          -> 3+ recent papers = a reviewer pool exists; 0 = opening or mismatch
[Shape]   is your contribution a runnable automation, or a finding/theory? -> automation => ASE
[Citations] majority SE-automation venues (ASE/ICSE/FSE/ISSTA)? -> majority non-SE => naturalize first
[Calendar] compare the next ASE deadline with ICSE/FSE/ISSTA/journal dates -> nearest honest fit

Decision procedure

[Audience] who runs your automation if the claim holds? -> SE developers/testers/maintainers/tool-builders?
[Claim type] technique+tool / automated-technique+evaluation / learning-based automation / AI4SE-SE4AI
[Automation test] is a runnable mechanism the contribution? -> yes => ASE; no => FSE/ISSTA/PL/ML
[Track check] full technique -> Research; bold early idea -> NIER; usable tool -> Tools & Datasets
[Verdict] ASE