December Letter from SIGSOFT Chair
Dear SE Community,
Our thanks.
Our thanks to organizers of Fall SIGSOFT (co)-sponsored conferences: MODELS (together with EDTconf), ESEM, SPLC and ASE. For MODELS, let us especially acknowledge the work of Marouane Kessentini (General Chair), Shaukat Ali and Hourari Sahraoui (MODELS Program Co-Chairs), and Romina Eramo, Steffen Zschaler and Manuel Wimmer (EDTconf Program Co-Chairs). For ESEM, we thank Daniel Port (General Chair) as well as Valentina Lenarduzzi and Fabio Q.B. da Silva (Technical Program Co-chairs). For SPLC, we thank Miguel R. Leaves (General Chair) as well as Sandra Greiner and Jose Galindo (Research Track Co-Chairs). Last but certainly not least, we thank Shin Yoo (General Chair) as well as Marcel Bohme and Lingming Zhang (Program Co-Chairs) who presided over the largest ever ASE conference, with over 1000 registered participants. Congratulations and thank you all for your outstanding service!
ACM Open Update and Reminders.
SIGSOFT reminds the community that ACM will transition to full Open Access on January 1, 2026, at which point authors will have two publishing options: through their institution’s ACM Open agreement or by paying Article Processing Charges (APC). Currently, over 1,800 institutions participate in ACM Open, covering approximately 70–75% of SIGSOFT papers.
For 2026, ACM is providing temporary subsidized rates of $250 for ACM/SIG members and $350 for non-members (a 65% discount). Additional waivers are available based on country income levels. SIGSOFT will further subsidize by making all short papers (1–5 pages) free to publish across all SIGSOFT events in 2026. Additional detail on waivers and other support ACM and SIGSOFT are providing in this transition is available in the summary of the ICSE 2025 town Hall.
Welcome to new volunteers.
SIGSOFT is a fully volunteer organization. We thank all volunteers who have made the many SIGSOFT initiatives (awards, summer/winter schools, webinars, CAPS program, conferences and so much more) a success. We also welcome new volunteers and new initiatives:
SIGSOFT history committee: Will Tracz, Tony Wasserman, Luca Di Grazia, Yun Peng, Thomas Zimmerman, Massimiliano Di Penta, Marsha Chechik
SIGSOFT ACM Digital Library liaisons: Xiaoning Du and Zhang Tao
SIGSOFT conference program committee member recognition coordinators: Sylvain Hallé and Yepang Liu
Research Highlights coordinator: Silvia Abrahão
I look forward to working with you!
POSTER-FIRST at ASE.
The International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2025) experimented this year a “poster-first” format, in which some tracks (research and new ideas) had short talks (10 min., including questions), yet authors from all tracks had the opportunity to present their work in 2.5-hour poster sessions where they engaged with all other participants. Based on some informal feedback from multiple attendees and from the General Chair, the event was very successful.
Webinars.
ACM SIGSOFT hosted two seminars this Fall: “Quantum Software Engineering: Building Dependable Software for Quantum Computers” by Shaukat Ali (Simula Research Laboratory, Norway) and “Software Developer Accountability in the AI Era” by Neil Ernst (University of Victoria, Canada). For more information about upcoming SIGSOFT webinars, please see https://www2.sigsoft.org/activities/webinarsmain/. If you are interested in presenting a webinar, please check our page for prospective presenters (https://www2.sigsoft.org/activities/webinarspresenter/) to find out how.
See you in Brazil! Happy holidays in the meantime!
Marsha Chechik
Chair, SIGSOFT
