For JSS's full CfP including information on Special Issues, Industry, Trends, and Journal First tracks please continue to read for further details.

The Journal of Systems and Software publishes papers covering all aspects of software engineering. All articles should provide evidence to support their claims, e.g. through empirical studies, simulation, formal proofs or other types of validation. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

    Methods and tools for software requirements, design, architecture, verification and validation, testing, maintenance and evolution
    Agile, model-driven, service-oriented, open source and global software development
    Approaches for cloud/fog/edge computing and virtualized systems
    Human factors and management concerns of software development
    Artificial Intelligence, data analytics and big data applied in software engineering
    Metrics and evaluation of software development resources
    DevOps, continuous integration, build and test automation
    Business and economic aspects of software development processes
    Software Engineering education
    Ethical/societal aspects of Software Engineering
    Software Engineering for AI systems
    Software Engineering for Sustainability
    Methods and tools for empirical software engineering research 

The journal welcomes reports of practical experience for all of these topics, as well as replication studies and studies with negative results. The journal appreciates the submission of systematic literature reviews, mapping studies and meta-analyses. However, these should report interesting and important results, rather than merely providing statistics on publication year, venue etc.

JSS supports Open Science and reproducible research. Therefore, authors are encouraged to make Open Science material available at the time of submission and after acceptance of their manuscript, e.g., by submitting artifacts related to a study to an archived open repository (such as arXiv.org, zenodo.org, Mendeley, etc.). Also, authors are encouraged to explicitly reference Open Science material in their manuscript (e.g., via a DOI from the open repository). If authors are not able to disclose any material (for example, industrial data subject to non-disclosure agreements), we encourage authors to explicitly acknowledge this by including a short statement in their manuscript. Depending on the type of research presented in a manuscript, Open Science material could include study protocols, (anonymized) raw or analyzed data, data analysis scripts, source code, customized tools and infrastructures, experimental material, codebooks, etc. If authors agree to participate in the JSS Open Science Initiative, after the acceptance of a manuscript, they will be invited to submit a link to Open Science material for review by the JSS Open Science Board. After a successful review (which does not impact the acceptance of the manuscript) considering availability and usability of the material, the publisher will add a statement to the final version of the manuscript acknowledging that the Open Science package was validated by the JSS Open Science Board.

In addition to regular papers, JSS features two special tracks (In Practice, New Ideas and Trends Papers), as well as special issues.

In Practice is exclusively focused on work that increases knowledge transfer from industry to research. It accepts: (1) Applied Research Reports where we invite submissions that report results (positive or negative) concerning the experience of applying/evaluating systems and software technologies (methods, techniques and tools) in real industrial settings. These comprise empirical studies conducted in industry (e.g., action research, case studies) or experience reports that may help understanding situations in which technologies really work and their impact. Submissions should include information on the industrial setting, provide motivation, explain the events leading to the outcomes, including the challenges faced, summarize the outcomes, and conclude with lessons learned, take-away messages, and practical advice based on the described experience. Contributing authors from industry are encouraged but not mandatory. (2) Practitioner Insights where we invite experience reports showing what actually happens in practical settings, illustrating the challenges (and pain) that practitioners face, and presenting lessons learned. Problem descriptions with significant details on the context, underlying causes and symptoms, and technical and organizational impact are also welcome. Practitioner insights papers may also comprise invited opinionated views on the evolution of chosen topic areas in practice. In contrast to applied research reports, practitioner insights are limited to four pages and the first author must be from industry. Finally, submissions to this track should be within scope of the journal's above topics of interest and they will be evaluated through industry-appropriate criteria for their merit in reporting useful industrial experience rather than in terms of academic novelty of research results.

New Ideas and Trends Papers

New ideas, especially those related to new research trends, emerge quickly. To accommodate timely dissemination thereof, JSS introduces the New Ideas and Trends Paper (NITP). NITPs should focus on the systems/software engineering aspects of new emerging areas, including: the internet of things, big data, cloud computing, software ecosystems, cyber-physical systems, green/sustainable systems, continuous software engineering, crowdsourcing, and the like. We distinguish two types of NITPs:

    A short paper that discusses a single contribution to a specific new trend or a new idea.
    A long paper that provides a survey of a specific trend, as well as a (possibly speculative) outline of a solution.

NITPs are not required to be fully validated, but preliminary results that endorse the merit of the proposed ideas are welcomed.

We anticipate revisiting specific new trends periodically, for instance through reflection or progress reports.
New Ideas and Trend Papers warrant speedy publication.

Special Issue proposals
To submit a proposal for a special issue please submit your proposal here to Special Issues Editors Prof. Raffaela Mirandola and Prof. Laurence Duchien. Please visit the special issue guidelines page first to review the proposal guidelines and to download the proposal template required when submitting a proposal.

Journal First Initiative

Authors of JSS accepted papers have the opportunity to present their work in those conferences that offer a Journal First track. Using this track, researchers may take the best from two worlds: ensuring high quality in the JSS publication (thorough, multi-phase review process of a long manuscript), while getting feedback from a community of experts and fostering possible collaborations during a scientific event.

Details may vary from conference to conference, but generally speaking, JSS papers to be presented in a Journal First track must report completely new research results or present novel contributions that significantly extend previous work. The ultimate decision to include a paper in the conference program is up to the conference chairs, not JSS. A JSS paper may be presented only once through a Journal First track.

As of today, the list of conferences with which JSS is collaborating, or has collaborated, through a Journal First track, is: ASE, ICSME, SANER, RE, ESEM, PROFES, and APSEC.

Special Issue on Intelligent DevOps for Performance, Sustainability, and Reliability
Submission Date: 2025-09-30

Guest editors:

Luca Traini, Assistant Professor
Department of Information Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics, University of L’Aquila, L'Aquila, Italy

Heng Li, Assistant Professor
Department of Computer and Software Engineering, Polytechnique Montreal, Montréal Quebec, Canada

Weiyi Shang, Associate Professor
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo Ontario, Canada

Special issue information:

DevOps has recently emerged as a fundamental principle in software engineering, aimed at accelerating the delivery of high-quality software through automation and seamless integration of development (Dev) and operations (Ops). Despite its clear advantages, DevOps can produce a mixed impact on software quality. On one hand, the rapid release cycles commonly associated with DevOps can conflict with the rigorous quality assurance practices needed to maintain critical runtime attributes such as performance, sustainability, and reliability. On the other hand, the close integration between development and operational activities unlocks unprecedented opportunities to enhance software quality through continuous collection, and analysis of operational data. Intelligent DevOps techniques can leverage this feedback loop to transform raw operational data into actionable insights that drive ongoing improvements in software quality. This shift is evident in emerging sub disciplines like observability—the ability to understand a system’s behavior by analyzing the monitoring data it produces, including logs, traces, and metrics– and AIOps—the application of artificial intelligence techniques to support various quality assurance tasks, such as anomaly detection, incident prediction, and root cause analysis.

This special issue aims to consolidate the latest research and advancements on the topic of Intelligent DevOps for performance, sustainability, and reliability.

The list of relevant sub-topics we aim target include:

    Observability and monitoring in DevOps pipelines, including data collection, visualization, and analysis
    Application of AIOps techniques to support quality assurance, continuous integration and deployment
    Automated anomaly detection, incident prediction, and root cause analysis
    Data-driven feedback loops for continuous improvement
    Intelligent test automation, model-based testing, and AI-driven defect prediction
    Integration of AI and data analytics tools into CI/CD pipelines and DevOps workflows
    Infrastructure as code solutions augmented by intelligent self-adaptation and performance tuning
    Methods and tools leveraging AI to enhance software quality at development time
    Techniques and frameworks for improving sustainability, such as energy-efficient builds and resource optimization that reduce environmental impact
    Model-based performance analysis and predictive modeling to proactively address capacity planning, scalability, and reliability concerns
    Leveraging large language models for automation DevOps processes
    Software architecture modeling, analysis, and adaptation informed by operational data
    Tools and methodologies for quality assurance in microservices-based systems
    Comparative evaluations, benchmarks, and empirical studies of tools, frameworks, and methodologies for quality assurance spanning the entire software delivery lifecycle

Special Issue on REFSQ 2025 - Social REsponsibility
Submission Date: 2025-11-01

Guest editors:

Anne Hess, Professor
Technical University of Applied Sciences in Würzburg-Schweinfurt, Germany

Angelo Susi, Researcher
Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy.

Special issue information:

Technological progress, increasing digitalization and emerging trends offer great potential to positively support and facilitate our everyday lives. Due to this enormous impact that technology has on our society today, it is (increasingly) important to carefully consider the impact of digital solutions on our society during development activities.Requirements engineering is a socio-technical discipline that aims to understand and analyze the needs of the stakeholders affected by the introduction of digital solutions and to communicate these needs to the development team.

This mediating role is crucial to have a major impact on the goals, capabilities, functionalities and qualities of digital solutions, taking into account the responsibility for the social impact that these solutions entail.

In the light of challenges that arise from the increasing complexity and intelligence of (AI-based) software systems and their integration into society in a responsible way, we are pleased to announce this special section of the Journal on Systems and Software on the topic of “Social REsponsibility”. This special issue particularly welcomes submissions that propose and raise awareness of requirements engineering (RE) methodologies promoting “social good”, the participatory involvement of humans /society in RE-related activities and the orientation of the design and development of “intelligent systems” towards social needs and values.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

    Value-driven requirements engineering and design addressing
    ○ Human factors and/or human values
    ○ Social values
    ○ Ethics and social norms
    Requirements engineering / design for socially responsible (AI-based) systems addressing, e.g.,
    ○ Gender / Diversity
    ○ Ethics
    ○ Explainability
    ○ Safety / Security / Privacy
    ○ Trustworthiness
    Design and evaluation of social impact
    Participatory / human-centered requirements engineering with / for society (large heterogeneous stakeholder groups)
    Responsibility, human / personal values and wellbeing in software development teams
    Experiences, case studies and solutions in the context of software development for the “social good” supporting, e.g.,
    ○ Healthcare and wellbeing
    ○ Social inclusion
    ○ Trust and collaboration in communities
    ○ Sustainability
    ○ Diversity
    ○ Voluntary work and neighborhood help

Manuscript submission information:

This special issue welcomes all submissions. Moreover, authors of the best papers from the 31st International Working Conference Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality (REFSQ) 2025 are encouraged to submit extended versions of their work. Articles must be original and not previously published or under consideration elsewhere. Submissions will be evaluated based on the originality of the problem and/or solution, the technical relevance and applicability of the ideas presented, the relevance to the Special Issue's theme, and the quality of writing and presentation.Each submission will undergo a rigorous peer-review process in accordance with the standards of the Journal of Systems and Software. Each manuscript will be reviewed by three reviewers, with additional reviewers brought in as necessary. Papers that have been previously presented at conferences are required to contain at least 30% new technical content and contributions to be considered for this issue. Authors must also provide any previously published material related to their submission along with a document outlining the improvements made for the journal extension.

As per the policy of the Journal, also the special issue is not accepting Systematic Literature Reviews, Mapping or Survey studies.

Special Issue on Software engineering teaching cases
Submission Date: 2025-12-01

Guest editors:

Professor Torgeir Dingsøyr
Department of Computer Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
torgeir.dingsoyr@ntnu.no
https://www.ntnu.edu/employees/torgeir.dingsoyr
& SimulaMet, EDOS - effective digitalisation of the public sector, Department of IT management

Professor Casper Lassenius
Department of Computer Science, Aalto University, Finland
casper.lassenius@aalto.fi
https://www.aalto.fi/en/people/casper-lassenius
& SimulaMet, EDOS - effective digitalisation of the public sector, Department of IT management

Professor Maria Paasivaara
Department of Software Engineering, School of Engineering Science, LUT University, Finland
maria.paasivaara@lut.fi
https://research.lut.fi/converis/portal/detail/Person/13753780?auxfun=&lang=en_GB
& Adjunct Professor at Aalto University, Finland

Special issue information:

Teaching cases are used in university education in many disciplines, such as information systems and project management. However, there are few published teaching cases and few signs of active use of teaching cases in the literature on software engineering education.

However, thousands of empirical case studies are informally used or have the potential to be used in software engineering education to support student-active learning with problems relevant to the profession. This form of teaching can combine a practical and a theoretical understanding of a problem. In information systems, a teaching case is described as “a narrative about an organization that faces several possible business opportunities and outcomes" (Sipior et al. 2021).

For this special issue, we seek teaching cases based on ongoing or completed empirical studies of software engineering practice that are relevant to software engineering education at the bachelor, master, or continuous education levels.

Teaching cases could be textual descriptions of situations, typically with a protagonist who has to make a choice. The written description can be supplemented with interactive material such as videos or other digital formats like links to source code repositories. A teaching case must be accompanied by a teaching note that gives information on which courses the teaching case is suitable for, the main learning objectives, and how the teaching case can be used, for example, with questions for students or tasks for student assignments. For more background on teaching cases, we refer to a reference guide from information systems (Sipior et al. 2021).

If the empirical study on which the teaching case is based has not been published, we ask for a brief account of the material used and approach in developing the teaching case as supplementary material for review. If the teaching case is based on one or more publications, please list these in the cover letter.

Teaching cases should:

    Focus on a learning objective relevant to software engineering education at bachelor, master of continuous education levels
    Be based on a recent empirical study of software engineering practice, preferably published during last three years.
    Be based on material that has been used for teaching at least once, with feedback integrated into the teaching notes.
    Be related to software architecture, requirements engineering, software development process, software quality or software project management, or other core areas in software engineering
    Consist of two parts:

        The teaching case - which can be given to students and will be published in the journal
        Teaching notes - which the authors will share with other instructors on request

The recommended length is 3 000 - 8 000 words for a teaching case, 1 000 - 4 000 words for teaching notes and a maximum 500 words for a method description as supplementary material if needed (e.g. if a research paper on the case has not been published earlier).

Teaching cases will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

    Clear connection to core concepts in software engineering
    The likelihood that the teaching case will generate a participatory learning experience and reach a learning objective
    Relevance to current software engineering practice
    Empirical basis
    The quality of the teaching notes for use by instructors

Note that we only welcome teaching cases with teaching notes as submissions, not experience reports or studies of the use of teaching cases. Submissions that are outside the scope of this call will be desk-rejected.

Manuscript submission information:

Timeline

Submission open date: 1st November 2025
Submission deadline: 1st December 2025
First review round completed: 27th February 2026
Revised manuscripts due: 24th April 2026
Second review round completed: 1st June 2026
Review and revision process completed: 28th August 2026