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 research track / co-located track / sibling venue / journal, with a one-line reason

Run this before the writing skills; a wrong venue decision wastes every later step. When the verdict is ASE, continue with ase-workflow for the calendar and ase-writing-style for the paper shape.