International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM)

Conference positioning

International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM) is a top computer-science conference venue for empirical SE, measurement, experiments, qualitative methods, surveys, and evidence synthesis. It rewards an empirical SE paper where study design, validity, and measurement are the main bar. Treat this skill as a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool for conference submission strategy, not as a substitute for the current year's CFP, author kit, ethics policy, or submission portal.

Because CS conferences change deadlines, templates, page limits, review workflow, artifact rules, AI-use policy, and rebuttal formats every cycle, always verify the live official instructions before making a submission-ready recommendation. Start from the official source anchor recorded for this venue in ../../resources/conference-roster.md and ../../resources/official-source-map.md.

When to trigger

• The author names ESEM / International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement as the target venue.
• A manuscript in empirical SE needs a conference-fit read before being formatted or submitted.
• The paper must be re-framed from journal style or arXiv style into a selective CS conference narrative.
• The author needs an evidence-gap, anonymity, artifact, rebuttal, or re-routing diagnosis for this venue.

Scope & topic fit

• Core fit: empirical SE, measurement, experiments, qualitative methods, surveys, and evidence synthesis.
• Best submissions make a precise contribution type visible: algorithm, theorem, system, dataset, benchmark, empirical finding, design artifact, tool, or socio-technical analysis.
• The paper should explain why the result matters to ESEM's reviewers, not just why it is interesting to the authors' lab or product context.
• Position related work against the most recent conference-cycle papers in this venue and its closest siblings; stale comparisons are a common early-review weakness.
• If the contribution is interdisciplinary, state which part is CS research and which part is domain evidence.

Venue-specific calibration

• Reviewer lens: Treat ESEM as a empirical software engineering venue whose reviewers expect the scope and evidence to match its own community. Do not submit a generic CS paper until the introduction names the exact subcommunity, contribution type, and proof or empirical standard.
• Contribution hook to foreground: the venue-specific contribution bar.
• Scope vocabulary to use naturally in the abstract and introduction: empirical SE, measurement, experiments, qualitative methods, surveys, and evidence synthesis.
• Distinctive fingerprint for reviewer calibration: empirical, measurement, experiments, qualitative, methods, surveys, evidence, synthesis, venue-specific, contribution, software, engineering, conf, researchr.
• Official anchor domain: conf.researchr.org. Quote annual rules only after opening that source and the current-year CFP/author kit.

Close-neighbor routing guardrail

• Use this profile only when the manuscript's central contribution is genuinely in empirical software engineering and the author can say why ESEM reviewers are the primary audience, not merely a convenient deadline.
• Closest roster neighbors to compare before final routing: mining-software-repositories (MSR), ieee-international-conference-on-software-analysis-evolution-and-reengineering (SANER), acm-sigplan-international-conference-on-functional-programming (ICFP), international-conference-on-computer-aided-verification (CAV). Break ties by contribution type, evidence shape, reviewer community, and the current official CFP from conf.researchr.org.

ESEM-specific routing detail

• Prefer ESEM when the contribution is the empirical design: measurement validity, replicated evidence, developer behavior, software-process inference, qualitative coding, survey methodology, benchmark construction, or evidence synthesis.
• Use VRST only when the novelty is a VR/immersive system itself; a study of how developers build VR systems can fit ESEM, but an interactive VR technique needs VRST, CHI, UIST, or IEEE VR framing.
• Compare against MSR for repository-mining evidence, ICSE/FSE for broader software-engineering contribution, SANER for maintenance/evolution emphasis, and TOSEM/EMSE when the study needs journal-scale methods detail.

Method & evidence bar

• Use real programs, benchmarks, proofs, developer studies, or artifacts matched to the contribution type.
• For tools, report usability, scalability, false positives/negatives, and reproducible artifact details.
• For theory, provide precise definitions and complete proofs; for empirical SE, foreground validity threats.
• For ESEM, the evidence must support the venue-specific signature: an empirical SE paper where study design, validity, and measurement are the main bar.
• Include limitations, negative results, compute/resource reporting, data provenance, and ethics details when they affect the claim.

Structure & house style

• State the software-engineering or language problem in terms of developer, program, proof, or runtime consequence.
• Keep examples small but nontrivial, then scale evidence to realistic code or formal benchmarks.
• Use the current official template exactly; do not guess page limits, font sizes, supplement rules, anonymity exceptions, or camera-ready requirements from old cycles.
• The introduction should answer: problem, why now, what is new, why this venue, and what evidence proves the claim.
• Put the strongest result in the main paper, not only in the appendix or supplement; reviewers should not have to reconstruct the contribution.

Official-cycle checklist

• Open the live official venue page: https://conf.researchr.org/series/esem
• Re-check the current cycle's CFP, author kit, submission system, abstract/paper deadlines, page limits, supplementary-material rules, anonymity policy, dual-submission policy, ethics policy, AI-use policy, artifact/code/data expectations, rebuttal/author-response format, and camera-ready requirements.
• Confirm the review workflow and portal: OpenReview / CMT / HotCRP / PCS / START or society portal, as specified for the current cycle.
• Check whether accepted papers require in-person presentation, separate registration, artifact badges, proceedings copyright, or post-acceptance release forms.
• If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.

Pre-submission self-check

• One sentence states why this manuscript belongs at ESEM, using the venue's scope rather than generic "top conference" language.
• The claim is calibrated to the evidence: no broader than the datasets, proofs, systems, user studies, deployments, or threat model support.
• Related work includes the nearest current-cycle empirical software engineering papers and explains the technical delta.
• The paper satisfies the current official template, anonymity, ethics, artifact, and rebuttal requirements.
• The main paper is self-contained enough for reviewers to evaluate novelty and correctness without hunting through external links.

Common desk-reject triggers

• Toy examples with no evidence on real programs or benchmarks.
• Tool paper without artifact clarity or comparison to current systems.
• Empirical claims without validity analysis or reproducible data pipeline.
• Formatting, anonymity, dual-submission, external-link, or supplement violations under the current-year policy.
• A contribution framed for a neighboring field while giving ESEM reviewers too little technical or empirical substance.

Re-routing decision

If the paper misses ESEM's bar, compare against international-conference-on-software-engineering / acm-international-conference-on-the-foundations-of-software-engineering / ieee-acm-international-conference-on-automated-software-engineering / acm-sigplan-conference-on-programming-language-design-and-implementation. Re-route based on contribution type, not prestige: theory to a theory venue, systems to a systems venue, application-heavy work to a domain venue, and early ideas to workshops or shorter tracks when the official CFP supports them.

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM)
[Contribution type] algorithm / theory / system / dataset / benchmark / empirical / design / security / other
[Main evidence gap] <single most important missing proof, experiment, study, artifact, or policy check>
[Official items to re-check] CFP / author kit / deadline / format / anonymity / ethics / AI-use / artifact / rebuttal / camera-ready
[Top rejection risk] <venue-specific risk>
[Re-route suggestion] <better-matched conference or journal if not a fit>