LowCode 2023

4th International Workshop on Modeling in Low-Code Development Platforms
At the MODELS conference, 3 October 2023, Västerås, Sweden

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The growing need for secure, trustworthy, and cost-efficient software as well as recent developments in cloud computing technologies, and the shortage of highly skilled professional software developers, have given rise to a new generation of low-code software development platforms, such as Google AppMaker (soon AppSheet) and Microsoft PowerApps. Low-code platforms enable the development and deployment of fully functional applications using mainly visual abstractions and interfaces and requiring little or no procedural code. This makes them accessible to an increasingly digital-native and tech-savvy workforce who can directly and effectively contribute to the software development process, even if they lack a programming background.

At the heart of low-code applications are typically models of the structure, the behaviour and the presentation of the application. Low-code application models need to be edited (using graphical and textual interfaces), validated, version-controlled and eventually transformed or interpreted to deliver user-facing applications.

As all of these activities have been of core interest to the MODELS community over the last two decades, a workshop on low-code software development at MODELS is a natural fit and an opportunity to bring together model-driven and low-code platform vendors, researchers and users, with substantial benefits to be reaped from all sides.

The objectives of the workshop are to:

  • bring together developers and users of low-code platforms with model-driven engineering researchers and practitioners;
  • explore the technologies that power contemporary low-code platforms;
  • identify the open challenges that vendors and users of low-code platforms face
  • identify solutions from the model-driven engineering community that could be ported/adapted in the context of low-code development

Topics of interest

Topics of interest to the workshop include:

  • Technologies underpinning low-code platforms
  • Comparisons of classical MDE tools and low-code platforms
  • Low-code development platforms as a service
  • Citizen/end-user software development
  • Recommender systems for low-code platforms
  • Graphical and textual cloud-based editors
  • Repositories of low-code development artefacs
  • Low-code platforms for data-driven applications
  • Low-code development for and from mobile devices
  • Interoperability issues between low-code platforms
  • Automation support in low-code platforms
  • Scalability in low-code development
  • Collaborative low-code development
  • Empirical studies on using low-code platforms

Submissions

Two kinds of papers are solicited: regular papers (10 pp including references), and position papers (5 pp including references). All submissions will follow a single-blind review process. Contributions should present novel research ideas (even if at a preliminary development stage), challenging problems, and practical contributions to the domain. Industrial experience reports or case studies related to the development or use of low-code development platforms in industrial settings are also solicited. All papers must be written in English.

Submissions must adhere to the IEEE formatting instructions, which can be found here. LaTeX users need to follow the IEEE LaTeX instructions and use the 8.5 x 11 2-column LaTeX Template. Overleaf users need to use the IEEE Conference Template. Note the information on how to use the LaTeX Bibliography Files. Word users need to use the 8.5 x 11 2-column Word Template, and choose Times New Roman for the text, author information, and section headings, and Helvetica for the paper title.

Accepted papers will be included in the MODELS joint workshop proceedings, published by the IEEE. The joint proceedings will include an opening message from the organizers, the workshop program committee, and all regular and position papers presented in the workshop.

Paper can be submitted via Easy Chair using the following link:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=lowcode2023

Workshop program

08:30 - 10:00 Session 1: Low-code fundamentals
  • In Search of The Essence of No-Code – Elements of Data Modeling. Jean-Marie Favre, Raquel Araujo de Oliveira, Jean-Sébastien Sottet, Marc Quast
  • Navigating the Low-Code Landscape: A Comparison of Development Platforms. Jörg Christian Kirchhof, Nico Jansen, Bernhard Rumpe, Andreas Wortmann
  • Bridging Workflow Automation Tools and EMF Modeling Ecosystems (short paper). Adiel Tuyishime, Ludovico Iovino, Francesco Basciani, Jordi Cabot, Javier Luis Cánovas Izquierdo, Alfonso Pierantonio
  • Model and Data Differences in an Enterprise Low-Code Platform. Arvid Butting, Timo Greifenberg, Katrin Hölldobler, Timo Kehrer
10:00-10:30 Coffee break
10:30 - 12:00 Session 2: Low-code applications
  • Performance and Scalability of DMN-Based LCNC Platforms (short paper). Octavian Patrascoiu
  • A Low-Code Approach for Data View Extraction from Engineering Models with GraphQL (short paper). István Koren, Nico Jansen, Judith Michael, Bernhard Rumpe, Enno Böse
  • Readly - Books rating Low-Code Platform. Bruno Nascimento, Rui Santos, Steven Abrantes, Carlos Quental
  • A Performant Low-Code System for the Timely Implementation of Road Safety Regulations (short paper). Lars Westermann, Johannes Mey, René Schöne, Uwe Aßmann
12:00-13:30 Lunch Break
13:30 - 15:00 Session 3: Keynote, discussion and wrap-up
  • Keynote - Low-Code: How Low Can You Go? Steven Kelly
  • Discussion and wrap-up.

Keynote

Steven Kelly. Low-Code: How Low Can You Go?

Abstract: We will start with a quick look at the Low-Code market of today. To give us a handle on how we got here and where things might go in the future, we will look at the evolution of computers, programmers and their tools. This will take us from very lowest level of John von Neumann’s day, right up to the very highest level of the tools of today – and tomorrow. As with even the best-planned journeys, this will be less linear than we might think. History progresses along more than one dimension, and any single perspective is deceptive. Together though we might find that we know more than we thought – and have more room to grow than we assumed.

Bio: Steven Kelly is the CTO of MetaCase and co-founder of the DSM Forum. As architect and lead developer of MetaEdit+, he has over thirty years of experience of building tools for Domain-Specific Modeling, consulting on language design, and helping customers move from writing code to generating it. He is author of a book on DSM and over 100 articles, most recently in journals such as IEEE Software, Computer Languages and OBJEKTspektrum. Ever present on the program committee of the OOPSLA/SPLASH workshops on Domain-Specific Modeling, he co-organized the first workshop in 2001. He has an Master’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Cambridge, and a Ph.D. from the University of Jyväskylä. His computer education began with BASIC, machine code, and Assembler, and came to rest in Smalltalk. Outside of work he is a soccer player in increasingly high-numbered divisions of the Finnish football league.

Important Dates

  • Deadline for abstracts: July 10, 2023
  • Deadline for submissions: July 17, 2023
  • Notification of authors: Aug 15, 2023
  • Camera-ready deadline: Aug 22, 2023
  • Workshop date: Oct 3, 2023

Organisers

Program Committee

  • Alessandra Bagnato
    (Softeam, France)
  • Antonio Cicchetti
    (Maalardalen University, Sweden)
  • Federico Ciccozzi
    (Maalardalen University, Sweden)
  • Juri Di Rocco
    (University of L'Aquila, Italy)
  • Antonio Garcia-Dominguez
    (University of York, UK)
  • Faezeh Khorram
    (Huawei, France)
  • Hugo Lourenço
    (OutSystems, Portugal)
  • Pedro Molina
    (MetaDev, Spain)
  • Jean-Marie Mottu
    (University of Nantes, France)
  • Joost Noppen
    (BT Research and Innovation, UK)
  • Alfonso Pierantonio
    (University of L'Aquila, Italy)
  • Maria Teresa Rossi
    (GSSI, Italy)
  • Adrian Rutle
    (Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway)
  • Matthias Tichy
    (University of Ulm, Germany)