Ex-ASE 2025: 1st International Workshop on Explainable Automated Software Engineering: Exploring Theory, Adaptation, Needs, Challenges, and Ethics 40th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, ASE 2025 Seoul, South Korea, November 16, 2025 |
| Submission link | https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=exase2025 |
As automation becomes increasingly central to software engineering and software-dependent domains, the need for systems that can explain their behavior has never been more urgent. The 1st International Workshop on Explainable Automated Software Engineering (Ex-ASE) addresses this challenge by providing a focused venue for research at the intersection of automation, explainability, and trustworthy software systems. The workshop seeks to explore how explanations can be systematically integrated into automated software processes—ranging from requirements engineering to testing and deployment—and how explainability can support transparency, accountability, and human understanding in domains such as cyber-physical systems, digital health, and autonomous vehicles. Ex-ASE aims to bring together researchers and practitioners to define research agendas, showcase tools, and foster collaboration on human-centered, ethically grounded, and technically robust approaches to explainable automation. The program will include keynotes, paper presentations, tool demonstrations, and breakout sessions, designed to create a dynamic and interactive forum co-located with ASE 2025.
Submission Guidelines
All papers must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference. The following paper categories are welcome:
- Full papers (up to 10 pages, excluding references): Presenting mature research, empirical results, or in-depth case studies.
- Short Papers (up to 6 pages, excluding references): Early-stage work, novel ideas, or position papers intended to stimulate discussion.
- Demonstration Papers (up to 6 pages, excluding references): Describing tools, frameworks, or systems. Submissions should include a brief demo description; accepted demos will be given live presentation slots.
All submissions will be reviewed by at least two members of the Program Committee. Evaluation criteria include technical quality, relevance, clarity, and potential to spark discussion. EasyChair will be used to manage submissions and reviews. Submissions must follow the IEEE conference format(\textbackslash documentclass[10pt,conference]\{IEEEtran\})
List of Topics
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Explainability in requirements engineering, traceability, and software design
- Explanations for automated testing, static/dynamic analysis, and program repair
- Human-in-the-loop explainability for automated development workflows
- Context-aware and stakeholder-specific explanation generation
- Tool support for explaining model-driven or AI-based automation
- Evaluation methods and metrics for explanation quality and impact
- Explainability in SE4AI and AI4SE approaches
- Explanations in software-dependent domains: CPS, IoT, robotics, digital health
- Legal, ethical, and societal aspects of software transparency and accountability
- Case studies and applications of explainable automation in software engineering
Committees
Program Committee
- TDB
Organizing committee
- Mersedeh Sadeghi
- Livia Lestingi
- Alireza Javadian Sabet
- Marjan Hosseini
Steering Committee
- Prof. Andreas Vogelsang, University of Duisburg-Essen,Germany
- Prof. Raffaela Mirandola, Karlsruhe Institute for Tech-nology, Germany
- Prof. Matteo Camilli, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
- Prof. Morgan Frank, University of Pittsburgh, USA
- Prof. Matteo Rossi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Invited Speakers
- TBD
Publication
All submissions will be reviewed by at least two members of the Program Committee. Evaluation criteria include technical quality, relevance, clarity, and potential to spark discussion. EasyChair will be used to manage submissions and reviews. Submissions must follow the IEEE conference format(\textbackslash documentclass[10pt,conference]\{IEEEtran\})
Accepted papers will be published in the official IEEE companion proceedings for ASE 2025 Workshops.
Venue
Ex-ASE 2025 is collocated with the 40th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2025)
Seoul, Republic of Korea, Sunday 16 – Thursday 20 November 2025
The exact date of the workshop (either Sunday, 16 November or Thursday, 20 November) will be determined by the ASE 2025 workshop organizers and announced in due course.
Contact
Mersedeh Sadeghi – mersedeh [dot] sadeghi [at] uni-koeln [dot] de
Alireza Javadian Sabet – alj112 [at] pitt [dot] edu