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Past FASE Artifact Evaluations

FASE Artifact Evaluation 2023

As in 2022, FASE’23 will have an optional artifact evaluation for accepted papers.

The goal of the artifact evaluation is twofold. On the one hand, we want to encourage authors to provide more substantial evidence to their papers and to reward authors who create artifacts. On the other hand, we want to simplify the independent replication of results presented in the paper and to ease future comparison with existing approaches.

Artifacts of interest include (but are not limited to):

Submission of artifacts is optional. We aim to assess the artifacts themselves and not the quality of the research linked to the artifact, which has been assessed by the FASE 2023 program committee. In particular, the result of the artifact evaluation will not alter the already made paper acceptance decision. The goal of our review process is to be constructive and to improve the submitted artifacts. Only, if an artifact cannot be improved to achieve sufficient quality in the given time frame or it is inconsistent with the paper, it should be rejected. Furthermore, papers whose artifacts are successfully evaluated will be awarded one or two artifact badges.

Important Dates

Artifact Evaluation

All artifacts are evaluated by the artifact evaluation committee. Each artifact will be reviewed by at least two committee members. Reviewers will read the accepted paper and explore the artifact to evaluate how well the artifact supports the claims and results of the paper. The evaluation is based on the following questions.

The artifact evaluation is performed in the following two phases.

Test Phase

In the test phase, reviewers check if the artifact is functional, i.e., they look for setup problems (e.g., corrupted, missing files, crashes on simple examples, etc.). If any problems are detected, the authors are informed of the outcome and asked for clarification.

Assessment Phase

In the assessment phase, reviewers will try to reproduce any experiments or activities and evaluate the artifact w.r.t the questions detailed above. The final review is communicated using EasyChair.

Awarding

FASE awards the Artifacts Available and Artifacts Evaluated badges of EAPLS.

Artifacts Available and Artifacts Evaluated badges are awarded independent of each other. Authors may use all granted badges on the title page of the respective paper. Detailed guidelines for both levels are described here.

Artifact Submission

An artifact submission consists of

Please also look at the Artifact Packaging Guidelines for detailed information about the contents of the submission.

The abstract and the .pdf file of your paper must be submitted via EasyChair.

http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=fase2023

We need the checksum to ensure the integrity of your artifact. You can generate the checksum using the following command-line tools.

Linux: sha256sum <file>
Windows: CertUtil -hashfile <file> SHA256
MacOS: shasum -a 256 <file> 

If you cannot submit the artifact as requested or encounter any other difficulties in the submission process, please contact the artifact evaluation chairs prior to submission.

Artifact Packaging Guidelines

We expect that authors package their artifact (.zip file) and write their instructions such that the artifact evaluation committee can evaluate the artifact within the FASE 2023 virtual machine (see below). The artifact must contain all the required files to replicate your results in the FASE 2023 virtual machine. In particular, the artifact must include all additional software or libraries that are not part of the virtual machine and provide instructions how to install and set them up. Do not submit a virtual machine image in the .zip file. AEC members will copy your .zip file into the provided virtual machine. For further information, consider our recommendations on the artifact content.

FASE 2023 Virtual Machine

The FASE 2023 virtual machine was created with VirtualBox 6.1.40 and consists of an installation of Ubuntu 22.04.01 with Linux 5.15.0-50 and the following notable packages.

The login and password of the default user are: fase2023 / fase2023. The root user has the same password.

In order to save space, the VM does not have an active swap file. Please mention in your submission if you expect that a swap file is needed. You can activate swap for the running session using the following commands.

sudo fallocate -l 1G /swapfile
sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
sudo mkswap /swapfile
sudo swapon /swapfile

While installing BenchExec 3.13, we needed to enable cgroups v1 next to cgroups v2. If you need to disable cgroups v1, you can use the following commands and afterwards need to restart the VM.

echo 'GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="${GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT} systemd.unified_cgroup_hierarchy=1"' | sudo tee /etc/default/grub.d/cgroupsv1-for-benchexec.cfg
sudo update-grub

The artifact evaluation committee will be instructed not to download software or data from external sources. Any additional software required by your artifact must be included in the .zip file and the artifact must provide instructions for the installation.

Including Ubuntu Packages

To include an Ubuntu package in your artifact submission, you can provide a .deb file with all the necessary dependencies from inside the VM. Reviewers can then install them as follows.

sudo dpkg -i <.deb file>

You can get the necessary .deb files for example as follows:

Including OCaml Packages

You can include required OCaml packages not present in our installation via OPAM. To this end, you may want to download the packages, e.g., using the following command.

opam install --download-only --destdir=<dir> <package>

The reviewers may than use the following command to install all packages available in <dir>.

opam install <dir>

Including Python Packages

You may include the required Python packages using pip. You can get the necessary files for example as follows:

pip3 download <package>

The downloaded package can then be installed using

pip3 install <package-file>

Including Ruby Gem Packages

To provide missing Ruby Gem packages, you may download them via

gem fetch <gem>

and let the reviewer install them, e.g., via

gem install <gem-file>

Recommendations

We recommend to prepare your artifact in such a way that any computer science expert without dedicated expertise in your field can use your artifact, especially replicate your results. For example, keep the evaluation process simple, provide easy-to-use scripts and a detailed README document. Furthermore, the artifact and its documentation should be self-contained.

Next to the main artifact, i.e., data, software, libraries, scripts, etc. required to replicate the results of your paper and any additional software required by your artifact including an installation description, we recommend to include the following elements.

License File

A LICENSE file describing the rights. Your license needs to allow the artifact evaluation committee members to download and evaluate the artifact, e.g., download, use, execute, and modify the artifact for the purpose of artifact evaluation. Please refer to typical open source licenses where possible. Artifacts without an open source license are also accepted, but a type of license needs to be specified, which allows the committee to assess the artifact.

README

The README file should introduces the artifact to the user, i.e., describes what the artifact does, and guides the user through the installation, set up tests, and replication of your results. Ideally, it should consist of the following parts.

Artifact Evaluation Committee

Chairs

Members