Welcome to the official J-Fall 2023 Call for Papers application. Only session proposals submitted through this application will be reviewed by the program committee.

If you have an interesting Java related topic that you would like to present to NLJUG members, this is your chance. A timeslot has 50 minutes. Attendees typically have intermediate to advanced Java skills and are looking for practical content to enhance their knowledge. Most valued sessions include best practices, code samples and/or live demos. Besides regular technical sessions, we are also looking for hands-on labs proposals, unconference-style sessions, keynotes, quickies and ignite sessions. Submitting multiple papers is allowed of course.

Input information

- Session format

• Technical session - a 50 minute presentation style session featuring technical content
  
• Hands-on labs (HOL) - a 120 minutes session that features self-guided lab descriptions for participants who bring their own laptops to experiment with certain technology. Typically a HOL features one or more instructors for troubleshooting.
• Unconference - a 50 minutes facilitated, participant driven session centered around a theme or purpose. This kind of session will allow for more audience interaction led by a discussion leader.
• Keynote - a 25 minute keynote for the entire audience of J-Fall.
• Byte size - a short, 16 minute talk about a technical or non-technical subject.
• Ignite session - 5 minute fast-paced session about any topic you'd like to talk about. For more information, see here: https://nljug.org/nieuws/nieuw-op-j-fall-2015-ignite-sessions/

- Tracks

• Java language - Java 11-21, Core Java APIs, Performance, Debugging, Java development tools
• Server Side Java - Server side frameworks such as Jakarta EE, Spring, Quarkus and other server side technologies.
• Alternative JVM languages - Kotlin, Scala, Groovy, Clojure - as long as it runs on a JVM ;-)
• Cloud - Cloud Native, Microservices, Serverless, Containerization
• Methodology & culture - Software Development Methodologies, Culture, CI/CD, DevOps, Soft skills, developer communities, developer productivity
• Web & mobile - Front-end development, SPA, JavaScript, TypeScript, Android, JavaFX.
• Data & machine learning - Big/Smart Data, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Streaming Data Processing.
• Security - Encryption, Defensive Practices and Programming, Privacy.
• Architecture - Howto's, strategies, techniques and best practices for getting software architecture right.
• New & Cool - Popular new technology and/or remarkable application of technology in the real world.

Tips for submitting

A regular session timeslot has 50 minutes. Attendees typically have intermediate to advanced Java skills and are looking for practical content to enhance their knowledge. Most valued sessions include best practices, code samples and/or live demos. Besides regular technical sessions, we are also looking for other session types such as hands-on labs proposals, unconference-style sessions, keynotes, byte size (16 minutes), ignite sessions and pre-conference workshops.

We are also looking for workshops for the pre-conference event (Nov 8nd, the day before the main conference, in the afternoon): Pre-conference workshop - a 4 hour, expert-level workshop.

Do you require travel/hotel expenses compensation? Please motivate.

How proposals will be judged

When the deadline has passed, the program committee are handed the session abstracts and they have to individually rate the sessions using a "five star system" (1: bad -- 5: excellent). The committee consists of two members from the NLJUG board and is complemented by seven individuals that stand out in the NLJUG and open source communities. Program committee members individually judge the session abstracts paying attention to the following criteria in no particular order:

• Is it a hot topic?
• Diversity in topics for this particular conference
• Variety in topics over conferences in the past
• Speaker credentials (pay attention to your speaker bio, especially previous speaking engagements!)
• Evaluation results for speaker from previous conferences/universities, if any
• Whatever other criteria they may find of interest (that's why they stand out, right?)
  

Finally, the committee sits together and adds up the individual ratings. Remarkably, most of the time this produces very uniform results. Still, the final cut is a tough call. If conflicts arise the NLJUG board members make the final call, but most of the time we'll manage to come to an agreement before that happens.

Fortunately for us, we do receive lots of proposals. Mostly, over four times the amount of session slots available. This means we have to disappoint people as well. Sometimes we get angry e-mails or funky phone calls in return. That's why we like to share this information with you here and manage expectations up front.

Is it an honest system? Yes, we like to think so. This way we try to eliminate all kinds of conflicts of interests. Quality content first! If you think there's anything wrong with that, or have suggestions for improvement, we would love to hear from you. Drop the program committee a line at papers@nljug.org. For more information about J-Fall, please visit https://jfall.nl.

If you have any questions regarding the call for papers, please contact papers@nljug.org.

Thanks,

NLJUG Content Team.