From Research to Teaching Formal Methods - The B Method
TFM B'2010 (3rd edition)

>>   7 June 2010   <<  Nantes France Call for Participation[file ]

Invited speakers

• Pierre Casteran (Proving with Coq and B, LaBRI Bordeaux, FR)
• Jean-Raymond Abrial (Event B, Marseille, FR)

In 2010 the University of Nantes will be holding an extensive series of no less than 20 one-day conferences in a wide range of subjects from science and technology,  biology and health, and human and social sciences. These will all take place at the impressive large modern purpose-built venue of the "Cité Internationale des Congrès" in the centre of Nantes, and are expected to attract up to 1750 participants altogether. Within such a context the above one-day conference on the B Method will be held on 7 June 2010.
The first B conference took place in Nantes during November 1996 and was followed by the Montpellier (FR), York (FR), Grenoble (FR), Turku (FI), Guilford and Besancon(FR), London (UK, 2008), Oreford (CA, 2009) Conferences. During the conferences of Montpellier and Grenoble, education sessions were held with published proceedings. The APCB Association (International B Conferences Steering Committee) organised meetings in Paris and in Nantes. The Nantes meeting was devoted to teaching. But since a few years, there was no specific meeting dedicated to teaching B.
Software Engineering research must lead to put it into practice. For that, it is necessary to use teaching, teaching that must conciliate the basics and the practice. We may consider two principal arguments in favour of teaching the B method: First, the B method and his concepts can be considered as having an essential pedagogical interest even if this method is not used. The B method is an industrial method which reaches the industrialisation level going from specification to programming. There are several examples of concrete applications and an active community involving academy and industry around the B (see Rodin Platform for example).

In this 2010 edition we also encourage the submission of papers describing teaching experiments based on other tool-equipped formal methods that are used in industry and that help in adopting formal methods in curricula.
We anticipate a rich exchange of experiments on teaching formal method, in particular the B method. We would like to cover various works going from the elaboration of courses till the teachning materials and the evaluation of students and teachers themselves. Previous invited speakers are J-R. Abrial (2008), M. Leuschel (2009).

The "Journées Scientifiques" Web URL is
http://www.univ-nantes.fr/js2010
The "blog" Web URL is
http://teachingbconference.blogspot.com/

Topics

The topics of interest for TFM B'2010 include but are not limited to:

• Tool-equipped formal methods
• Teaching environments for the B method
• Teaching environment for model-based formal methods
• The B method in the software engineering curriculum
• Tool support for software engineering with the B method
• Experiences with FM teaching using B and other Formal methods
• Combining the B method with other approaches
• Comparative studies on teaching formal methods
• Case studies and exercises featuring the B method
• Use of the B method in disciplines other than software engineering
• New advances in the B method and their incorporation into the teaching curriculum

Papers must be written in English and must not exceed 15 pages. LNCS-style templates are available.
Papers must be submitted by 7 of April 2010 by email with an abstract in plain text and the paper itself as a PDF attachment, to bdays@univ-nantes.fr with the subject "TFM_B Submission".
All accepted papers should be presented during the 1-day workshop.

Important dates

Organisation

Supported by: Association de Pilotage des Conférences B / B Conferences Steering Committee