CS2125 Paper Review Form - Winter 2018

Reviewer: Laura Walsh

Paper Title: Model-Driven Engineering for Mission-Critical IoT Systems

Author(s): Ciccozzi, F., Crnkovic, I., Di Ruscio, D., Malavolta, I., Pelliccione, P., Spalazzese, R

1) Is the paper technically correct?
 [x] Yes
 [ ] Mostly (minor flaws, but mostly solid)
 [ ] No

2) Originality
 [ ] Very good (very novel, trailblazing work)
 [x] Good 
 [ ] Marginal (very incremental)
 [ ] Poor (little or nothing that is new)

3) Technical Depth
 [ ] Very good (comparable to best conference papers)
 [ ] Good (comparable to typical conference papers)
 [x] Marginal depth
 [ ] Little or no depth

4) Impact/Significance
 [ ] Very significant
 [ ] Significant
 [x] Marginal significance.
 [ ] Little or no significance.

5) Presentation
 [ ] Very well written
 [ ] Generally well written
 [x] Readable
 [ ] Needs considerable work
 [ ] Unacceptably bad

6) Overall Rating
 [ ] Strong accept (award quality)
 [ ] Accept (high quality - would argue for acceptance)
 [x] Weak Accept (borderline, but lean towards acceptance)
 [ ] Weak Reject (not sure why this paper was published)


7) Summary of the paper's main contribution and rationale
   for your recommendation. (1-2 paragraphs)

This paper gives an overview of the challenges experienced in the domain of Mission-Critical Internet of Things devices and how they can be addressed using techniques from the field of model driven engineering. Since the MC-IoT field is in its infancy, it is important for such types of research to be conducted in order to help shape the standards for software development of these systems.

This article identifies a meaningful area of study that is worth committing more research to, but in general the paper itself is quite vague. This paper's main contribution is the link it makes between the two fields (MC-IoT and MDE), but it falls short on offering concrete solutions to the challenges it exposes. The paper is, in general, not very well written. There are some grammatical errors and the language used is not very effective in expressing the authors' ideas. Though the paper itself is not written in a way which is optimally effective in communicating specific ideas, it does succeed in generally highlighting the parallel between MC-IoT and MDE.


8) List 1-3 strengths of the paper.  (1-2 sentences each,
identified as S1, S2, S3.)

S1. The paper identifies a potentially useful application of Model Driven Engineering to the field of Mission-Critical Internet of Things systems. The paper finds success in bringing this connection to light. The authors give a good explanation of the general areas in which MDE techniques would be helpful in tackling the challenges experienced in the MC-IoT domain.


9) List 1-3 weaknesses of the paper (1-2 sentences each,
identified as W1, W2, W3.)

W1. Vague language is used throughout the paper. Words which do not add meaning to the concepts being described are used, and they do not add to the overall understanding of the paper.

W2. Not enough concrete examples are given for what exactly consistutes a "mission-critical" Internet of Things system. One example is given (surveillance system aided by IoT devices) but more examples would have been very helpful (ideally right at the start of the paper).

W3. The ways in which modelling can be used in the creation of MC-IoT devices is not explained very concretely. The general areas where MDE techniques can be helpful are identified, but there is not much depth in the explanations of which specific MDE approaches can address specific MC-IoT challenges.