This JOT special section presents 4 carefully selected and extended papers from the third edition of the International Conference on Model Transformations (ICMT), held in Málaga in June / July 2010. The conference itself was extremely well attended, where lively discussions triggered new work which we are sure will have an important impact in the coming years. The papers in this special section are no small part of that.
At the time of writing, ICMT has just finished its fourth edition in Zürich; proof — if any is needed — of the importance of model transformations to software modelling. Model transformations were originally thought unimportant; then begrudgingly hacked together from whatever tools were at hand; and gradually, as their importance was realised, dedicated theories and languages were then developed. The papers in this special section cover a wide part of the model transformations spectrum, showing how much progress this community has made in a relatively short space of time.
ICMT prides itself on transparency. The 2010 edition received 63 abstracts, which yielded 58 full submissions, of which 17 were eventually accepted — a 29% acceptance rate. Every paper was reviewed by at least three Programme Committee members. The resulting paper discussion and selection process was lively and detailed, reflecting the strength of the submissions. Of those 17 papers, the 4 most highly rated were then invited to submit to this special section. Each paper was reviewed by at least 2 of its original referees to ensure that it represented a substantial advance over the conference version; new referees were also used to ensure that the extended papers were of high quality in their own right.
We thank the people who made this special section possible. Most importantly, we thank the referees for giving of their time to thoroughly and thoughtfully review and re-review papers, and to the authors who put such hard work into the several revisions from conference submission to journal acceptance. Oscar Nierstrasz and the JOT staff made the process simple and stream-lined. Finally we thank the ICMT Steering Committee who have always been on hand to offer advice when needed.
This special section marks the end of our work on ICMT 2010. 12 months after the conference itself, we look back with many fond memories: from wonderful social events and lively discussion to stimulating papers. We hope that you enjoy this special section as much as we have preparing it!
Martin Gogolla and Laurence Tratt