So, some updates on the BILSEN work: A few days ago our paper “Automated Classification of Human Code Review Comments with Large Language Models” got accepted for the International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering, 2026 Edition. I still can’t quite wrap my mind around it. I did a double-take on my phone screen when I saw the email notification for the acceptance. It was an awesome feeling seeing the months of hard work we did pay off in the best way possible. This news means that I’ll get to also have a few days in Glasgow to present the findings of the paper. Related to this, we’re working on a continuation of this paper using some of the ideas we’ve sketched out in the last few months. I’m expecting that that will also be quite fruitful.
With the updates out of the way, I want to talk a bit more about working in a research group. I don’t know how correct my findings are, considering I’ve only been in one research group so far. However, I find that they are still more informed than my blind guesses.
review
As this is a research group, you’re also expected to do review work on your co-researchers’ papers. Before they submit their work to conferences or journals, the research group acts as a safety net and protects you from making obvious mistakes. I believe we had a few of those before our submission too. To return this favor, you review their work too. I like this model of working. It lets you learn a lot about the different aspects of research happening in the group. For example, I deal with code review comment smells but I don’t know much about bug tracking processes. During one of the reviews I did, I had to read a paper on the topic and got a lot of precious knowledge out of it. Peer-review keeps you sharp. It can be boring, since you’re also putting the paper (and yourself) under quite the scrutiny. However, my supervisor Assoc. Prof. Eray Tüzün has been of great help and gave me tips to make the review process easier or at least more fun. Some of this advice and resources are laid out in a previous post already so I won’t elaborate much more on it. One thing that I will add is this: When you’re reading, try to fill your mind with as many questions about the paper as possible. This will keep you alert, which will help.