Behaviour & Information Technology

End-User Development in the AI era

End-User Development (EUD) aims to empower end-users who are not necessarily experts in software development to create, modify and adapt their software to address their specific needs. This special issue focuses on current research trends, principles, methodologies, tools, applications, case studies, and challenges of EUD across various domains, taking into account the opportunities and challenges that the new technological advancements have introduced in the scientific landscape. In particular, it will include revised versions of some of the papers presented at the 2025 edition of the International Conference on End-User Development (IS-EUD), which is a bi-annual event that gathers researchers interested in extending the knowledge about how to design EUD technologies and provide scientific accounts of phenomena surrounding EUD practices. The IS-EUD’25 conference collected contributions focusing on Automation, Sustainability, and Smart Environments, Democratizing AI and Programming, AI for End-User Empowerment: Personalization and Wellbeing, EUD Principles, Methodologies, and Participatory Cultures.

All the papers published in the IS-EUD’25 conference proceedings will be invited to submit extended versions of their articles, which will then be selected for inclusion in this special issue after a rigorous double-blind review process. We will emphasise to the authors that the invited papers will go through the usual peer review of the Behaviour & Information Technology (BIT) journal, and that the invitation will not warrant acceptance.

Given that, the primary strategy for attracting submissions to the Special Issue will involve:

• Targeted invitations: Authors whose papers have been accepted for presentation at the IS-EUD’25 conference will receive email invitations to submit extended versions to the Special Issue. These invitations will highlight the relevance of the Special Issue to their work and emphasize the BIT journal's academic standing and the potential impact of publishing there.
• Guidelines for extension: We will make it clear to the authors that a substantial novel contribution is required for acceptance to the Special Issue, also providing some guidelines outlining possible ways to extend the conference papers, which could include e.g. expanding the scope, providing deeper analysis, and reporting new findings or methodologies that were not part of the original article. Such guidelines will be communicated early in the process to ensure that authors understand what we expect from their revised papers.
• Promotion during the IS-EUD’25 conference: The special issue will be announced and also publicised during the IS-EUD’25 conference, to ensure that authors are aware of the opportunity to submit their extended work for publication in the BIT journal.