For further information about the conferences listed here and others, 
see the Conferences section of the SRM Hotlist at 
<http://www.cigital.com/hotlist/conferences.html>.

Opinions in this section are by Boris Beizer.

All of these conferences have published proceedings.  Generally,
materials presented at these conferences and in their proceedings lead
the publication in regular journals (above) by about 2-3 years.

1.  International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA)
    theory, academic, leading edge practitioners (see 3b in the
    periodicals section.)  Now transitioning to a summer conference that
    will alternate with ICSE.  Sponsored by ACM and ACM's SIGSOFT.

2.  International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE).  Spring,
    world-wide.  Technical.  Primary source after ISSTA for leading edge
    results.  

3.  Quality Week (QW).  Annual, San Francisco Bay Area.  Biggest
    Conference on Testing and QA.  Typically 700+.  Many vendors.  Good
    balance between technical/theoretical and practitioners.  Very broad
    base.  Workshops.  Sponsored by Software Research Institute,
    qw@soft.com, 800-942-SOFT, 415-957-1441. 

    Quality Week Europe (QWE) is held in Brussels, Belgium in November.

4.  Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference (PNSQC).  Annual,
    Portland Oregon, October.  Definitely not a regional conference,
    despite the name.  Very broad from technical/research to
    practitioners.  A shade more academic and leading edge participation
    than quality week.  

5.  International Conference and Exposition on Testing Computer Software
    (TCS).  Less technical and more practitioner/management than Quality
    Week.  Smaller, 400+.  Workshops.  17th annual conference was June
    12-15, 2000, in Washington, D.C.  Presented in cooperation with the
    ACM SIGSoft, ASQ Software Division, IEEE Reliability Society, and
    Software Technology Support Center.  

6.  Software Testing, Analysis, and Review (STAR).  Software Quality
    Engineering.  STAR East is in Orlando in May, and STAR West is on
    the east coast in the fall.  About the same target as the 
    International Conference (5) above.  Comparable level and interest.  
    Workshops.  SQE 1-800-423-8378.  

7.  QAI International Software Testing Conference.  More of a
    tutorial/workshop than a conference.  Newbie orientation.  Fall,
    Orlando, Florida.  Quality Assurance Institute, 407-363-1111.

8.  IEEE Compsac, world-wide, various locations.  Fall.  Typical IEEE
    technical conference with a substantial number of papers of direct
    interest to testing and QA.  Not as many as IEEE Software
    Engineering, though.  

There are about a dozen other annual conferences with a substantial
testing content: Korea, Japan, Germany, to name a few.  In addition,
there are about two-dozen "conferences", privately sponsored by various
individuals and organizations.  These are not real conferences in that
there is no formal review process.  Speakers are invited by the
conference organizer.  Often, a heavy tutorial content.  These are
usually small (under 100 participants, very few vendors).  They range,
depending on the organizer, from superb to fair-value, to outright
rip-off.  Sorry.  I won't play 20 questions on this one.

(end of Beizer's comments)

Also of note:

    International Conference on Software Quality (ICSQ), sponsored by
    the Software Division of the ASQ.  
    
    International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE),
    sponsored by IEEE.  

    International Software Assurance Certification Conference (ISACC), 
    "The Software Risk Management Conference." ISACC is an 
    international conference in an annual series to be devoted
    exclusively to the topic of software certification.

    International Conferences on Practical Software Quality / Testing
    Techniques (PSQT and PSTT).  Two conferences a year, one in Minnesota
    and one further south.  Managed by Software Dimensions.  

    Software Testing Analysis & Review Europe (EuroSTAR).  

    Software Testing Analysis & Review Latin American (LatinSTAR)
	     in March 20-23, 2001.

    The IFIP 14th International Conference on
    Testing of Communicating Systems
	     Berlin, Germany, March, 19th - 22nd, 2002
             http://www.fokus.gmd.de/events/testcom2002