Doctoral ConsortiumICER 2020

The SIGCSE 2020 Doctoral Consortium (DC) provides an opportunity for doctoral students studying computing education concerns to explore and develop their research interests in a workshop environment with a panel of established researchers. We invite students to apply for this opportunity to share their work with their peers, the organizers, and a group of faculty mentors. Doctoral students of any seniority can apply as long as they will not have graduated before the event.

Organizers icer2020dc@easychair.org

• Katrina Falkner (co-chair), University of Adelaide, Australia
• Lauren Margulieux (co-chair), Georgia State University, USA

Discussants

• Colleen Lewis (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA)
• Elizabeth Patitsas (McGill University, Canada)
• Lauri Malmi (Aalto University, Finland)
• Judy Sheard (Monash University)

Why apply?

The doctoral consortium many benefits:

• Provides a supportive setting for feedback on students’ research and research direction.
• Offers each student comments and fresh perspectives on their work from researchers and students outside their own institution.
• Promotes the development of a supportive community of scholars.
• Supports a new generation of researchers with information and advice on research and academic career paths.
• Contributes to the conference goals through interaction with other researchers and conference events.

We have space for up to 20 participants.

Applicants who are selected will receive up to $600 (USD) to support their travel, accommodation, food, and incidentals.

How to apply

To apply, you need to prepare a single PDF containing:

• A 2-page research description, in the ICER conference format described in the research paper call, covering central aspects of your doctoral work, including:
• Motivation that drives your dissertation research
• Literature review of key works that frame your research
• Hypothesis, thesis, and/or key ideas
• Your research approach and methods
• Progress on your research
• A brief letter of nomination from your dissertation advisor detailing:
• Your year status in your program
• Your expected timeline for completion
• How your work relates to computing education, and
• What help your advisor hopes the DC will provide
• Your CV. (A PDF of online CV is acceptable).

Once you have assembled your PDF, go to the ICER 2020 EasyChair site and submit the file, being sure to choose the Doctoral consortium submission category. If your advisor would like to send their letter of recommendation separately, they can send to icer2020dc@easychair.org.

Timeline

• Friday, May 15, 2020 – Submission due
• Sunday, June 14, 2020 – Notification of acceptance
• Sunday, June 28, 2020 – Final camera ready deadline

Review process

We will select participants based on many factors, including:

• Your research topic
• The clarity of your writing
• The quality of your ideas
• Your status in your doctoral program
• The diversity of backgrounds and topics in the application pool
• Your institution (we are unlikely to accept more than two students from the same institution).

All submissions will be confidential. All rejected submissions will be kept confidential in perpetuity.

Publishing your abstract

Authors of accepted submissions will receive instructions on how to submit publication-ready copy of their 2-page abstract. Please note that submissions will not be published without a signed form releasing publishing copyright to the ACM. Obtaining permissions to use video, audio, or pictures of identifiable people or proprietary content rests with the author, not the ACM or the ICER conference.

The official publication date is the date the proceedings are made available in the ACM Digital Library. This date will be one week prior to the first day of the conference. The official publication date affects the deadline for any patent filings related to published work.

Preparing a communication aid

During the DC, you’ll be presenting your work in many settings, including an elevator pitch to the entire group and describing your research in conversation. To support this, please prepare one or both of the following forms of visual aids:

• A slide (Required) - Think of this slide as a substitute for a poster. It will be used during the poster session during the DC workshop and for the poster session during the 3rd day of ICER for the entire conference. It can include elements typical to a poster (e.g., motivation, methods, results), but it should be legible while viewing on a screen. Each element will need to be more condensed than a poster, and you might want to highlight one element that you’d like to share or receive feedback on.
• A more detailed visual aid for discussion with your mentor (Optional) - You will have 12-15 minutes of one-on-one time with a research mentor. If you’d like to discuss a topic that is more visually-oriented than verbally-oriented, a visual aid might help.

The goal of these communications aids is to help explain ideas that are difficult to explain in words. For example, interactive systems might be best portrayed with demos or videos. Diagrams or data might be best presented visually on paper. Think about what part of your work might be better portrayed in one of the forms above instead of in words, and prepare it. Whatever you prepare, it should help you communicate your ideas both during the DC and the ICER conference.

At the conference

All participants are expected to attend all portions of the Doctoral Consortium for your time zone:

• Students from Australasia, Europe, and Africa will attend the workshop on Monday, August 10th, 7:00-11:00 UTC.
• Students from the US and Canada will attend the workshop on Saturday, August 8th, 16:00-20:00 UTC.

These times are still being confirmed, but please reserve them on your calendars.

Within the DC workshop, each student will present his or her work to the group with substantial time allowed for discussion and questions by participating researchers and other students. Participants will practice presenting their poster and receive feedback from the group.

Students will present a “poster” (the slide described above) on the 3rd day of the main conference. Students will also verbally present a Lightning Talk at the beginning of the 3rd day of the main conference. They will have one minute each to share their research interests and advertise for their poster later in the day.

In addition to the conference poster, each student is encouraged to create a one-pager describing their research (perhaps a simplified version of their DC submission or a copy of their slide) for sharing with others who they meet during the conference.

Accepted Papers