Call for Participation (Updated!)

ITiCSE 2000

The 5th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology
in Computer Science Education
University of Helsinki, Finland, July 11-13, 2000

The ITiCSE 2000 conference will be held in Helsinki and hosted by the University of Helsinki. The conference is sponsored by ACM Special Interest Groups in Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) and Computer Uses in Education (SIGCUE). The program will consist of invited lectures, working groups, tutorials, exhibits, and technical sessions featuring papers, panels, posters, demonstrations and a "tips & techniques" session.

Location: Helsinki, one of the European Cities of Culture in the Year 2000, welcomes its guests with a unique combination of clean nature and urban lifestyle. Take advantage of the affordable accommodations offered by the conference and relax in Helsinki after a hard semester! Enjoy music festivals, modern art, or light summer nights in cozy outdoor museum areas. Or visit the nearby wildlife refuge of forests and lakes, only 15 miles from the center. Or take a cruise through the gorgeous archipelago. If you have a couple of extra days, why not visit Lapland, the land of the midnight sun, or St. Petersburg, the cultural capital of Russia, both within an hour's flight.

Site: By Scandinavian standards, the University of Helsinki is a large university, with over 40,000 members when students, teachers and other staff numbers are combined. The university has nine faculties and four campus areas in different parts of the city. Most of the conference activities will take place in the modern building of Teacher Education.

Call for Submissions: Original submissions in all areas related to the conference theme are invited for the following categories: papers, working groups, panels, tips & techniques, posters, and tutorials. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

	Curriculum		Teaching Material and Aids
	Impact of Technology on the Curriculum		Instructional Technology
	Need for Future Changes to Courses		Intelligent Tutoring Systems
			Graphics/Visualization
	Teaching Methods		Shared Courseware Resources
	Innovative Instructional Methods
	Distance Learning		Evaluating Learning and Teaching
	Closed Laboratories		CS Education Research
	Computer Supported Collaborative Learning		Evaluating Teaching Methods
	Mobile Computing in CS Education		Examination Issues
	Electronic Forms of Class Support
	Learners and Teachers
	Gender Issues
	Cultural Impacts
	Information Technology and Ethics

Submission Guidelines: All submissions must be original work. The official language of the conference is English. Submissions should use clear, ordinary grammar and avoid the use of colloquialisms that might be difficult for those who speak English as a second language. Note that reviewers will assume they are reviewing what are essentially completed works, as they will eventually appear in the conference proceedings. Do not submit incomplete drafts. Submission deadlines are listed at the bottom of the next page. For more information about the format and content of each submission, please see the Call For Participation on our web site.

For review purposes all submissions should be created in HTML format. Please use a single file for the body text of your submission. We also ask you to limit the number of image tags to five, if possible. Size limits, in terms of number of formatted pages (1 formatted page is approximately 1000 words), are included below in the separate sections on each submission type. Note that these limits include figures and tables. To submit your work, follow the information given on the Author Information page.

If accepted, final papers, panel abstracts, poster abstracts and tips & techniques summaries must be submitted in camera-ready format, electronically, as Word97 (PC-based) or ps files. All camera-ready submissions will be formatted for 8.5 X 11 inch paper using 10 pt Times Roman (or similar) font, single-spaced, double columns, justified, 20mm margins, with 10mm inter-column space. More details will be provided upon notification of acceptance.

Papers: All papers should be high-quality, unpublished, original work related to the themes of the conference. This year we are expecting all paper submissions to be full papers. Final submissions are limited to four pages. Make sure that your html submission equates to a four page formated paper. Author identification must be concealed in paper submissions to allow for a blind review process. Papers will be reviewed and, if accepted, presented at the conference by one or more of the authors. Paper presentations last twenty minutes. All accepted papers will also be published in the conference proceedings. Authors must sign the ACM copyright release form before publication.
The deadline for paper submission is November 29, 1999.

Working Groups: Several working groups will convene during ITiCSE 2000 for the purpose of producing a report on a topic in computer science education. A working group will consist of five to ten people who share a common interest related to the themes of the conference, selected on the basis of their qualifications in the area. Working groups will begin work by electronic communication two months before the conference. The working groups will meet at the conference site the day before the conference, throughout the conference and the day after the conference. Each working group will determine its own meeting schedule. While working group members should be able to participate in many other conference activities, their main commitment during the days of the conference is to the working group.

Intermediate working group results will be presented to all conference attendees at a poster session early in the conference schedule. At the conference conclusion, each group will submit a polished report. These reports will be reviewed and, if accepted, distributed to all conference attendees, published in a SIGCSE Bulletin and published in the ACM digital library. To apply to lead a working group, create a proposal describing the topic you wish to address, what you expect the group to produce and information on your experience in the area. You may also include a list of potential working group members. Proposals should be 2 to 4 pages in length.

Panels: Panel sessions provide a forum for the exploration of a specific topic among expert panel members and between the panel and the audience. Each panel session runs for 1.5 hours. A panel abstract is limited to two (2) pages. It should contain the following information, in this order: panel title, panel organizer information (name, affiliation, address, email, phone), panelist information (name, affiliation, email) for each panelist, and panel description. The panel description should include an introduction to the panel topic and a short position statement from each panelist. The panel organizer must select appropriate panelists who will make a commitment to participate. The panel organizer is responsible for obtaining position statements from panelists and integrating them into the abstract before submitting the proposal. All accepted panel abstracts will be published in the conference proceedings.

Tips & Techniques: ITiCSE attendees have many valuable ideas to share about practical educational approaches that work well for them - a particular assignment, a method of assessment, a class activity, a pedagogical tool. Such ideas may not warrant a full paper at the conference and therefore are never made available for the entire community. This year we offer an opportunity to share such ideas in our Tips & Techniques session(s). These sessions will consist of short presentations (10 minutes), each of which explains the goal, the application, and the results of a particular tip or technique. Each idea will be supported by a one-page summary that will appear in the proceedings. The summary should include a title, presenter information (name, affiliation, address, email, and phone), a description of the idea to be presented, and if appropriate, a URL where further information or materials are available.

Posters: Works in progress may be submitted for presentation in poster format at the conference. Each poster will be supported by a half-page abstract that will appear in the proceedings. The abstract should include a title, presenter information (name, affiliation, address, email, phone), and a description of the poster topic and contents.

Tutorials: Proposals for tutorials that provide in-depth coverage of a topic of interest to computing educators are invited. A tutorial should be designed to be a thorough and comprehensive exploration of the topic. Each tutorial is classified as either half-day (3 hours) or full-day (7 hours), and will be held the day before the conference. There is an additional fee for a symposium attendee to participate in a tutorial. Tutorial presenters will earn two night's accommodation at the conference hotel.

A tutorial proposal is limited to two (2) pages. A tutorial proposal should contain the following information, in this order: tutorial title, tutorial organizer information (name, affiliation, address, email, phone), tutorial category (half-day or full-day), and tutorial description. The tutorial description should provide an introduction to the topic, a description of the tutorial activities, the background of the presenter, and a separate paragraph (max 60 words) for publication in the advance program that serves as a succinct description of the tutorial for symposium attendees. You must also specify all equipment necessary to conduct the tutorial (some instructional laboratories may be available). A list of tutorial titles and presenters will be published in the conference proceedings.

Demonstrations: A room for demonstrating software used in computer science education will be available at the conference. While we are not formally soliciting demonstrations, we encourage conference attendees, presenters and non-presenters, to sign up for a 30-minute time-slot when they will be available to demonstrate their resources to interested people. The demonstration schedule and locations will be prominently displayed at the conference site. We think demonstrations will be especially valuable for paper authors who do not have enough time during their 20-minute paper presentation to fully demonstrate support software, and for poster presenters who are unable to demonstrate support software during the poster sessions.

Exhibits: The conference will be accompanied by a commercial exhibition. Publishing and software houses are invited to contact the organizers at iticse@cs.helsinki.fi for further information.

Travel and Accommodation Information: There are direct flights to Helsinki from most major European cities and from Beijing, Tokyo, Toronto, New York, and San Francisco by Finnair, the official carrier of the conference. There will be several options for accommodation during the conference, between US$ 15 and US$ 120 per night.

Conference Committee:

	Conference chair	Jorma Tarhio	University of Joensuu, Finland
	Program co-chair	Sally Fincher	University of Kent at Canterbury, UK
	Program co-chair	Dan Joyce	Villanova University, USA
	Program committee member	Michael Caspersen	University of Aarhus, Denmark
	Program committee member	Bruce Klein	Grand Valley State University, USA
	Treasurer and registrar	Dick Austing	University of Maryland, USA
	Local arrangements coordinator	Veijo Meisalo	University of Helsinki, Finland
	Working groups coordinator	Erkki Sutinen	University of Joensuu, Finland
	Posters and demonstrations coordinator	Anders Berglund	Uppsala University, Sweden
	Tutorials coordinator	Jim Hightower	State University of California, Fullerton, USA
	Web master	Jaakko Kurhila	University of Helsinki, Finland

Important Dates

	Nov. 29, 1999:	Papers, panels, working group topics due
	Jan. 17, 2000:	Tutorial proposals due
	Jan. 31, 2000:	Notification of acceptance of papers, panels, WG topics, and tutorials
	Feb. 7, 2000:	Working group topics announced and membership application period opens
	March 3, 2000:	Tips & techniques summaries and poster proposals due
	April 17, 2000:	Working group membership application period closes
	July 10, 2000:	Tutorial sessions held
	July 10 - 14, 2000:	Working groups meet
	July 11 - 13, 2000:	The Conference!

Conference Web Site: http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/events/iticse/