Expanding Opportunities: Assessing and Addressing Geographic Diversity at the SIGCSE Technical Symposium

Abstract

The ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) is one of the oldest and largest SIGs, and the SIGCSE Technical Symposium is the oldest and largest of the four SIGCSE conferences. However, the vast majority of Symposium attendees and contributors are from the United States. Because SIGCSE is an international organization, this lack of geographic diversity and representation is troubling because it may stifle collaboration, membership, professional development, and dissemination of research, and have many other adverse effects. In this paper we substantiate the position that there are many reasons to be concerned about poor geographic representation, supported with facts demonstrating that both attendance and authorship at the Symposium are not geographically diverse, particularly for a global organization. We provide evidence that the geographic diversity of SIGCSE membership is substantially more limited than ACM membership, demonstrating that the field of Computing Education is not as diverse as it should be given that the topic is of global interest and importance. We conclude by offering some suggestions that may improve inclusivity and participation in SIGCSE's flagship conference, as well as the Computing Education community in general.