Proceedings of the 18th Annual Conference on Information Technology Education

Abstract

Welcome to the 17th Annual Conference on Information Technology Education (SIGITE 2016) and the 5th Annual Conference on Research in Information Technology (RIIT 2016)! The theme this year is Securing the Future, with a focus on the need for employing secure practices in every aspect of information technology. It seems quite fitting that the conference be held in Boston where one of the first intelligence gathering networks (the who spied on British soldiers) existed more than 200 years ago during the Revolutionary War. While certainly not in nature, that network demonstrated the value of social engineering and information gathering. That focus continues today as evidenced by several of the conference papers. This year, 106 reviewers conducted a total of 422 reviews of 114 submissions of papers, panels, posters, lightning talks, and workshops. For RIIT, 9 of 20 papers were accepted for a 45% acceptance rate; for SIGITE, 26 of 67 papers were accepted for a 39% acceptance rate. A great deal of thanks goes to both the reviewers and, of course, the authors for their excellent work. Not surprisingly, the RIIT papers are overwhelmingly dominated by security topics ranging from users' perceptions to intrusion detection to attack vector analysis. While there are several security-related papers among the SIGITE offerings as well, you will also find papers on curriculum development, capstone ideas, and novel lab and classroom approaches among a variety of other IT education topics. SIGITE/RIIT 2016 runs from Thursday to Saturday and is preceded by a world-famous Duck Tour of the Boston vicinity on Wednesday evening, as well as the annual Chairs and Program Directors Meeting and vendor workshops on Thursday morning. The formal program begins on Thursday at noon with a keynote by Nigel Jacob of the Boston Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics. The Office of Urban Mechanics was formed in 2010 to focus on improving city services. In particular, the Office is piloting efforts to create a digital district, incorporating the latest information technology capabilities and bringing information technology awareness to young school children. Thursday afternoon, the program continues with a combination of papers and lightning talks on research in progress and concludes with a dinner reception for networking with colleagues old and new. Friday features additional paper sessions and lightning talks for SIGITE and RIIT, a poster session in the afternoon, and concludes with a reception for Community College educators. Those not attending the community college reception can find dinner at one of the many nearby restaurants. On Saturday morning the conference continues with additional papers and panels. Also this year, we will have two author-submitted workshops, one on Friday morning and the other one on Saturday morning. The conference concludes Saturday at noon. Boston, friends, and lots of opportunities to share---all the necessary ingredients for a great experience. I hope to see you at SIGITE/RIIT 2016 where we can not only discuss Securing Our Future, but we can also build new alliances for the future. Thank you!