Proceedings of the 2015 ITiCSE on Working Group Reports

Abstract

Each year, the ITiCSE conference Call for Participation (CFP) includes a call for working group proposals, which are a unique opportunity for computing educators, from different countries, to come together and collaborate on a topic of common interest. For ITiCSE 2015, the CFP invited any intending group leader(s) to submit a two-page proposal. Those proposals were evaluated by the working group coordinators, on the basis of likely interest in the suggested topic and the qualifications of the intending leaders. The decisions were made jointly with the conference chair and the working group coordinators. This year, nine applications were received, and seven of those proposals were accepted. After the registration for working groups was closed, the working groups coordinators asked the working groups leaders to start working on their topic well before the conference. The groups arrived the conference venue couple of days before the conference started and continued working throughout the ITiCSE conference. Therefore the working groups had five days to work face to face on their projects. At the end of the conference, each working group was asked to submit a mature report to the coordinators. After the conference, the working groups had approximately month and a half to finalize their report. At the end of August, all the seven working groups submitted reports for peer review. Each of the working group reports was evaluated by three or four referees. On the basis of this reviewing process, all seven working group reports were accepted (with revisions) for publication. The finalized reports where submitted accompanied by a letter that reflected the changes that where done according to the reviewers' comments, and were reviewed again by the working group coordinators. As ITiCSE 2015 approached, we had some working group members indicate that they would not be attending the conference, but they wanted to remain members of their group. As per the philosophy of the ITiCSE conferences and the direction of SIGCSE we did not agree to those people remaining members. For the ITiCSE conference when people propose a working group, or apply to join a group, it must be with the intention of coming to the conference. Intrinsic to any conference is the concept of meeting face to face. The concept of an ITiCSE working group has evolved, and there is now a great deal of tacit knowledge on how these groups are run, managed, and coordinated. We followed previous recommendation that at least one of the working groups leaders has prior experience as a working group member. Two of the groups exceeded the number of ten participants (one of 13, and one of 17) that was a fine limit in our opinion. Those working group leaders insisted on keeping that size and by that to expand the international knowledge gain. After submitting the final versions, those two working groups' leaders reported that all the participants contributed to the work, and that it was hard to manage a group of this size.