2008 SIGCSE Doctoral Consortium

Application Procedures

If you would like to participate in the 2008 SIGCSE Doctoral Consortium, please send your Research Summary as described below as an attachment in an email to Josh Tenenberg at jtenenbg@u.washington.edu on or before November 7, 2007. Please use "SIGCSE DC Application" as the subject of this email. If you do not receive an acknowledgement within 24 hours then assume that your application was not received and please resend. English is the language used for all application materials, and will be the language used during the DC.

Research Summary

Prepare a Research Summary as a single HTML document. This document will be read by the coordinators for purposes of determining which applicants will be invited to attend. If you are accepted, it will also be read by the other DC participants and the invited discussants. You are free to include links to external references as appropriate, but don't assume that others will read these. Try to keep the length of your research summary to two printed pages, using reasonable formatting standards. Please do not use the paper template format for regular SIGCSE papers. Develop your paper as black text on a white background; this will help in the printing of your document.

At the top of the first page, list your name, affiliation, contact information, and research advisor. Provide a research title, and follow this with an abstract (labeled as such) that does not exceed 200 words. The body of your application should provide an overview of your research and its current status. It will help if you can make your central research question/topic explicit and summarize the current status of your research. Depending on the stage of your research, you might want to include references to relevant background research, data collection and analysis method(s) you are employing, a summary of results to date, and a discussion of implications for computing education theory and practice. Use sectioning (and section headings) as appropriate to help the reader.

Include the following required sections at the end of your Research Summary:

  1. A timeline with anticipated dates (including completion of your PhD) of work remaining.
  2. What you hope to gain from participating in the Doctoral Consortium.
  3. If you have attended the SIGCSE DC in the past, please also include:
    1. the years that you participated;
    2. a brief summary of what you took away with you from the last DC you attended; and
    3. its subsequent impact on your research;
Invitations to attend the DC will be sent by November 15, 2007.

Commitments of Participation

Participation in a community of scholars entails responsibilities in order to sustain the culture of openness and knowledge sharing that characterize these communities; giving and receiving are mutual and reciprocal. For the 2008 SIGCSE Doctoral Consortium, if you are invited to attend, your acceptance implies your commitment to:

  1. Read the research summaries of three other DC participants and provide email comments to them during the month of January, 2008. You will be assigned which three by the DC coordinators, though you are encouraged to comment on other DC participants' research as well.
  2. Provide an updated Research Summary (including all information requested in your application as described above) to Josh Tenenberg during the week of February 17-23, 2008 (not later than 8pm GMT, Feb 23). This should incorporate recent changes to your research, as well as changes you make based on feedback that you receive from the other participants and the discussants.
  3. Read all DC participants' research summaries in the week prior to attending the DC.
  4. Register for the SIGCSE Technical Symposium; note that students have significantly reduced rates.
  5. Prepare a 30 second "elevator speech" that summarizes your research in advance of the DC.
  6. Prepare a brief research talk for presentation at the DC - details forthcoming on what this entails.