Birds of a Feather ("BOF") Submission Guidelines

Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) Sessions provide an environment for colleagues with similar interests to meet for informal discussion. Proposers of BOF sessions should serve as discussion leaders only. BOFs are not intended to be presentations.

Sometimes interesting discussion topics come up after the regular BOF submission deadline, but before the conference itself. To present a venue for some of these topics, we're trying something new this year: lightning BOFs.

Most of the BOF sessions will be allocated as in previous years, but this year there will also be a small number of slots reserved for Lightning BoFs. Lightning BOFs can be submitted between December 15th and January 15th (two and a half months after the regular BOF submission deadline). The acceptance notifications for these lightning BOFs will be sent by January 21, 2010 (before the early registration deadline). The hope is that this will allow people to propose BOFs based on "hot" topics of current interest.

All proposals received by the earlier deadline of November 2, 2009 will be considered for a regular BOF slot. If your BOF is not accepted for a regular slot, you will be given the option of resubmitting it for consideration for a lightning BOF.

BOF proposals are to be provided in PDF format. The full proposal contains an up to 1000-character BOF abstract (description) which must also be entered into a text box on the submission page. The format for the BOF proposal is as follows.

1. BOF Proposal Format and Contents (limited to 1 page)
   1. Proposer: Include name, affiliation, address, phone and fax numbers, email address, and WWW address (if applicable). This item does not count in the page limit. Birds of a Feather proposals do not undergo blind review, so this information should be included. You should expect most correspondence related to the conference to arrive via email. Please check your SPAM filter if you haven't received an expected notification because the auto-responses generated by the conference software are sometimes blocked.
   2. Title: A title for the BOF.
   3. Abstract (Description): 1000 character description of the BOF. The same abstract will also need to be submitted via a text box on the submission page. Please be sure that your description is accurate and that both submitted copies (here in the BOF Proposal, and in the submission text box) are exactly the same.
   4. Significance and Relevance of the Topic: Please include information about any trends in relation to the topic and possibly describe (or cite) evidence to that effect. Your objective here is to explain why the topic is significant. You should also justify how your BOF will engage participants in group discussion and enhance future connections between attendees. This information can help your proposal to be selected if resources become an issue.
   5. Expected Audience: Briefly describe the nature and size of the expected audience. If you expect a particularly large or small audience, please explain why. This information can help in room assignment.
   6. Discussion Leader(s): Although correspondence will be with the proposer above, it will be the discussion leader(s) who will be mentioned in Symposium literature. Please list any additional such names (besides the proposer) and affiliations here. Be certain that you have their commitments to attend the Symposium. All discussion leaders must register for the SIGCSE conference and be present for the BOF session.
   7. Expertise of Discussion Leader(s): Give a summary of the qualifications of the discussion leader(s) as it relates to the BOF topic being proposed.
   8. Special Requirements, if any: Because of the informal and spontaneous nature of these sessions, A/V equipment is typically not provided. That said, please describe any pressing needs you feel you will have. Although we cannot guarantee that your requested equipment will be available, we will make every effort to let you know this well before the conference.
2. BOF Abstract (limited to 1000 characters)

   The abstract is the description of the BOF that will appear on the conference web pages. The description is limited to 1000 characters and must match verbatim the abstract section of the BOF Proposal. The BOF abstract must be submitted in plain text. The abstract for an accepted proposal may contain a URL with more information. (Abstracts of accepted BOFs can be edited in response to reviews.)

Here is a sample BOF Proposal:

• BOF Proposal Example (Word)
• BOF Proposal Example (PDF)

1. Write your proposal using the format specified above.
2. Convert your proposal into Adobe PDF format. Refer to our Creating Adobe PDF Documents page for assistance.
3. Submit the PDF version of your proposal using the Birds of a Feather online submission form. Recall that you will also need to cut-and-paste or type your 1000-character text abstract description into a text box during the submission process. Please do not wait until the last minute to submit your documents because that is when everyone else will be connecting to our server!
4. Make note of the BOF ID number and password assigned to your submission. You will receive an e-mail message confirmation. Spam filters sometimes trap these automatically generated messages so you may need to check your spam trap for the confirmation and later, acceptance or rejection notification.
5. After receiving confirmation, go to the Author Verification Form to review your submission for accuracy. Send e-mail to Tzu-Yi Chen if there are any problems. Warning! Several authors have reported problems viewing their PDF files using Internet Explorer. If you experience similar problems, it is best to download the file and use Acrobat Reader directly.

Deadline: All electronic submissions must be received by November 2, 2009 (by January 15, 2010 for lightning BOF submissions).

If you have questions, please contact:
 
Tzu-Yi Chen
Birds Of A Feather
Pomona College