SIGCSE Annual Report 2010/2011

August 01, 2011

This report concludes my first year as SIGCSE Chair. I want to thank all of the members of the 2010-2013 SIGCSE Board: Daniel Joyce, Vice-Chair, Doug Baldwin, Treasurer, Susan Rodger, Secretary, Barbara Owens, Immediate past-chair, Tiffany Barnes, Mark Guzdial and Amber Settle, our publication editors: John Impagliazzo, Z Sweedyk, and Henry Walker, and my ACM contacts, especially Ginger Ignatoff, for their support this past year.

Awards:
Each year, SIGCSE gives two awards for outstanding contributions to the computer science education community. The SIGCSE Award for Lifetime Service to the Computer Science Education Community was presented to Gordon Davies, Department of Computing, Open University (retired). The SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education was presented to Matthias Felleisen, Trustee Professor at College of Computer Science, Northeastern University. Both awards were presented during the 2011 Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education.

In 2011, two of our conferences gave their first ever "best paper" awards.

The SIGCSE 2011 best paper award went to Kathi Fisler, Guillaume Marceau and Shriram Krishnamurthi for their paper entitled "Measuring the Effectiveness of Error Messages Designed for Novice Programmers."

ITICSE 2011 best paper award went to Randy Connolly for his paper "Beyond Good and Evil Impacts: Rethinking the Social Issues Components in Our Computing Curricula."

Conferences:
SIGCSE sponsored three conferences: the Technical Symposium , the ITiCSE conference and the research conference known as the ICER workshop.

The International Computing Education Research Workshop (ICER 2010) was held in Aarhus, Denmark at Aarhus University, August 9 & 10, and was chaired by Michael Caspersen. A Doctoral Consorsortium for Ph.D. students pursuing computer science education research was held on August 8. The workshop included 12 papers and one keynote address. It also included two workshops: a pre-conference workshop on assessment and a post-conference workshop on how a socio-cultural framework can enrich (research in) computer science education. The number of attendees was 38.

The Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 2011) was held at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel in Dallas, Texas, March 9-12, and was chaired by Ellen Walker and Thomas Cortina. The confererence drew a record crowd and included 3 keynote presenations, 107 papers, 22 panel or special sessions, 35 workshops, 48 posters, 36 birds-of-a-feather sessions, 7 videos, a student research competition, and a robot hoedown. The number of attendees was 1187.

The Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education conference (ITiCSE 2011) was held in Darmstadt, Germany at Technische Universität Darmstadt, and was chaired by Guido Rößling. The program included 3 working groups, two keynote presentations, and 65 papers, 52 posters and 16 tips, techniques, or courseware presentations. The number of attendees was 199.

In addition, SIGCSE cooperates with many groups and grants in-cooperation status to several conferences, giving us an even larger impact across the world.

Other accomplishments:

• The SIGCSE by-laws were changed to officially re-establish the immediate past-chair as a member of the Executive Board.
• Membership benefits were changed to provide members with a single CD each year that contains all conference proceedings, the SIGCSE Bulletin, and the ITiCSE conference working group reports.
• SIGCSE completed the 2011 fiscal year with a healthy surplus.

SIGCSE is active in many areas and innovative programs, including:

• endorsement of the Computing Principles project, which involves development of a new course to broaden participation in computing and computer science.
• partnership with other disciplinary societies in Project Kaleidoscope's (PKAL) Mobilizing STEM Education for a Sustainable Future.
• participation in curriculum revision efforts in the areas of Software Engineering and Computer Engineering
• support of various special projects, including the "Taulbee for the Rest of US" (TauRUS) project to survey U.S. institutions offering undergraduate degrees in Computer Science to collect information on degrees, students and faculty
• funding of speakers from SIGCSE conferences to present at at several in-cooperation conferences through our speakers fund

Key issues that the membership of that SIG will have to deal with in the next 2-3 years:

• An important issue will be dealing with increased international expansion of ACM. SIGCSE already has an international presence with a significant international membership. We sponsor an annual conference held outside the U.S. (ITiCSE) and another workshop that rotates through being held in the U.S. Europe and Australasia. What we currently do not have is any international representation on the SIGCSE Board. We have an Australasian "chapter" (which seems like an odd name for such a large number of members and geographic space), and are discussing European, Indian, Chinese and South American expansion (more "chapters"?). Managing this growth and providing an equitable voice for these regions will be a key issue for SIGCSE.
• SIGCSE will continue to participate in ongoing ACM education projects such as curriculum revisions
• We will continue to collaborate with CSTA on K-12 issues.