Doctoral ConsortiumICER 2025

Call for Submissions

The SIGCSE 2025 Doctoral Consortium (DC) at ICER provides an opportunity for doctoral students who are pursuing research in computing education to hone their research interests and direction in a workshop environment. The DC will take place in-person just before the ICER 2025 Conference on Sunday, August 3, 2025 from 9:00am - 4:30pm in Rice Hall, UVA Campus (room TBD).

Why apply?

The doctoral consortium offers many benefits:

• Provides a supportive setting for feedback on students’ research and research direction.
• Offers each student comments and fresh perspectives on their work from a panel of established computing education researchers.
• Promotes the development of a supportive community of scholars and enables building relationships with other doctoral students in the area in a workshop environment.
• Supports a new generation of researchers with information and advice on research and academic career paths.
• Contributes to the conference goals through interaction with other researchers and conference events.

Organizers

• Neena Thota (co-chair), University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
• Mats Daniels (co-chair), Uppsala University, Sweden

Contact email for chairs: dc-chairs@icer.acm.org

Faculty Discussants

• Aman Yadav, Michigan State University, USA
• Calkin Suero Montero, Uppsala University, Sweden
• Jennie Chiu, University of Virginia, USA
• Mark Guzdial, University of Michigan, USA

Eligibility

Doctoral students in any phase of their Ph.D. research are welcome, as long as they

• will not have defended their dissertation before the event.
• conduct research on computing education. That includes, but is not limited to, students specializing in the learning sciences, cognitive psychology, programming languages, software engineering, and in other education disciplines.

We have space for up to 20 participants. Details of the venue, hotels, and transportation are now available on the ICER website. Accepted DC participants:

• may expect to receive up to $500 for travel expenses. The process to submit costs and get reimbursed will be shared later.
• are expected to register for the ICER conference. You will be provided with a code that will allow you to register for free in-person attendance at the conference before the deadline. This free registration is in addition to the $500 travel allowance.
• should plan to arrive on Saturday, August 2nd to fully participate in the DC the next day.

How to apply

To apply, you need to prepare:

• A single PDF containing a 2-page research description covering central aspects of your doctoral work, including:
  • Motivation that drives your dissertation research
  • Literature review of key works that frame your research
  • Hypothesis, thesis, and/or key ideas
  • Your research approach and methods
  • Progress on your research
• Your CV (a PDF).

You should submit your research description and CV through HotCRP: https://icer2025dc.hotcrp.com You should not add co-authors (e.g. your advisor) to your submission on HotCRP. Note: Your advisor must submit a recommendation via this form. The recommendation deadline is the same as the submission deadline.

Timeline

• May 1st 2025: Submission deadline AoE (Anywhere on Earth)
• May 15th 2025: Notification of Acceptance
• May 25th 2025: Response Deadline: If you are offered a spot in the DC and do not accept it by this date, we may offer your spot to another student.
• June 10th 2025: Hard deadline for final camera-ready submissions due to TAPS
• August 3rd 2025: Doctoral Consortium at Charlottesville, Virginia, United States

Review process

We will select participants to create a cohort that is balanced across many factors, including:

• Your research topic
• Your status in your doctoral program
• The diversity of backgrounds and topics in the application pool
• Your institution (we are unlikely to accept more than two students from the same institution).

All submissions will be confidential. All rejected submissions will be kept confidential in perpetuity.

Publishing your abstract

Authors of accepted submissions will receive instructions on how to submit publication-ready copies of their 2-page paper. The process is similar to the research paper submission format and publication workflow, and follows the ACM publications policies, use of ORCID ID, and policy on use of AI in writing listed on the ICER website.

Please note that submissions will not be published without a signed form releasing publishing copyright to the ACM. Obtaining permissions to use video, audio, or pictures of identifiable people or proprietary content rests with the author, not the ACM or the ICER conference. The official publication date is the date the proceedings are made available in the ACM Digital Library. This date is typically one week prior to the first day of the conference. The official publication date affects the deadline for any patent filings related to published work.

What to Prepare for the DC

The goals of the ICER doctoral consortium are to give you feedback for your work from established scholars and to build a supportive community. You will be in a small group discussion. Selected participants will get an opportunity to:

1. Receive and give feedback on your work:

• For your own work: In advance, we will ask you to share one to three questions that you would like to get answers to. These questions will both:
  • help others think about your work, and
  • help you focus on the specific areas you are interested in getting feedback on (you will get feedback on areas others think are important - or lacking - in your work anyway).
• For the work of others: Before the DC you should read the papers of the other participants in your session and the questions they share. You should consider their work and the wider context (for instance, what literature is it situated in?). Be prepared to give at least one piece of feedback (both positive and constructively critical) to each participant in your group during the DC.

2. Prepare and receive feedback on your Poster

• Each participant will give a poster presentation at the conference poster session. At the DC you get an opportunity to do a rehearsal. We will send all accepted participants an outline of how to prepare the poster and some tips for how to present.

Consortium Program

Here is the program for the DC on August 3, 2025 from 9:00am - 4:30pm. You may expect more details later regarding the dinner for all DC participants.

• Brief presentations by invited discussants who are senior members of the computing education research community.
• Elevator pitches by the consortium participants.
• Small group discussion and feedback from assigned mentors and other participants.
• Poster presentation rehearsal by participants.

We look forward to receiving your submission.