Submission Deadline: September 8, 2006

Contents of this page

• What is a Special Session?
• How Should the Proposal be Formatted?
• How Do I Submit My Proposal?

Important Dates

• September 8:  Proposal Submission deadline
• October 27:  Presenter Notification
• November 3:  Online Title and Presenter Modifications due
• November 22:  Camera-ready copy due

What is a Special Session?

Special sessions are 75 minutes in length and provide a flexible format for presentations or discussions. For example, a special session might be a tutorial or seminar to introduce a new topic, a committee report, a forum on curricular or accreditation issues, or a series of papers related to a specific theme. Sample topic areas might include management of large classes, projects and assignments, teaching computer science in high schools, experiments on collaborative learning, report of an ACM committee addressing issues at two-year colleges, or special issues arising when teaching computing outside North America.

Special Session proposal review is not blind. Criteria used in reviewing the proposals will include the likely level of interest of the topic.

How Should the Proposal be Formatted?

The total proposal is limited to three (3) pages including a 1 page cover sheet and a 2 page description. The description should conform to the SIGCSE 2007 Format Instructions with the following modifications and exceptions:

• Do not include an abstract. Instead, the first section should be titled Summary and should provide a summary of the session.
• References where appropriate are encouraged, but not required. If they are included, they should be placed in a separate section titled References and should follow the formatting guidelines.

The 1 page cover sheet must include the following information:

• Topic of the Special Session
• Nature of The Proposal (e.g., committee report, tutorial, seminar, series of papers, ...)
• A Brief Overview of the Session
• Contact Person
  • name
  • department
  • college, university, or other affiliation
  • address
  • telephone number
  • fax number
  • e-mail address
• Complete list of participants. For each participant include the following information
  • name
  • department
  • college, university, or other affiliation
  • e-mail address

  If this proposal is a committee report, include the names of ALL committee members and designate which members will be participants in the special session.

The description of the special session is limited to 2 pages and should include the following information:

• Overall objective of the session
  • Give a brief description that justifies the inclusion of this presentation as a special session.
• Outline of the session
  • Organize by subtopics, activities, or similar scheme.
  • If more than one participant is involved, label each section of the outline with the name of the participant who will be presenting that section.
• Expectations
  • State the intended audience.
  • Tell why the proposed special session is important.
  • Indicate how much the session will cover and what the audience should learn. This is particularly important if your proposed special session is a tutorial.
  • If feedback is desired, indicate how it will be elicited.

We suggest that you allow at least 40 - 50% of the time for questions and answers or other interaction with the attendees. All sessions are 75 minutes in length.

How Do I Submit My Proposal?

Electronic Submissions (requires Netscape or Internet Explorer 3.0 or higher):

Step 1: Write your proposal using the format specified above.

Step 2: Convert your proposal into Adobe PDF format. Refer to our Creating Adobe PDF Documents page for assistance.

Step 3: Submit the PDF version of your proposal using the online Paper Submission Form. Please do not wait until the last minute to submit your documents because that is when everyone else will be connecting to our server!

Step 4: Make note of the paper ID number and password assigned to your submission. You will receive an e-mail message confirmation.

Step 5: After receiving confirmation, go to the Author Verification Form to review your submission for accuracy. Send e-mail to Andrea Danyluk andrea@cs.williams.edu 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 September 8, 2006.

Questions? Please contact: