ITICSE

The second ITiCSE was in Uppsala 1997 and a delegate inquired late one night; "Mats, could you turn off the sun please". That was in early June and this year the conference will be at a time with fewer hours of darkness as it is close to the Midsummer celebration in Sweden. There are similarities and differences between the two instances of the conference. We will run the conference dinner at the same "nation" as last time and will again have a reception in the main university building, reflecting that traditions are important at our University that was founded in 1477. The conference organizers are researchers from the University's newest research groups, Uppsala Computing Education Research Group (UpCERG), and an even newer center for subject didactic research (MINT). Respecting tradition, but striving for change, the steam train excursion has been updated to a boat trip on the Fyris river out to Skokloster castle (perhaps the most beautiful castle in Sweden). The conference, while being held in the same campus area, will be located at Ångström laboratories (a building that is quite large and in some sense not at all a reflection of its name :-p ).

The conference continues to be a truly international conference with 164 submissions from 36 countries on six continents (Africa - 3, Asia - 19, Europe - 38, North America - 51, Oceania - 17, and South America - 7); and that is only considering the first author. These submissions consisted of 150 papers, 4 panels, and 10 working group proposals. Additionally, there were 48 posters and the tips & techniques submissions spanning 19 countries.

All research papers were double blind reviewed by at least three reviewers, though most papers received between four and six reviews. Following the peer review, a meta review was conducted by the members of the programme committee to ensure the reliability of the reviews and to make recommendations to the chairs regarding the acceptance and rejection of each submission. A final selection phase was conducted by the programme chairs who reviewed all reviews and metareview recommendations before making a final decision on the submission. After this process, 53 research papers with universally high quality (35%) were ultimately selected for presentation and inclusion in the proceedings. The first authors of the 53 papers are distributed over 16 different countries on five continents.

All posters and tips & techniques submissions were double blind reviewed by two members of the programme committee and the chairs for the submission categories before being selected by the programme chairs for final inclusion in the conference. Thirty-six were accepted, representing first authors from 15 countries.

The theme of the conference is "Learning for life" and this will be addressed by our two keynote speakers. Yvonne Rogers from University College London, under the title "New technology, new learning" will present a perspective on the impact design has on the value of technology for learning, focusing on aspects such as collaboration, mindful engagement, conversational skills and the art of reflection. Jan Gulliksen, of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, will talk about how to meet educational challenges in the "digital" era with a holistic perspective including the whole population.

There are five accepted working groups dealing with a broad spectrum of topics. They include the role of methodology in education, influences of new technology on education, and pre-university computing education to more specific areas such as peer reviewing and gaming as educational methods, and understanding programming exam questions. Participating in a working group is probably one of the most efficient ways to become part of the ITiCSE community. It provides participants a unique opportunity to work with people from different countries who are interested and knowledgeable in the area of the working group.