Deadline Extension - Workshop on Text-Based Information Retrieval (TIR'13)

Extended Deadline: April 20, 2013

TIR'13 - 10th International Workshop on Text-Based Information Retrieval

In conjunction with the DEXA 2013

24th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications

Prague, Czech Republic, August 26 - August 30

http://tir.webis.de

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About this Workshop:
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Intelligent algorithms for mining and retrieval are the key technology to
cope with the information need challenges in our media-centered
society. Methods for text-based information retrieval receive special
attention, which results from the important role of written text, from the
high availability of the Internet, and from the enormous importance of Web
communities.

Advanced information retrieval and extraction uses methods from different
areas: machine learning, computer linguistics and psychology, user
interaction and modeling, information visualization, Web engineering,
artificial intelligence, or distributed systems. The development of
intelligent retrieval tools requires the understanding and combination of
the achievements in these areas, and in this sense the workshop provides a
common platform for presenting and discussing new solutions.

The following list organizes classic and ongoing topics from the field of
text-based IR for which contributions are welcome:

- Theory. Retrieval models, language models, similarity measures, formal
analysis

- Mining and Classification. Category formation, clustering, entity
resolution, document classification, learning methods for ranking

- Web. Community mining, social network analysis, structured retrieval
from XML documents

- Information Quality. Quality assessment, information diffusion in
social media

- NLP. Text summarization, keyword extraction, topic identification

- User Interface. Paradigms and algorithms for information visualization,
personalization, privacy issue

- User Context. Context models for IR, context analysis from user
behavior and from social networks

- Multilinguality. Cross-language retrieval, multilingual retrieval,
machine translation for IR

- Evaluation. Corpus construction, experiment design, conception of user
studies

- Semantic Web. Meta data analysis and tagging, knowledge extraction,
inference, and maintenance

- Software Engineering. Frameworks and architectures for retrieval
technology, distributed IR


The workshop is held for the tenthe time. In the past, it was characterized
by a stimulating atmosphere, and it attracted high quality contributions
from all over the world. In particular, we encourage participants to
present research prototypes and demonstration tools of their research
ideas.


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Important Dates:
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• Apr 20, 2013, 24:00 (CET): Deadline for paper submission (extended)
• May 13, 2013: Notification to authors (extended)
• May 23, 2013: Camera-ready copy due

Contributions will be peer-reviewed by at least two experts from the
related field. Accepted papers will be published as IEEE proceedings by
IEEE CS Press.


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Workshop Organization:
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Benno Stein, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
Michael Granitzer, University of Passau
Maik Anderka, University of Paderborn


Contact: tir@webis.de
Information about the workshop can be found at http://tir.webis.de

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9th International Conference on Collaborative Computing (IEEE CollaborateCom 2013)

Call for Papers

CollaborateCom 2013: The 9th IEEE International Conference on

Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications and Worksharing

20-23 October 2013

Austin, Texas, United States

http://www.collaboratecom.org/

### Scope ###
Over the last two decades, many organizations and individuals have relied
on electronic collaboration between distributed teams of humans, computer
applications, and/or autonomous robots to achieve higher productivity and
produce joint products that would have been impossible to develop without
the contributions of multiple collaborators. Technology has evolved from
standalone tools, to open systems supporting collaboration in
multi-organizational settings, and from general purpose tools to
specialized collaboration grids. Future collaboration solutions that fully
realize the promises of electronic collaboration require advancements in
networking, technology and systems, user interfaces and interaction
paradigms, and inter operation with application-specific components and
tools.
The Ninth International Conference on Collaborative Computing
(CollaborateCom 2013) will continue to serve as a premier international
forum for discussion among academic and industrial researchers,
practitioners, and students interested in collaborative networking,
technology and systems, and applications.

### Topics ###
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Architectures, protocols, and enabling technologies for collaborative
computing networks and systems
- Autonomic computing and quality of services in collaborative networks,
systems, and applications
- Collaboration in pervasive and cloud computing environments
- Collaboration in data-intensive scientific discovery
- Collaboration in social networks
- Big data and spatio-temporal data in collaborative environments/systems
- Collaboration in health-care environments
- Collaborative e-education, e-learning, and collaborative computing in
large scale digital libraries
- Collaborative mobile networks and infrastructures
- Collaborative technologies for fast creation and deployment of new
mobile services
- Collaborative, location-aware mobile systems/applications
- Collaboration techniques in data-intensive computing and cloud computing
- Collaborative sensor networks, unmanned air and ground vehicle networks
& applications
- Collaborative, context-aware infrastructure
- Collaborative social networks & web-based collaboration
- Computer supported collaborative work with distributed systems
- Distributed collaborative workflows
- Data management and middleware support for collaborative information
systems
- Energy management for collaborative networks
- Group-driven composition of systems from components
- Human-robot collaboration
- Human-centric ubiquitous collaboration
- Methodologies and tools for design and analysis of collaborative user
applications
- Models & mechanisms for real-time collaboration
- Multi-agent technology and software technologies for collaborative
networking and applications
- Peer-to-peer and overlay networks, systems, and applications
- P2P platforms for supporting collaboration
- Security, privacy and trust management in collaborative networks,
systems, and applications
- Simulation, performance evaluation, experiments, and case studies of
collaborative networks and applications
- Software design, testing, and experimentation technology for
collaborative networking and applications
- Theoretical foundations and algorithms for collaborative networks,
applications, and worksharing
- Tools for collaborative decision making processes
- Trustworthy collaborative business processing in virtual organizations
- Visualization techniques, interaction devices and visual languages for
collaborative networks and applications
- Web services technologies and service-oriented architectures for
collaborative networking and applications
- Workflow management for collaborative networks/systems

### Paper Submission ###
We invite original research papers that have not been previously published
and are not currently under review for publication elsewhere.
Contributions addressing all areas related to collaborative networking,
technology and systems, and applications are solicited. The submitted
manuscript should closely reflect the final paper as it will appear in the
Proceedings. Submitted papers should be 10 pages in two-column IEEE
proceeding format. The papers can be submitted in regular track or
Industry/Application track.

### Workshops Proposals ###
Proposals for half-day or full day workshops that focus on CollaborateCom
2013 related themes are solicited. Workshop proposals should be at most
five pages, including a biographical sketch of each instructor, and
submitted to the Workshop Chairs. Proposals will be evaluated based on the
expertise and experience of the organizers and the relevance and
importance of the subject matter. Please refer to call for workshop
proposals for details.

### Panels Proposals ###
Proposals for panel discussions that focus on future visions for
collaborative networking, applications, and work sharing are preferred.
Potential panel organizers should submit a panel proposal of at most five
pages, including biographical sketches of the proposed panelists to the
Panel Chairs.

### Tutorials Proposals ###
Proposals for full and half-day tutorials are solicited. Tutorials are
intended to enhance the technical program, and as such they should be
relevant to collaborative computing, networking, worksharing, and
applications. Potential tutorial presenters should submit a tutorial
proposal of at most three pages, including: description of potential
audience and background knowledge expected from the audience, if any;
tutorial description; biographical sketch of presenter(s).

### Submission Instructions ###
All paper, poster, panel and workshop submissions will be handled
electronically. Please visit the conference website www.CollaborateCom.org
for detailed submission requirements and procedures.

### Publication ###
All submitted papers and posters will be rigorously reviewed. All accepted
papers will be made available in IEEE Xplore and other external indexing
services (DBLP database, ZB1Math/CompuServe, IO-Port, EI, Scopus, INSPEC,
ISI proceeding - pending approval).
Special Issues of CollaborateCom 2013 has been confirmed for the following
journals
- International Journal of Cooperative Information Systems
- Springer MONET Journal

### Important Dates ###
Workshop and tutorial proposal: March 15th, 2013
Posters and panel proposal: March 15th, 2013
Workshop CFP announced: March 29th, 2013
Abstract submission: July 19th, 2013
Full Paper submission: July 26th, 2013
Acceptance Notification: Sept. 6th, 2013


=== Program Committee ===
- Gail-Joon Ahn, Arizona State University, USA
- Bhuvan Bamba, Oracle, USA
- Shankar Banik, The Citadel, USA
- Claudio Bartolini, HP Laboratories, USA
- Elisa Bertino, Purdue University, USA
- Sanat Kumar Bista, CSIRO, Australia
- Ladislau Boloni, University of Central Florida, USA
- Athman Bouguettaya, RMIT, Australia
- David Buttler, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA
- Barbara Carminati, University of Insubria, Italy
- James Caverlee, Texas A&M University, USA
- Shiping Chen, Sybase, Inc., USA
- Shu-Ching Chen, Florida International University, USA
- Alexander Clemm, Cisco Systems, USA
- Maria Luisa Damiani, University of Milan, Italy
- Prasun Dewan, University of North Carolonia, USA
- Hans Peter Dommel, Novalos Consulting, USA
- Vina Ermagan, Cisco Systems, USA
- Bugra Gedik, IBM Research, USA
- Dimitrios Georgakopoulos, CSIRO ICT Centre, Australia
- Lei Guo, Microsoft, USA
- Takahiro Hara, Osaka University, Japan
- Osamaal-Haj Hassan, Isra University, Pakistan
- Julian Jang, CSIRO ICT Centre, Australia
- James Joshi, University of Pittsburgh, USA
- Vana Kalogeraki, AUEB, Greece
- Murat Kantarcioglu, University of Texas at Dallas, USA
- Yuecel Karabulut, SAP, USA
- Ibrahim Korpeoglu, Bilkent University, Turkey
- Chung-Sheng Li, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, USA
- Wenjia Li, Georgia Southern University, USA
- Xiaolin Andy Li, University of Florida, USA
- Dan Lin, Missouri University of Science and Technology, USA
- Alex Liu, Michigan State University, USA
- Ying Liu, KAIST, South Korea
- Jorge Lobo, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, USA
- Sanjay Madria, Missouri S & T, USA
- Fabio Maino, Cisco Systems, USA
- Zaki Malik, Wayne State University, USA
- Surya Nepal, CSIRO, Australia
- Erich Neuhold, University of Vienna, Austria
- Federica Paci, University of Trento, Italy
- Suraj Pandey, IBM Research, Australia
- Patrizio Pelliccione, University of L'Aquila, Italy
- Agostino Poggi, University of Parma, Italy
- Lakshmish Ramaswamy, University of Georgia, USA
- Sangeetha Seshadri, IBM Almaden Research Center, USA
- Kewei Sha, Oklahoma City University, USA
- Mei-Ling Shyu, Miami University, USA
- Aameek Singh, IBM Almaden Research Center, USA
- Anna Squicciarini, Penn State, USA
- Mudhakar Srivatsa, IBM, USA
- Alessandro Vinciarelli, University of Glasgow, UK
- Qihua Wang, IBM Almaden Research Center, USA
- Ting Wang, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, USA
- Jinpeng Wei,Florida International University, USA
- Ouri Wolfson, University of illinois, USA
- Kun-Lung Wu, IBM, USA
- Yuni Xia, IUPUI, USA
- Yafei Yang, Qualcomm Inc., USA
- Yi Yang, Catholic University of America, USA
- Qi Yu, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
- Gong Zhang, Oracle Corporation, USA

=== Organizing Committee ===
General Chairs:
- Elisa Bertino, Purdue University, USA
- Dimitrios Georgakopoulos, CSIRO ICT Centre, Australia

Technical Program Chairs:
- Alessandro Vinciarelli, University of Glasgow, UK
- Mudhakar Srivatsa, IBM Research, USA
- Surya Nepal, CSIRO ICT Centre, Australia

Panel Chairs:
- Calton Pu, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
- Mohamed Eltoweissy, Virginia Tech, USA & Egypt-Japan University of
Science and Technology, Japan

Workshop Chairs:
- Anne Hee Hiong Ngu, Texas State University, USA
- James Caverlee, Texas A&M University, USA

Sponsorship Chairs:
- Ling Liu, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
- James Joshi, University of Pittsburgh, USA

Publication Chair:
- Jinpeng Wei, Florida International University, USA

Industrial Chairs:
- Rafae Bhatti, Accenture, USA

Publicity Chair:
- Amirreza Masoumzadeh, University of Pittsburgh, USA

Local Arrangements Chair:
- Yijuan (Lucy) Lu, Texas State University, San Marcos, USA

Conference Coordinator:
- Erica Polini, EAI, Italy contact: erica.polini[at]eai.eu

=== Steering Committee ===
- Imrich Chlamtac (co-chair), Create-Net, Italy
- James Joshi (co-chair), University of Pittsburgh, USA
- Calton Pu. Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
- Elisa Bertino, Purdue University, USA
- Arun Iyengar, IBM, USA
- Tao Zhang, Cisco, US

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2013 Best Practices in Education Award - "Informatics Education in School"

2013 BEST PRACTICES IN EDUCATION AWARD "INFORMATICS EDUCATION IN SCHOOL"

EUR 5,000.00 PRIZE
Funded by Microsoft


Informatics Europe proudly announces its 2013 Best Practices in Education
Award devoted to curriculum initiatives for promoting the informatics
education in primary and secondary schools.

The Informatics Europe Best Practices in Education Award recognizes
outstanding European educational initiatives that improve the quality of
informatics teaching and the attractiveness of the discipline, and can be
applied and extended beyond their institutions of origin.

The Award will reward a successful teaching effort in Europe that:

- has made a measurable difference in informatics education in schools
- is widely applicable and useful for the teaching community
- has made a measurable impact in its original institution and beyond it

The 2013 Award is devoted to curriculum initiatives for promoting
informatics in schools as a mandatory subject for all students. The Award
will honor original contributions who emphasize successful initiatives for
teaching of informatics fundamentals in schools. Experiences and reports
showing how to use software or hardware tools in order to improve learning
in other disciplines than informatics will not be considered.

Examples of impact include course results, student projects, textbooks,
influence on the curriculum of other schools.

The 2013 Award is devoted to curriculum initiatives promoting informatics
education in primary and secondary schools and funded through a generous
grant from Microsoft.


The Award carries a prize of EUR 5,000.00


The Award can be given to an individual or to a group. To be eligible,
participants must be located in one of the member or candidate member
countries of the Council of Europe (www.coe.int), or Israel. Members of the
Informatics Europe Board and of the Award Committee are not eligible.
The Award Committee will review and evaluate each proposal. It reserves the
right to split the prize between at most two di fferent proposals
(individuals or teams).


The proposal should include:

* Names and addresses of the applicant or applicants;
* Indication of whether the submission is on behalf of an individual or a
group;
* Description of the achievements (max 5 pages);
* Evidence of availability of the curriculum materials to the teaching
community (max 2 pages);
* Evidence of impact (max 5 pages);
* A reference list (which may include URLs of supporting material);
* One or two letters of support. The letters of support may come for
example from school management or colleagues in the same or another
institution.


Proposals should be submitted only at:

https://www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?conf=iebpea2013


Deadlines:

Abstract: May 1, 2013
Full proposal: June 1, 2013
Notification of winner(s): August 1, 2013

The Award will be presented at the 9th European Computer Science Summit, in
Amsterdam, 8-9 October 2013, where the winner or winners (one representative
in the case of an institution) will be invited to give a talk on their
achievements.


Award Committee:

Walter Gander (chair)
Avi Mendelson
Barbara Demo
Jan Vahrenhold
Juraj Hromkovic
Alexander Repenning
Gérard Berry

(More names to be announced)


For up to date information see the Award website:

http://informatics-europe.org/services/curriculum-award.html


Further inquires:

curriculum-award@informatics-europe.org

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40th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB 2014)

Research Track PVLDB Vol. 7 and VLDB 2014 We invite submissions of original

research papers to the volume

7 of Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB). Accepted papers will form

the Research Track for the 2014 VLDB conference.

The annual VLDB conference is a premier annual international forum for
database researchers, vendors, practitioners, application developers, and
users. PVLDB, established in 2008, is a scholarly journal for short and
timely research papers, with a journal-style review and quality-assurance
process. PVLDB is distinguished by a monthly submission process with rapid
reviews. PVLDB issues are published regularly throughout the year. Your
paper will appear in PVLDB soon after acceptance, and possibly in advance of
the VLDB conference. All papers accepted in time (see details on this below)
will both be published in PVLDB Vol. 7 and presented at the VLDB 2014
conference. At least one author of every submitted paper is expected to
attend the VLDB conference if the paper is accepted.

PVLDB is the only submission channel for research papers to appear in the
VLDB 2014 conference. Detailed information on the submission guidelines and
processes for this track may be found at
http://www.vldb.org/2014/submission_guidelines.html. The submission process
of other VLDB 2014 tracks may differ and is described in the respective
calls for papers.

Important Dates
Submission deadlines: 1st day of each month (first submission: April 1st,
2013, last submission March 1st, 2014) Author Notification: 2 months after
original submission for the 1st review,
2 months after revision submission the 2nd review and final decision.
Conference dates: September 1st-5th, 2014

Topics of Interest
PVLDB welcomes original research papers on a broad range of topics related
to data-centric computation, especially at scale.
The themes and topics listed below are intended as a sample of familiar
themes and topics; we encourage and expect papers on all data-centric
topics.

Systems for Data Management: data system architecture; storage, replication
and consistency; physical representations; query and dataflow processing

Scalable Data Analysis: complex queries and search; approximate querying;
scalable statistical methods; management of uncertainty and reasoning at
scale; data privacy and security

Management of Very Large Data Systems: availability; adaptivity and
self-tuning; power management; virtualization

Data Models and Languages: XML and semi-structured data; multi- media,
temporal and spatial data; declarative languages; language interfaces for
databases;

Performance and Evaluation: benchmarking; experimental methodology at scale;
scientific evaluation of complex data systems

Domain-Specific Data Management: methods and systems for science; developing
regions; networks and mobility; ubiquitous computing; sensors databases

Management of Web and Heterogeneous Data: information extraction;
information integration; meta-data management; data cleaning; service
oriented architectures

User Interfaces and Social Data: data visualization; collaborative data
analysis and curation; social networks; email and messaging analytics

To submit a paper, follow the submission guidelines at
http://www.vldb.org/2014/submission_guidelines.html, and choose the research
track for the correct month. Then carefully choose the subject area(s) that
best describe the paper. The areas indicated impact the choice of both AE
and reviewers.
(Make sure not to choose anything labeled "xxx Track" as a subject area.
This will cause your paper to be moved out of the research track and into
the other track you chose to mark.)

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The 22nd ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM 2013)

Call for Papers

The 22nd ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, 

CIKM 2013

Oct. 27 - Nov. 1, 2013 

San Francisco Airport Marriot Waterfront, 

Burlingame, CA, USA

http://www.cikm2013.org

Sponsored by: ACM SIGIR and SIGWEB

The 22nd ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM 2013) will be held from October 27 to November 1, 2013 in San Francisco Airport Marriott Waterfront, Burlingame, California, USA. CIKM is a top-tier ACM conference in the areas of information retrieval, knowledge management and databases. Since 1992, it has successfully brought together leading researchers and developers from the three communities. The purpose of the conference is to identify challenging problems facing the development of future knowledge and information systems, and to shape future research directions through the publication of high quality, applied and theoretical research findings. In CIKM 2013, we will continue the tradition of promoting collaboration among multiple areas. We encourage submissions of high quality papers on all topics in the general areas of databases, information retrieval, and knowledge management. Topics of interest in the three tracks include, but are !
not limited to:

Databases
* Access methods and indexing
* Authorization, data privacy and security
* Concurrency control and recovery
* Data adaptability, reusability and quality
* Database languages, models and interfaces
* Information integration, data provenance, probabilistic databases
* Cloud computing, peer-to-peer, parallel and distributed databases
* Query processing, optimization and performance
* Semi-structured data processing, XML filtering and routing
* Stream-based processing, real-time and network databases
* String databases, blogs and social search
* Systems, middleware, applications and experiences
* Temporal, spatial, mobile, multimedia and scientific databases

Information Retrieval
* Semi-Structured Information Retrieval
* Semantic and Entity-Based Information Retrieval
* Domain-specific IR (legal, genome, chemical, etc.)
* Citation Analysis and Social Networks for IR
* Distributed IR and Peer-to-Peer Search
* Filtering (recommender systems, topic tracking)
* User Modeling for IR, Search Personalization
* User Analysis and Privacy
* IR Architectures, Scalability and Efficiency
* IR Evaluation and User Studies
* Language Specific IR (multi-lingual, NLP, question and answer)
* Machine Learning for IR
* Multimedia IR (Audio, Speech, Video, Image)
* Web Search and Advertising
* Adversarial IR and Spam
* Novel IR Interfaces (mobile, explorative, interactive)
* Foundation of Information Retrieval (theory, ranking, etc.)

Knowledge Management
* Data mining theory, methods, and applications
* Machine learning applications
* Big data analytics
* Data warehousing and business intelligence
* Information extraction and filtering
* Knowledge Synthesis and Visualization
* Semantic Techniques
* Social networks and social media
* Knowledge management in innovative applications, such as healthcare information and network security intelligence

=== Paper Submissions for CIKM 2013 ===

Authors are invited to submit original, unpublished research papers that are not being considered for publication in any other forum. Manuscripts should be submitted electronically, in PDF format and formatted using the ACM camera-ready templates available at: http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates. Papers will be handled through the online submission system https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/CIKM2013/.

ACM CIKM review is double-blind. Therefore, please anonymize your submission. Papers cannot exceed 10 pages in length. There is no short paper track. The organizers may offer the authors of selected paper submissions to prepare a shorter version of their paper for presentation. Uploading instructions and more detailed submission instructions for papers, and workshop proposals, are available at the conference website http://www.cikm2013.org.

Each accepted paper is required at least a full registration fee regardless of the status of the registered author. Also, one of the authors (or a qualified substitute) must give a presentation of the paper at the conference. Otherwise, the paper will not be indexed by the ACM digital library.

For any questions about paper submissions, please contact the program committee co-chairs at pc-chair@cikm2013.org.

=== Important Dates ===

Full Papers

Abstracts due: May 10, 2013
Full papers due: May 17, 2013
Notifications: Jul 15, 2013
Camera-ready due: Aug 11, 2013

Posters

Posters due: May 31, 2013
Notifications: Jul 22, 2013
Camera-ready due: Aug 11, 2013

Workshops

Proposals due: April 1, 2013
Proposal acceptance notifications: April 19, 2013 Papers due: Jun 21, 2013
Notifications: Jul 22, 2013
Camera-ready due: Aug 11, 2013

Demonstrations

Demonstration papers due: June 3, 2013
Notifications: July 22, 2013
Camera-ready due: Aug 11, 2013

Tutorials

Proposals due: Jul 15, 2013
Proposal acceptance notifications: Jul 25, 2013


=== CIKM 2013 Organization Team ===

General Chairs
Arun Iyengar, IBM T.J. Waston Research Center Qi He, IBM Almaden Research Center

Program Chairs
Jian Pei, Simon Fraser University, Canada (KM Track) Rajeev Rastogi, Amazon, Bangalore, India (DB Track) Wolfgang Nejdl, L3S Research Center, Germany (IR Track)

IR Track Associate Chair
Fabrizio Silvestri, ISTI-CNR, Italy

Best Paper Award Committee Chair
Jiawei Han, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA

Tutorial Chairs
Xuedong Huang, Microsoft
Jianfeng Gao, Microsoft Research

Workshop Chairs
Esteban Zimanyi, University Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium Jianshu Weng, HP Labs, Singapore

Poster Chair
Yuanyuan Tian, IBM Almaden Research Center

Demo Track Chairs
Shuming Shi, Microsoft Research Asia
Luna Dong, Google Inc, USA

Sponsorship Chairs
Amol Ghoting, IBM T.J. Waston Research Center Rong Yan, Facebook Inc, USA

Industry Track Chairs
Brian Johnson, eBay Inc., USA
Baojun Qiu, eBay Inc., USA

Proceedings Chair
Luo Si, Purdue University

Publicity and Media Chair
Yuan Tian, Facebook Inc, USA

Local Arrangement Chairs
Yi Fang, Santa Clara University
Jiang Bian, Microsoft Research Asia

Treasurer
Mu Qiao, IBM Almaden Research Center, USA Ek Park

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Special Issue on “Transforming the classrooms: Innovative Digital Game-based Learning Designs and Applications” - ETR&D

Special Issue on "Transforming the classrooms: Innovative Digital Game-based Learning Designs and Applications" in Educational Technology Research & Development

Objective

Digital game-based learning has been recognized as being an effective approach in increasing students' learning motivation, which is an important factor of improving students' learning performance. In recent years, many educational computer games have been developed for various courses, such as mathematics, science, social science and engineering. Several studies have reported the effectiveness of educational computer games in enhancing the learning interest of students, and even increase their motivation. In comparison with traditional instructions or conventional technology-enhanced learning, digital game-based learning is able to provide a more interesting and challenging learning environment for acquiring knowledge.
In the meantime, researchers have indicated that the effectiveness of educational computer games might not be as significant as expected if they are developed without embedding learning strategies; therefore, it has become an important issue to develop educational computer games by taking effective learning strategies, knowledge construction tools, or educational theories into account.
The aim of this special issue is to provide an opportunity for researchers to present their studies related to the development of educational computer games with effective learning strategies. The developed games need to be thoroughly evaluated via practical applications. The submitted papers will go through a double-blind review. It is expected that, via this special issue, researchers can share their ideas and research results, and further inspire each other in developing more creative and effective educational computer games in the future.

Topics of interests include, but are not limited to:

• Artificial intelligence strategies in digital game-based learning
• Strategies and practices of developing adaptive educational games
• Strategies and practices of developing collaborative educational games
• Strategies and practices of developing of educational mobile games
• Development and applications of Mindtool-embedded educational computer games
• Development and applications of online educational competition games
• Development and applications of educational computer games with emerging technologies
• Other related issues/topics

Important Dates

1. Prospective schedule of deadlines for the proposed Special Issue:
• Due dates for full paper submissions: April 1, 2013
• Notification of the first run review: May 15, 2013
• Notification of the second run review (or editorial review): June 30, 2013
• Final accepted manuscripts to be posted to ETR&D: July 31, 2013
2. Targeted publication date for the proposed special issue: December, 2013

How to Submit

Go to the journal website at: http://www.editorialmanager.com/etrd/
Login your ETR&D account and choose the paper category as "S. I. : Digital games based on AECT-Asia papers" for your submission.

Guest editors:
Nian-Shing Chen
Chair Professor, Department of Information Management,
National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan.
Co-Editor-in-Chief, Educational Technology & Society Journal (SSCI).
Chair, IEEE Technical Committee on Learning Technology.
Email: nschen@mis.nsysu.edu.tw
Web: http://www.nschen.net
Tel: +886-7-5252510

Gwo-Jen Hwang
Chair Professor, Graduate Institute of Digital Learning and Education
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology
43, Sec.4, Keelung Rd., Taipei, 106, Taiwan
E-mail: gjhwang.academic@gmail.com
Tel.: +886-915-396558; fax: +886-2-2737-6433
http://www.idlslab.net/

Guest Editors' Vitae
Dr. Nian-Shing Chen is Chair Professor at the Department of Information Management in the National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan. He has published over 350 papers in the international referred journals, conferences and book chapters. One of his papers published in Innovations in Education and Teaching International was awarded as the top cited article in 2010. He is the author of three books with one textbook entitled "e-Learning Theory & Practice". Prof. Chen received the distinguished research awards from the National Science Council, Taiwan in 2008 and 2011-2013. His current research interests include assessing e-Learning course performance; online synchronous teaching & learning; mobile & ubiquitous learning; natural user interface & game-based learning. Prof. Chen is serving as editorial board members for many international journals and guest editors for more than 15 special issues of international journals. He has also organized and chaired numerous international conferences and workshops in the area of advanced learning technologies. Professor Chen is a senior member of IEEE, ACM and the Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Learning Technology (http://lttf.ieee.org/). He is Co-Editor-In-Chief of the SSCI-indexed Journal of Educational Technology & Society.

Dr. Gwo-Jen Hwang is currently a Chair Professor at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science and Information Engineering from the National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan in 1991. Dr Hwang serves as an editorial board member and a reviewer for more than 30 academic journals. His research interests include digital game-based learning, mobile and ubiquitous learning, computer-assisted testing, and artificial intelligence in education. Dr. Hwang has published nearly 400 academic papers, including 150 papers in such professional journals as British Journal of Educational Technology, Computers & Education, Educational Technology & Society, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, Interactive Learning Environment, and Computer-Assisted Learning among others. Owing to the good reputation in academic research and innovative inventions in e-learning, he received the annual most Outstanding Researcher Award from the National Science Council in the years of 2007 and 2010.

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PhD Studentship for Game Data Analytics - Serious Games Institute, Coventry University, UK

Coventry University Serious Game Institute and Hildebrand

3-year PhD studentship, 2013–2016
Game Data Analytics: Game Mechanics as Motivators – The Behavioural Economics of Energy Use
Fixed-term, 36 months: £13,000 per annum (tax free) + tuition fees
Application deadline: 15 March
See also: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AGB264/phd-studentship-in-game-data-analytics/
Applicants are invited for a fully-funded PhD studentship examining the behavioural economics of energy use and specifically the use of game mechanics as motivators.
The Serious Games Institute at Coventry University is globally recognised as a Centre of Excellence for the serious applications of game technology, such as video games, virtual worlds and social networking. Hildebrand is the world-leading expert in data collection, management and presentation for the energy sector and combines research with real-world experience to deliver innovative solutions for its clients. This studentship forms part of a close collaboration between Hildebrand, and the Serious Games Institute at Coventry University. The three-year project will cover the use of game mechanics as motivational tools, primarily for promoting behavioural and attitudinal change towards more responsible energy consumption. Research will seek to gain insight into understanding the use of game mechanics for promoting desired behaviour, using monitoring and assessment of real-time energy data. The PhD student will work closely with the SGI and Hildebrand. The successful candidate will be primarily based at Hildebrand's London offices; though will be an active member of the applied research group at the Serious Games Institute, led by Prof. Sara de Freitas, and will have the opportunity to attend regular tutorials and courses at Coventry University's Serious Games Institute.
Candidate specification
The successful candidate should have or expect to obtain a Masters or first-class honours degree in a relevant discipline, such as psychology, social/behavioural science, economics, computer science, physics, mathematics, or game design.
We are looking for a creative individual with a good understanding of, and keen interest in, game mechanics and game design. This should be supported by sound knowledge of research methodologies and the desire to closely align both research and game development work. A basic understanding of data collection methods, together with some knowledge of analytical techniques would be advantageous. Existing skills relevant to game development, for example previous experience working with a game engine, game development environment, or 3D design tools, would also be beneficial.
Informal enquiries may be addressed to Dr Maurice Hendrix maurice.hendrix@coventry.ac.uk. Please note that applications sent to this email address will not be accepted.
Complete the application form and return with a covering letter to:
Research Admissions Team
Student Centre
Coventry University
Priory Street
Coventry
CV1 5FB
UK
Fax: +44 (0) 24 7688 8609
Email: research-apps.pg@coventry.ac.uk

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ACM CSCW 2014

CSCW 2014 Call for Participation – Papers

Important Dates

* May 31^st, 2013, 5 p.m. PDT:  Submissions due

* July 6^th: First-round notification (Revise & Resubmit or Reject)

* July 26^th, 5 p.m. PDT: Revised submissions due

* August 23^rd: Final notifications (Accept or Reject)

CSCW, the ACM’s conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, is an international and interdisciplinary conference focused on how technology intersects with social practices. The 2014 CSCW conference will be held in Baltimore, Maryland from February 15^th – 18^th, 2014. Paper submissions are due on May 31^st, 2013.

We invite submissions that detail existing practices, inform the design or deployment of systems, or introduce novel systems, interaction techniques, or algorithms. The scope of CSCW includes, but is not limited to, social computing and social media, crowdsourcing, technologically-enabled or enhanced communication, CSCL and related educational technologies (e.g., MOOCs), multi-user input technologies (e.g., surface computing), collaboration, information sharing, and coordination. It includes socio-technical activities at work, in the home, in education, in healthcare, in the arts, for socializing, and for entertainment. New results or new ways of thinking about, studying, or supporting shared activities can be in these and related areas:

* Social and crowd computing. Studies, theories, designs, mechanisms, systems, and/or infrastructures addressing social media, social networking, user-generated content, wikis, blogs, online gaming, crowdsourcing, collective intelligence, virtual worlds, collaborative information seeking, etc.

* System design. Hardware, architectures, infrastructures, interaction design, technical foundations, algorithms, and/or toolkits that enable the building of new social and collaborative systems and experiences.

* Theories and models. Critical analysis or organizing theory with clear relevance to the design or study of social and collaborative systems.

* Empirical investigations. Findings, guidelines, and/or ethnographic studies relating to technologies, practices, or use of communication, collaboration, and social technologies.

* Methodologies and tools. Novel methods or combinations of approaches and tools used in building systems or studying their use.

* Domain-specific social and collaborative applications. Including for healthcare, transportation, gaming (for enjoyment or productivity), ICT4D, sustainability, education, accessibility, collective intelligence, global collaboration, or other domains.

* Collaboration systems based on emerging technologies. Mobile and ubiquitous computing, game engines, virtual worlds, multi-touch technologies, novel display technologies, vision and gesture recognition systems, big data infrastructures, MOOCs, crowd labor markets, SNSes, sensor-based environments, etc.

* Crossing boundaries. Studies, prototypes, or other investigations that explore interactions across disciplines, distance, languages, generations, and cultures, to help better understand how to transcend social, temporal, and/or spatial boundaries.

Papers should detail original research contributions. Papers must report new research results that represent a contribution to the field. They must provide sufficient details and support for their results and conclusions. They must cite relevant published research or experience, highlight novel aspects of the submission, and identify the most significant contributions. Papers are evaluated on the basis of originality, significance, quality of research, quality of writing, and contribution to conference program diversity.

Papers Chairs

Meredith Ringel Morris, Microsoft Research

Madhu Reddy, The Pennsylvania State University

papers2014@cscw.acm.org

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The 3rd Workshop on Social Network Analysis in Applications (SNAA 2013)

CALL FOR PAPERS

The 3rd Workshop on Social Network Analysis in Applications(SNAA 2013)

co–located with the 2013 International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM 2013)

http://www.zsi.pwr.wroc.pl/SNAA2013/

The SNAA 2013 workshop is devoted to analysis of social structures and what is more important to identify the areas where social network analysis can be applied and provide the knowledge that is not accessible for other types of analysis. Additionally, applications of social network analysis can be investigated either from static or dynamic perspective.

We seek for business and industrial applications of social network analysis that help to solve real-world problems. The area of social network analysis and its applications bring together researchers and practitioners from different fields and the main goal of this workshop is to provide them the opportunity to share their visions, research achievements and solutions as well as to establish worldwide cooperative research and development. At the same time, we want to provide a platform for discussing research topics underlying the concepts of social network analysis and its applications by inviting members of different communities that share this common interest of investigating social networks. As the area of social networks is a highly cross-disciplinary one, we aim to foster and develop sustainable collaborations between Computer Science and Informatics, Sociology, Cognitive Science and Psychology, Geographic and Environmental Science, Biology, and Health and Social Sciences. This will give the opportunity to push further the discussion upon the potential of social networks and their applications across these communities.

TOPICS OF INTEREST
The scope of the 3rd Workshop on Social Network Analysis in Applications (SNAA 2013) includes, but is not limited to the following application areas of social network analysis:

• Social media
• Business / e-business / e-commerce
• Customer relationship management
• Customer behavioural analysis
• Recommender systems – Collaborative filtering and personalization
• Information / opinion / knowledge spread and modelling
• Medical applications, e.g. diseases spread
• Social networks in health and social care
• Educational applications / e-learning
• Collaborative Information Retrieval
• Crime detection and investigation
• Organisational structure evaluation
• Collaborative environments, including wikis
• Sharing systems
• Virtual worlds and online multiplayer games
• Systems for e-society, including e-government
• User analysis in web-based systems
• Real–world case studies from the area of social network analysis
• Applications of spatio-temporal, textual, dynamic and multi-layer models

IMPORTANT DATES

• April 8, 2013 – Abstract submission deadline
• April 15, 2013 – Full paper submission deadline
• May 20, 2013 - Notification of acceptance
• May 31, 2013 - Camera-ready paper due
• June 10, 2013 - Presenting author registration due
• August 25-28, 2013 – Conference

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Prof. Boleslaw Szymanski, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA.

Prof. Symanski is working in the field of network science, with emphasis on social, wireless and sensor networks, to analysis and design of distributed and parallel algorithms, simulation of networks and biological/ecological phenomena.

His current research projects focus on dynamical processes on networks, hidden groups in social networks, sensor network protocols and algorithms, and large–scale parallel and distributed computing and simulation.

He is currently Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Director of the Social Cognitive Network Academic Research Center, part of NS CTA, funded by the ARL, and Director of the Network Science and Technology Center (NeST).



PAPER SUBMISSION

Papers reporting original and unpublished research results pertaining to the above topics are solicited.

Full paper submission deadline is April 15, 2013. These papers will follow an academic review process. Full paper manuscripts must be in English with a maximum length of 8 pages (using the IEEE two-column template - http://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/publishing/templates.html).

Submissions to SNAA 2013 should be anonymized: please remove author names and every other information that could reveal your identity from your submission. Papers that have not been properly anonymized will be rejected without review.

At least one author of each accepted paper must attend the workshop and present the paper

Please submit your paper by using the on-line submission system via: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=snaa2013

SPECIAL ISSUE

The extended versions of selected papers presented during the SNAA 2013 workshop will be published in the special issue of the prestigious journal selected from the Journal Citation Report (with impact factor).

BEST PAPER AWARD

The Best Paper Award will be given for the paper judged to make the most significant contribution to SNAA 2013. The judges may make their assessment based on the papers contained in the proceedings, not on the oral or poster presentation of the papers. However, for a paper to gain this award one of the authors must have attended the conference and presented the paper.

WORKSHOP CO-CHAIRS
• Piotr Brodka, Institute of Informatics, Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland
Address: Wybrzeze Wyspianskiego 27, 50--370 Wroclaw, Poland
Email: piotr.brodka@pwr.wroc.pl

• Katarzyna Musial, School of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, Department of Informatics, King's College London, United Kingdom
Address: Strand Campus, WC2R 2LS London, United Kingdom
Email: katarzyna.musial@kcl.ac.uk

• Matteo Magnani, Data Intensive Systems, Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University, Denmark
Address: 34 Abogade, 8200 Aarhus-N, Denmark
Email: magnanim@cs.au.dk

ORGANIZIONG COMMITTEES

• Fei Gao, King’s College London, United Kingdom
Email: fei.1.gao@kcl.ac.uk

• Radoslaw Michalski, Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland
Email: radoslaw.michalski@pwr.wroc.pl

• Stanislaw Saganowski, Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland
Email: stanislaw.saganowski@pwr.wroc.pl

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Special Theme on Learning Analytics in the Bulletin of TCLT

Call For Articles – BULLETIN OF THE TECHNICAL COMMITTEE ON LEARNING TECHNOLOGY (ISSN 2306-0212) http://www.ieeetclt.org/content/bulletin
publication of IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Learning Technology (TCLT)

* Special Theme: Learning Analytics
* Deadline for submission: March 30, 2013.


The Bulletin of the Technical Committee on Learning Technology (former
Learning Technology Newsletter) aims at publishing and disseminating current
research about new and emerging learning technologies as well as their
design, usage, application, and evaluation in different contexts of
technology enhanced learning.

The special theme of this issue will focus on learning analytics, including
(but not limited to) research on theory and practical uses of learning
analytics; learning analytics algorithms and tools as well as their
evaluations; concepts and applications of learning analytics in formal,
informal and non-formal educational settings; the visualization of results
from learning analytics for students and teachers; the design,
implementation and evaluations of learning analytics techniques; and case
studies and exploratory studies on how to use learning analytics to
facilitated learning and teaching.

Articles that are not in the area of the special theme are most welcome as
well and will be published in the regular article section. The Bulletin of
the Technical Committee on Learning Technology invites short articles, case
studies, and project reports for the April issue. This issue will be
published in Volume 15, Issue 2 (April, 2013).


** The bulletin is of non-refereed nature though the articles will be
selected and edited by the Editors. **


Submission procedure:

1. Authors have to follow the IEEE author guidelines when preparing their
articles (please see http://www.ieeetclt.org/content/authors-guidelines for
further information)

2. The articles in the bulletin are limited to 4 pages. Over-length articles
will not be published.

3. The manuscripts should be either in Word or RTF format. Any figures used
in the contributions would be required separately in a graphic format (gif
or jpeg). The figures should also be embedded in the text at appropriate
places.

4. Please send the manuscripts by email to karagian@uth.gr and
sabineg@athabascau.ca (Subject: Bulletin of TCLT Submission).

5. In the email, please state clearly that the manuscript is original
material that has not been published, and is not being considered for
publication elsewhere.

For further information please see http://www.ieeetclt.org/content/bulletin.

Best regards,
Sabine Graf
Charalampos Karagiannidis
(Editors of the Bulletin of the Technical Committee on Learning Technology)

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Joint Call For Papers - Conferences / Journal Special Issues Cloud Computing, March 2013)

Conference Call For Papers, Workshop Proposals, Demo and Participation

1. IEEE SCC 2013 (June 27-July 2, CA, USA)
The 10th IEEE International Conference on Services Computing
http://conferences.computer.org/scc/2013/
*Submission deadline: March 15, 2013

2. IFIP NPC 2013 (September 19-21, 2013, Guiyang, China)
The 10th IFIP International Conference on Network and Parallel Computing
http://grid.hust.edu.cn/npc2013/workshops.htm
*Workshop Proposal Submission deadline: March 15, 2013

3. INTERNET 2013 (July 21-26, 2013 - Nice, France)
The Fifth International Conference on Evolving Internet
http://www.iaria.org/conferences2013/INTERNET13.html
*Submission deadline: March 18, 2013

4. ICPP-IWATCC 2013 (October 4, 2013, Lyon, France)
The 2013 International Workshop on Advanced Technologies of Cloud Computing
https://sites.google.com/site/watcc2013/home
*Submission deadline: March 18, 2013

5. IEEE ISPA 2013 (July 16-18, 2013, Melbourne, Australia)
The 11th IEEE International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing with Applications
http://anss.org.au/ispa2013/
*Submission deadline: March 20, 2013

6. FutureTech 2013 (September 4-6, 2013, Gwangju, Korea)
The 8th FTRA International Conference on Future Information Technology (FutureTech 2013)
http://www.ftrai.org/futuretech2013
*Submission deadline: March 20, 2013

7. IFIP NPC 2013 (September 19-21, 2013, Guiyang, China)
The 10th IFIP International Conference on Network and Parallel Computing
http://grid.hust.edu.cn/npc2013/
*Submission deadline: April 2, 2013

8. NoF 2013 (October 21-24, 2013, Pohang, Korea)
The 4th International Conference on the Network of the Future
http://nof2013.postech.ac.kr/
*Submission deadline: April 10, 2013

9. CUTE 2013 (December 18-20, 2013, Danang, Vietnam)
8th Intenational Conference on Ubiquitous Information Technologies and Applications
http://www.cute2013.org/
*Submission deadline: June 1, 2013

10. IEEE CloudCom 2013 (December 2-5, 2013, Bristol, UK)
5th IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science
http://2013.cloudcom.org
*Submission deadline: July 5, 2013

11. CITS 2014 (July 2014, Jeju Island, Korea)
International Conference on Computer, Information and Telecommunication Systems
Web site: TBA
*Submission deadline: TBA

Journal Special Issues CFP

1. International Journal of Grid and High Performance Computing (IGI Global)
Special Issue on"Enabling Technologies for Green Cloud"
http://grid.chu.edu.tw/IJGHPC/sub
*Manuscript Due: March 20, 2013

2. Journal of Applied Mathematics (Hindawi)
Special Issue on"Mathematical and Numerical Modeling of Information Dissemination in Mobile Networks"
http://www.hindawi.com/
*Manuscript Due: April 19, 2013

3. Journal of Communications
Special Issue on "Smart Grid Communications"
http://www.dnagroup.org/PDF/SpeicalIssue_SmartGridCommunications_CallForPapers.pdf
*Manuscript Due: May 15, 2013

4. IEEE Trans. on Learning Technologies
Special Issue on"Social Computing and Social Knowledge for e-Learning"
http://www.computer.org/cms/Computer.org/transactions/cfps/cfp_tltsi_scskel.pdf
*Manuscript Due: June 1, 2013

5. Information Sciences (Elsevier)
Special Issue on"Cloud-assisted Wireless Body Area Networks"
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/information-sciences/call-for-papers/special-issue-of-information-sciences-on-cloud-assisted/
*Manuscript Due: July 1, 2013

6. IEEE Trans. on Cloud Computing
Special Issue on"Utility and Cloud Computing Science and Technology"
http://grid.chu.edu.tw/SI/TCC
*Manuscript Due: Sept. 1st, 2013

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PostDoc / Ph.D. Positions at L3S Research Center, Germany

PostDoc / Ph.D. Positions at L3S Research Center, Germany

The L3S Research Center, Hannover, Germany, invites applications for

one Postdoc and two Ph.D. research positions

in the area of Large Scale Web Analytics and Information Retrieval. Your
work will focus on temporal information retrieval, exploration and
analytics. Investigating innovative and scalable solutions, you will be
utilizing and extending distributed platforms such as Hadoop, HBase and
Storm, and have the opportunity to shape and extend the computing cluster
infrastructure of L3S. Your research will connect to our work in the EU
funded projects ARCOMEM, ForgetIT and CUBRIK, and provide important input to
the development of large scale Web observatories in the context of our
WSTNet activities.

Your research will focus on topics in the following areas

* Distributed Crawling, Indexing and Analytics
* Distributed Algorithms and Data Processing
* Evolution-Aware Entity-Based Enrichment and Indexing
* Temporal Retrieval and Ranking

in a challenging and unique research environment.

You should possess good knowledge in one or several areas relevant for the
topics specified in this announcement. Good proficiency in English is
expected, as well as an outstanding M.Sc. or Ph.D. in computer science.
German language skills are useful, but not mandatory.
International experience during your studies or afterwards, as well as good
social and communication skills are helpful.

The salary amounts to German TV-L E13/E14, which is roughly 40.000 to 50.000
Euro gross income per year.

Please submit your application including the usual documents as well as a
list of references, preferrably by email, to

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Nejdl
L3S Research Center
Appelstrasse 4
30167 Hannover, Germany
http://www.L3S.de/
http://www.kbs.uni-hannover.de/~nejdl/
E-Mail: nejdl@L3S.de

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Games and Learning Alliance Conference (GaLA conference 2013)

Games and Learning Alliance Conference (GaLA conference 2013)

At Dassault Systemes, Paris, October 23-25 2013

AIMS AND SCOPE
There is a wide consensus in the scientific community about the educational potential of Serious Games. And serious games are being used in professional and corporate contexts to teach skills and new competences, which is particularly important in a lifelong learning perspective, to engage and train workforce, to discover and develop leaders, and to support sharing of knowledge and experience. Serious games are promising also in fields such as healthcare and personal development.
Serious games are very well suited to motivate learners and, exploiting the latest simulation and visualization technologies, are able to contextualize the player’s experience in stimulating and realistic environments. Furthermore, a large and growing population is increasingly familiar with playing games, which makes them particularly suited as a powerful instructional tool.
However, so far, only few tests have clearly shown the educational effectiveness of serious games. In general, most authors agree that more extensive tests need to be performed in order to provide valid and reliable evidence for effectiveness of serious games as educational tools. Serious games should lead to improved learning in an efficient and attractive way. We believe that providing evidence of these benefits is key to promote serious games for education and training amongst the large public of families, teachers and stakeholders.
Furthermore, there is a growing concern that there is a need for scientific and engineering methods for building games as means that provide effective learning experiences. An effective application of SGs for education and training demands appropriate metrics, analytics, tools, and techniques for in-game user assessment, in order to allow meeting the educational goals, provide proper user feedback and support adaptivity. This can be achieved in particular by measuring elements such as learning outcomes and engagement, considering the twofold nature of SGs as compelling games that achieve some precise educational goals. We believe that this is necessary in order to develop a new generation of SGs that are able to meet the above mentioned expectations and the requirements for availability of more effective education-supporting tools.

CALL FOR PAPERS

We are seeking original contributions that advance the state of the art in the technologies and knowledge available to support development and deployment of serious games. Experimental studies are strongly encouraged.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

Pedagogical foundations track:

• Pedagogical theories and their applications in the field of serious games
• User modeling
• Methodologies and principles for serious games user assessment
• Support for educators and trainers
• Pedagogical principles of gamification
• Support higher-order thinking through serious games

Serious Game design track:

• Mapping educational outcomes and principles into serious game mechanics
• Serious game mechanics joining entertainment and pedagogical goals (at all the levels)
• Mapping pedagogical principles and serious games mechanics
• Gamification design
• Design of score and rewards
• How to balance realism (also in timing), engagement, learning and entertainment?

Technology track:

• Advanced Human-Computer Interaction for serious games (hardware, software)
• Artificial intelligence for serious games
• Neuro-scientific principles, experiments and applications
• Technological support for collaborative games
• User modeling and profiling
• Adaptivity
• Augmented and virtual reality
• Support for learner performance assessment (stealth, formative, summative) 
• Provision of feedback
• Efficient development tools
• Support for educators and trainers
• Support for gamification
• Learning analytics
• Modeling and simulation
• Interopreability and standards

Application track:

• User studies applying serious games in formal education
• User studies applying serious games in training (professional, corporate and executive training, skill development and other workforce programs)
• Case studies on developing/deploying serious games in application domains such as business, management, entrepreneurship, environment, cultural heritage, health, smart buildings, humanities, engineering, manufacturing, security, safety, ethics, etc.
• User studies of applying serious games in the above domains, studying effectiveness for learning/training
• Understanding how, when, with whom, for what to use serious games
• Gamification in various application domains
• Verification of learning transfer
• Study of the long-term impact
• Assessing personal abilities through serious games
• Usability studies

Industrial track:

• Serious games market studies
• Business models for serious games
• Pervasive gaming
• Mobile gaming
• Gamification
• Products to support serious games development and deployment

IMPORTANT DATES

Papers (10 pages) submission: May 31th2013
Call for Workshops (4 pages) submission: April 26th 2013
Call for Tutorials (4 pages) submission: May 31th 2013

Notification date for Papers: September 6th 2013

Notification date for Workshops: May 15^th 2013

Notification date for Tutorials: June 19^th 2013

Camera Ready Papers and Registration Due: ------ September 27, 2013
Conference Dates:  ------------------------------------------- October 23 - 25, 2013

More info:
http://www.galaconf.org

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ACIS presentation - An Adaptive Filter-Framework for the Quality Improvement of Open-Source Software Analysis

Anna Hannemann from the ACIS group did a presentation on "An Adaptive Filter-Framework for the Quality Improvement of Open-Source Software Analysis" at the main German software engineering conference SE 2013 in Aachen last week. Here are the slides. This is part of Annas work on social network analysis of open-source projects.

An Adaptive Filter-Framework for the Quality Improvement of Open-Source Software Analysis from Anna Glukhova

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ACIS video - Mobile Gigapixel Service for Android Devices

Petru Nicoleascu produced a video for the demonstration of the mobile Gigapixel Service for Android created by the ACIS group. The service was demonstrated at the Learning Layers Design Conference at Aalto University in Helsinki from March 4-6, 2013. At the design conference we are building first paper prototypes for the user stories collected in the last weeks by the project partners in Bremen and Leeds.

If you have any question, please do not hesitate us by email at acis@dbis.rwth-aachen.de.

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The fourth international conference on Personal Learning Environments (The PLE Conference 2013)

CFP

The fourth international conference on Personal Learning Environments (The PLE Conference 2013)

Date:  10-12 July 2013

Venue: Berlin, Germany & Melbourne, Australia

Website: http://pleconf.org/

Hashtag: #pleconf

Best Papers will be published in the Special Issue of eLearning Papers (Issue 34) and in the 

Special Issue of the Journal of Literacy and Technology (JLT)

Deadline for the submissions: 4th March 2013

The Personal Learning Environment Conference (The PLE Conference) is an international scientific conference taking place annually, each time in a different city. Following the highly successful events in Barcelona in Spain 2010 (#PLE_BCN), in Southampton, UK in 2011 (#PLE_SOU) and the parallel events in 2012 in Aveiro, Portugal and Melbourne, Australia (#PLECONF), the 4th International PLE Conference 2013 will be held in Berlin, Germany together with a parallel event in Melbourne, Australia (#PLEONF) from the 10th to the 12th July 2013. The PLE Conference intends to create a space for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas, experiences and research around the development and implementation of Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) – including the design of environments and the sociological and educational issues that they raise.

Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) are an approach to Technology-Enhanced Learning based on the principles of learner autonomy and empowerment. PLEs include methods, tools, communities, and services constituting individual learning infrastructures or ecosystems which learners use to direct their own learning and pursue their educational goals. This represents a shift away from the traditional model of learning based on knowledge transfer towards a model of learning based on knowledge construction where learners draw connections from a growing pool of online and offline resources to plan, organise, engage in, reflect on and evaluate their learning and development. By focusing on the enhancing learning of individual, yet interconnected learners, the PLE approach encompasses a diversity of learners, tools, perspectives and knowledge.

So far Personal Learning Environments have been designed and implemented in formal and informal learning contexts, such as school and higher education, work-based learning and in-company training, and in continuing education. The potential of Personal Learning Environments for crossing the boundaries of traditional learning contexts, connecting diverse communities and infrastructures has not been fully realised. Therefore, the 4th PLE Conference in 2013 aims at taking the discussion on Personal Learning Environments a step forward, providing a new impulse for PLE research and development.

The theme for the conference is learning and diversity in cities of the future. In view of the “Smart City” concept and the key priorities for research and innovation expressed in the EU Horizon 2020 framework, innovative, sustainable and inclusive solutions become crucial not only in terms of future and emerging technologies but first and foremost in terms of (i) human knowledge and skills, (ii) diverse and inclusive communities, as well as (iii) learning and knowledge networks. Hence, new forms of connected, interdisciplinary learning and cross-boundary cooperation are seen to play a critical role in the development of creative solutions and in the intelligent exploitation of networked urban infrastructures. In smart urban spaces, people, organisations and objects become interconnected by means of new technologies and media, forging new patterns of cooperation, production, research and innovation.

Submission Procedure

Conference themes include (but are not limited to):

 • Concepts, scenarios and technologies for fostering diversity with PLEs

 • Concepts, scenarios, technologies for learning in smart urban spaces

 • General theories and frameworks for PLE

 • Technologies and software for developing PLE

 • Pedagogical and didactic approaches to Personal Learning Environments

 • Personal Learning Environments and Personal Learning Networks (PLN)

 • PLE and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC)

 • Personal Learning Environments, Open Badges and Gamification

 • PLEs in practice: case studies, good practice and approaches to PLEs

 • PLEs in education: new approaches and managing change in education

 • PLEs in organisations: new approaches and change in enterprises

 • PLEs at work: PLEs work-based learning and vocational training

 • PLEs in context: PLEs for contextual learning such as mobile learning

 • PLE vision: emerging technologies and innovative approaches to PLEs

For more information on the authors please refer to the following website: http://pleconf.org/call-for-papers/

Deadlines

25.11.2012 Call for Papers

04.03.2013 Deadline for all submissions: extended abstracts for full and short papers, short abstracts for workshops, posters and other formats

12.04.2013 Author notification of acceptance of extended abstracts for full and short papers, workshops, posters and other formats.

14.06.2013 Submission of final full and short papers as a result of the shepherding process

10.07.2012 Pre-Conference Workshops

11-12.07.2012 Conference

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