Report on theLearning at Scale (L@S)

Conference

Mehran Sahami

Stanford University

sahami@cs.stanford.edu

ACM Education Council – November 2013

Outline

• Focus of the conference

• Organization

– Program Chairs

– Program Committee

– Technical Program

• Important dates

• Coordination with SIGCSE-14

• Industrial support

Focus of the Conference

“This conference is intended to promote scientific exchange of interdisciplinary research at the intersection

of the learning sciences and computer science.”

• Inspired by:

– Massive Open Online courses (MOOCs)

– Large in-person courses

• Bringing together researchers from Computer Science and Education

– Usability and effectiveness

– Learning Sciences and Educational Data Mining

– New tools and techniques

– Improvements to pedagogy, learning, and community

Organization

• Website: http://learningatscale.acm.org/

• March 4-5, 2014 in Atlanta, GA

– Co-located with SIGCSE-14

• Program Chairs:

– Armando Fox (UC Berkeley)

– Michelene T.H. Chi (Arizona State University)

– Marti Hearst (UC Berkeley)

• General Chair:

– Mehran Sahami (Stanford)

“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for…”“He can go about his business…”

“You will chair the Learning at Scale conference…”

Program Committee

Technical Program

• Invited Talks

• Full papers (8-10 pages)

– Rigorous research on methodologies, studies, analyses, tools, or technologies for learning at scale

• Work-in-Progress Posters and Demos (1-2 pages)

– Concise report of recent findings or other types of innovative or thought-provoking work that has not reach a level of completion that would warrant submission of a full paper

• Tutorials (1, 2, or 4 hours long)

– Tutorial of a relevant tool, technology, or methodology related to learning at scale

• ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction special issue on topics related to learning at scale

Important Dates

• Nov. 8: Full paper and tutorial submissions due

– Submission site opened Oct. 21

• Dec. 23: Author notification for full-papers and tutorials

– Includes conditional acceptance

• Jan. 2: Works-in-progress (poster) submissions due

– Must be camera ready

• Jan. 14: Author notification for works-in-progress

• Jan. 17: All camera-ready materials due

• Mar. 4-5: Conference

– Mar. 6: Much rejoicing!

• Jun. 20: ACM TOCHI special issue deadline

Coordination with SIGCSE-14

• Learning at Scale created by ACM Education Board

– This is novel. Traditionally, ACM conferences created by SIGs

• Co-location with SIGCSE-14 to jump-start community

– Same conference venue

– Same hotel reservation block

– Discount for joint registration at both conferences

– Thanks to ACM, SIGCSE Board, and SIGCSE-14 chairs who have all worked to make this possible

• Potentially co-locate with other conferences (e.g., education, HCI, etc.) in the future

Industrial Support

• Project: $60K in support needed for breakeven

• Google committed to sponsoring for $25K

– Has employees on PC

• Microsoft strongly considering sponsoring at similar level

– Has employees on PC

• Oracle also considering supporting at a lower level

– No employees on PC, but education outreach group has interest

• Approached well-known MOOC providers

– P(sponsorship | lack of profitability) 0

Conclusions

• Organization proceeding well

• Sponsorship looks promising, but not fully committed

• Community seems interested in this conference

– Will have better idea of interest after Nov. 8 (paper deadline)

• Real need for this

– Understanding efficacy of MOOCs

– Better scaling in-person education in face of rising enrollments

– Large numbers are great, but we need to understand how that impacts educational outcomes

• Questions?