Learning @ Scale

Atlanta, Georgia March 4-5 2014

Announcements

February 6, 2014

Panelists announced! From Stanford, Google, NovoEd, and Khan Academy

February 4, 2014

Hotel discounted rates extended through Feb 10th, subject to availability.

January 25, 2014

Early registration ends on Feb 5, so register now!

January 23, 2014

Keynote Speaker Chris Dede announced!

January 18, 2014

Accepted Works-in-Progress Posted

January 13, 2014

Program and Accepted Full Papers Posted

January 5, 2014

Registration is open! Hotel group rates end Feb 4.

January 2, 2014.

Works-in-Progress submissions closed.

November 9, 2013.

Full papers submissions closed.

October 21, 2013

Submissions site was opened.

Important Dates

November 8, 2013

Paper submissions due.

November 8, 2013

Tutorial proposals due.

December 23, 2013

Notification to authors of full papers. Final acceptance of papers will be conditional on authors satisfactorily revising their papers as suggested by program committee in time for the camera-ready deadline.

January 2, 2014

Works-in-progress submissions due (posters and demos); must be camera-ready upon submission.

January 14, 2014

Notification to authors of acceptance of works-in-progress.

January 17, 2014

Camera-ready materials due for full papers.

January 28, 2014

Camera-ready materials due for works-in-progress (new date).

February 5

Early Registration ends.

February 23, 2014

Online registration closes.

March 4-5, 2014

Conference.

May 31, 2014

Special issue of ACM TOCHI due.

Thank You For a Terrific Conference

Slides for Chris Dede's keynote and some panelists and talks are now posted.

The first annual meeting of the ACM Conference on Learning at Scale was held March 4-5, 2014 in Atlanta, GA, USA. This conference is intended to promote scientific exchange of interdisciplinary research at the intersection of the learning sciences and computer science. Inspired by the emergence of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and the accompanying huge shift in thinking about education, this conference was created by ACM as a new scholarly venue and key focal point for the review and presentation of the highest quality research on how learning and teaching can change and improve when done at scale.

"Learning at Scale" refers to new approaches for students to learn and for teachers to teach, when engaging large numbers of students, either in a face-to-face setting or remotely, whether synchronous or asynchronous, with the requirement that the techniques involve large numbers of students (where "large" is preferably thousands of students, but can also apply to hundreds in in-person settings). Topics include, but are not limited to: Usability Studies, Tools for Automated Feedback and Grading, Learning Analytics, Analysis of Log Data, Studies of Application of Existing Learning Theory, Investigation of Student Behavior and Correlation with Learning Outcomes, New Learning and Teaching Techniques at Scale.

All papers must tackle topics "at scale." For example, a paper that would not qualify for Learning at Scale would be one about an intelligent tutoring system that behaves no differently with one student than with thousands, or which does not improve after being exposed to data from previous use by many students; such work should instead be submitted to a conference like ITS or AIED.

ACM Learning at Scale 2014 is the first in a new conference series. All full papers accepted will be published in the ACM Digital Library as archival publications. While we encourage visionary and forward-looking papers, please only submit your best novel work. The paper track will not accept work recently published or soon to be published in another conference or journal. However, to encourage exchange of ideas, such work can be submitted to the non-archival work-in-progress and demo track. For submissions of this kind, the authors should include the venue of previous or concurrent publication.

Venue and Registration

ACM Learning at Scale 2014 was held March 4-5, 2014, co-located with SIGCSE 2014 (the annual Technical Symposium of the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education) in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Hotel Information

The Hyatt Regency Atlanta was the conference hotel. All conference activities took place in the hotel. Located on 265 Peachtree Street NE, just off Interstate 75, the hotel's distinctive blue dome makes it easy to spot! It is within easy walking distance of museums, restaurants, bars, shopping, and other attractions (Map and Directions).

Conference Registration

The L@S conference immediately preceded SIGCSE 2014 at the same venue with registration being handled by the SIGCSE 2014 registration team.

For L@S only registrations, the member fees were $275 early and $350 late. Non-member was $350 early and $425 late. Early registration ended February 5.

Submissions

Full Papers (8-10 pages)

We solicit rigorous research on methodologies, studies, analyses, tools, or technologies for learning at scale, with example topics including but not limited to:

• Usability studies and effectiveness studies of designs of user interface elements for students or instructors, including:
  • Discussion forums
  • Status indicators of student progress
  • Status indicators of instructor effectiveness
  • Instructional video design for MOOCs
  • Tools and pedagogy to promote community or increase retention in MOOCs and large-scale in-person courses
• Log analysis of student behavior for:
  • Assessing reasons for student outcome as determined by modifying tool design
  • Modeling students based on responses to variations in tool design
  • Data-driven personalization
  • Evaluation strategies such as quiz design
• Studies of applications of existing learning theory to the MOOC context (peer learning, project based learning, etc.)
• Large Online Learning in the Developing World
• New Tools and Techniques for Learning at Scale, including:
  • Games for Learning at Scale
  • Automated Feedback Tools (for essay writing, programming, etc)
  • Automated Grading Tools
• Investigation of observable student behaviors and their correlation if any with learning outcomes, e.g.:
  • Analyses of discussion forums to see if quantity and quality correlate with learning
  • How to motivate students to post on forums
  • Do lurkers (those who don't post) learn as much as those who post?
  • What are the roles of leaders in student group interactions/discussions?
• Improvements to learning, community, and pedagogy in large-scale in-person and blended online and in-person courses

Given the middle-of-semester timing of the submission deadline, for this inaugural meeting of the conference we will advise the Program Committee that courses that are mid-stream should get special consideration because there has not been an opportunity for courses to complete between the time of the announcement of the CFP and the time of the first deadline. However, in this case, the work should have some data to report during submission so that the paper can be evaluated for its contribution as it stands.

In order to increase high quality papers and independent merit, the evaluation process will be double blind. The papers submitted for review MUST NOT contain the authors' names, affiliations, or any information that may disclose the authors' identity (this information is to be restored in the camera-ready version upon acceptance). Please replace author names and affiliations with Xs on submitted papers. In particular, in the version submitted for review please avoid explicit auto-references, such as "in [1] we show" -- consider "in [1] it is shown". I.e., you may cite your own previous works provided that it is not deducible from the text that the cited work belongs to the authors. When citing your previous work, please keep the names with Xs. Papers not following this policy will be rejected.

Full papers must not exceed 10 pages (and shorter is OK) and must use the ACM CHI Archive Format, available in latex and Word. (pdf example). Papers that deviate from this style or exceed the maximum length will be rejected. Submissions must be in PDF format, written in English, contain original work and not be under review for any other venue while under review for this conference.

Accepted full papers will be allotted 20 minutes for presentation. Some papers that are good but not strong enough to be full papers may be allotted fewer pages and assigned 10 minutes for presentation, or may be recommended for poster presentation; the authors can choose whether to accept this condition or withdraw the submission. These papers will all appear in the conference proceedings.

Work-in-Progress Submissions (Posters/Demos)

Work-in-Progress Submissions (1-2 pages)

A Work-in-Progress is a concise report of recent findings or other types of innovative or thought-provoking work that has not yet reached a level of completion that would warrant submission of a full paper. Topics are the same as those listed for full papers.

Presentation: At the conference, all accepted Works-in-Progress will benefit from both a brief presentation of the work and face-to-face interaction with conference attendees at one or more poster and demo sessions. All accepted submissions will be presented in poster form, and some will also be presented as demonstrations. A few WIPs may be selected for oral presentation in a special session. Submission of a Work-in-Progress contribution is a commitment that at least one co-author commits to attending the conference in person if the WIP is accepted.

Demonstrations: For submissions that include demonstrations, authors are strongly encouraged to submit a link to or upload a brief video (2-4 minutes). Authors will have the opportunity to indicate if they wish to submit a demo in the conference reviewing system.

Publication: Works-in-Progress will be published in the ACM Digital Library, but in a separate part of the conference proceedings from the full papers. The status will be akin to what CHI describes as "semiarchival", meaning the results reported in the WIP must be original, but copyright is retained by the authors and the material can be used as the basis for future publications in ACM venues as long as there are "significant" revisions from the original.

Formatting and Deadlines: Work-in-progress submissions should NOT be anonymous. Submissions for Work-in-Progress posters and demos will be 1-2 pages in the CHI full-paper format and are due on January 2, 2014. Submissions must be camera-ready, with author names visible. Incorrectly formatted papers may be rejected upon submission because there is little turn-around time between submission and publication for this category of submissions. Note that upon acceptance, the publisher, working with ACM, will send the authors a DOI (Document Object Identifier), and the submission must be updated with this DOI in the copyright block before it can be included in the Work-in-Progress portion of the proceedings. (Notification of acceptance will be completed by January 14; camera ready papers with assigned DOIs are due by January 28.) Sample document formats, including the properly formatting copyright block are: for Word and LaTeX.

Tutorials

Participants may propose a tutorial of a relevant tool, technology, or methodology related to learning at scale. Proposed tutorials can be 1, 2, or 4 hours long. Please include in your proposal:

• Title of the tutorial (please make this short but descriptive)
• Description of the system, technology or technique you would like to offer a tutorial for, and why it is important in learning at scale
• Names and affiliations of the instructors, and a little about their background.
• Describe any hands-on activities (coding, interaction with Web software, etc.) that would be expected of participants, and what technology infrastructure you will need (Wifi for all participants, availability of a printer, etc)
• Benefits: summarize the skills and knowledge the attendees will gain as a result of attending this tutorial.
• Audience: state the disciplines of attendees who would be interested in your tutorial.
• Prerequisites: described any background required to understand the tutorial.
• Presentation: list the various presentation forms used in the Course, for example, lecture, demonstration, exercises, videos, group discussions, and/or case studies.

Journal Special Issue

ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) is creating a special issue on a closely related topic (Online Learning at Scale) with a deadline on May 31, 2014. They are encouraging authors of strong papers from this conference to do additional work and submit a deeper and more comprehensive article to this special issue (following their prior publication policy). See the official call for participation.

Committee

General chair

• Mehran Sahami (Stanford University)

Program chairs

• Armando Fox (UC Berkeley)
• Michelene T.H. Chi (Arizona State University)
• Marti Hearst (UC Berkeley)

Contact the program chairs: las-pc-chairs@acm.org

Program committee

Conference Support

Corporate Support Provided by: