Reminder: Call for student volunteers closes 11 September
Are you a current student enrolled in tertiary education? Are you interested in being a student volunteer at ASCILITE 2017?
We're looking for current students enrolled in tertiary education to take on the role of student volunteer at the ASCILITE 2017 Conference in Toowoomba this December.
And you only have a few days left to get your application in!
Volunteers will support the organising committee with the running of the conference. This may include working on the registration desk, aiding speakers and session chairs, directing and helping delegates, documenting the event using multimedia, recording short interviews, liaising with venue staff, and other activities as required. Volunteers will also have the opportunity to attend some conference sessions.
There are many different benefits in being a student volunteer at ASCILITE 2017. Volunteers will:
- have the opportunity to become involved in the conference operations and gain insights and experience in running a large event
- contribute to the positive conference experience and generate a encouraging energy
- have the opportunity to meet key thinkers and scholars in the field of higher education and to build your professional network
- receive a complimentary three day registration to ASCILITE 2017 ($575 total value)
- gain professional recognition including a certificate of participation
- receive a conference T-shirt (to be worn at the conference).
We are looking for volunteers who
- are outgoing and willing to learn
- have excellent communication and organisation skills
- are willing to meet new people and work collaboratively with the conference organising committee
- are interested in having fun!
Applications close Monday 11 September.
For further information, including selection criteria, nomination form, and all the details on how to apply, check out the call for student volunteers.
Student bursary applications closing 4 September
This year, ASCILITE is offering two student bursaries of $1,000 each to full-time PhD/EdD or equivalent students.
Applications are due on Monday 4 September.
Students do not have to be members of ASCILITE to apply for the bursaries but they are expected to join at the student rate of $75 per annum. The winners will have this fee reimbursed. If you are a student or know of any students that may benefit from this award, please forward these details on.
Benefits of the award
- Each of two winners receives a $1,000 bursary to attend the ASCILITE conference and a one year student membership in ASCILITE along with the remaining funds to be put towards accommodation or travel assistance to attend the conference.
- Winning submissions will be made available on the ASCILITE and/or conference website.
- Winners will be included in the ASCILITE conference awards ceremony and if there is a sponsor for the award, they will be invited to present the award.
- Winners may wish to participant in the ASCILITE community mentoring program.
Use of funds
Awardees will receive a $1,000 bursary in the form of a complimentary ASCILITE conference registration (student rate) and reimbursement of a one year ASCILITE membership. The remaining funds may be used for up to 3 nights accommodation at the conference or to assist with conference travel. Conference registration and accommodation arrangements will be made by ASCILITE on behalf of the award winners. If you are already a member of ASCILITE, your membership will be extended by 12 months.
How to apply
To apply for a bursary, PhD/EdD or equivalent students must complete the online Nomination Form which requires applicants to:
- Attach proof of full-time student status, i.e. letter of offer into candidature.
- Submit a link to a 3 – 5 minute video that demonstrates how well the applicant makes use of educational technologies, is able to communicate effectively through this technology and explains why the applicant should receive the bursary. Applicants may use any acceptable approach and format to create the video, e.g. talking head, animation, story, etc. Applicants must upload their video submission to an accessible video server for adjudication.
- Winning submissions will be made available on the ASCILITE website and you will need to provide permission for this.
- Applicants must become a member of ASCILITE to qualify for a bursary ($75 per annum) and this fee will be reimbursed to the winning applicant. If you are already a member, your membership will be extended by 12 months.
Associate Professor Sue Gregory is available for applicants who would like to ask questions about their application by way of a phone call or email beforehand. Sue can be emailed at sue.gregory@une.edu.au or contacted by phone on +61 2 6773 5054.
Please forward submissions to the ASCILITE Secretariat by 4 September 2017.
Call for student volunteers now open!
Are you a current student enrolled in tertiary education? Are you interested in being a student volunteer at ASCILITE 2017?
We're looking for current students enrolled in tertiary education to take on the role of student volunteer at the ASCILITE 2017 Conference in Toowoomba this December.
Volunteers will support the organising committee with the running of the conference. This may include working on the registration desk, aiding speakers and session chairs, directing and helping delegates, documenting the event using multimedia, recording short interviews, liaising with venue staff, and other activities as required. Volunteers will also have the opportunity to attend some conference sessions.
There are many different benefits in being a student volunteer at ASCILITE 2017. Volunteers will:
- have the opportunity to become involved in the conference operations and gain insights and experience in running a large event
- contribute to the positive conference experience and generate a encouraging energy
- have the opportunity to meet key thinkers and scholars in the field of higher education and to build your professional network
- receive a complimentary three day registration to ASCILITE 2017 ($575 total value)
- gain professional recognition including a certificate of participation
- receive a conference T-shirt (to be worn at the conference).
We are looking for volunteers who
- are outgoing and willing to learn
- have excellent communication and organisation skills
- are willing to meet new people and work collaboratively with the conference organising committee
- are interested in having fun!
Applications close Monday 11 September.
For further information, including selection criteria, nomination form, and all the details on how to apply, check out the call for student volunteers.
Registrations now open!
The Organising Committee is pleased to announce that registrations for ASCILITE 2017 are now open!
Find out more about registration options.
Please note that early bird registrations close 1 October 2017, but we encourage you to register early to secure your place.
Registrations are being managed by the Association for Tertiary Education Management (ATEM). Any questions about the registration process should be directed to Leah Boucher at ATEM (email: leah.boucher@atem.org.au; phone: 02 9351 9456).
Does this submission make you want to spin your chair around like Delta? Tips for peer reviewing
Over the next couple of days, we're allocating submissions to the many ASCILITE reviewers who have stepped up to review for this year's conference. We've prepared Reviewer Guidelines and EasyChair Instructions for Reviewers to help our reviewers work through their allocated submissions. And to inspire our fearless reviewers as they embark on their reviews, Organising Committee member Professor Shelley Kinash is up on the blog today to share some tips for peer reviewing.
Even if you’re not a devoted fan, you have probably watched snippets of The Voice where singing sensations hit big red buttons, sending their chairs whizzing around to face hopeful future stars.
Reviewing conference call submissions is less glamorous, publicised and sensationalised, but there are elements of similarity. The most important question to ask yourself when reviewing a conference submission – whether a paper, poster or panel – is:
Do I feel WOW factor?
Or in other words, does it make me want to ‘spin my chair around’?
Is this a conference session that I would want to attend and/or suggest to my colleagues?
For me, WOW factor in conference submissions happens when:
- Researchers will be sharing new findings.
- Educators have tested practical approaches to solving problems for students, graduates or staff.
- Unexpected or surprise occurrences are ready to be shared.
- The proposal is creative and imaginative and provokes new ways of thinking about long-standing problems or challenges.
- The author feels like a leader who can be expected to influence change and impact.
Have you ever noticed that certain types of auditions seldom make the judges spin their chairs around? It may be that the performers are auditioning for the wrong show.
When you are peer-reviewing conference submissions, the next question to ask yourself after feeling your WOW-factor-barometer is:
Is this submission a match with the conference topic and theme?
ASCILITE stands for the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education.
Some examples of the myriad of applicable questions/presentations are:
- Do students truly learn through ‘mobile learning’?
- What education technologies have impact on student learning?
- Are ePortfolios effective approaches to demonstrating graduate attributes?
- Does BYOD work for regional and/or remote students?
The 2017 theme is Me. Us. IT.
Some examples of questions that this theme compels are:
- Which educational technologies improve my teaching?
- How have digital approaches increased interactivity and collaboration?
- What digital competencies can students learn in tertiary education that will serve as graduate attributes / career skills?
In summary, your key mission as reviewer for ASCILITE 2017 is to ask:
- Does this submission make me want to turn my chair around?
- Is this possible-presenter a ‘Voice’ for this particular conference?
Important information about ASCILITE 2017 submission requirements
We've had a few questions about ASCILITE submission requirements and we've received a couple of submissions that are incomplete, so we thought we'd highlight a few key points about the submission requirements for this year's conference. If you intend on making a submission, please read on.
What to submit
This is not an abstract-only submission.
All submission types require an extended submission beyond an abstract. These submission requirements vary, and they are all outlined on the submission guidelines page. We have also updated the submission templates to include details on exactly what you need to submit for every submission type. Unfortunately, this means there is a lot of preamble at the start of the templates, but hopefully it will make it easier for you to pull together the content required for the various types of submissions.
Submission templates
There are two submission templates:
One submission template for double blind peer reviewed submissions, which you should use for
- Full papers
- Concise papers
- Digital posters
One submission template for double peer (not blind) reviewed submissions, which you should use for
- Debate
- Lightning Talk
- Lightning Round
- Fishbowl
- Experimental Session
- Workshop (post conference)
We have developed 'minimalist templates' to make it as easy as possible for you to submit. That means we aren't asking you to do any kind of fancy formatting. All you need to do is make sure you use:
- Arial 10 point font
- Single line spacing
- APA 6th style for referencing
That's it!
How to make your submission
Just fill out the fields on the submission template, add your submission content, and submit via EasyChair. All the details are on the Call for Participation page, and we've developed a guide to using EasyChair to help you use the system.
If you have any questions at all about making your submission, don't hesitate to contact the committee. You can email us at ascilite2017@usq.edu.au.
Two weeks to go! Submissions closing 5 June
As the extended due date for ASCILITE 2017 submissions draws nearer, I asked one of my colleagues, Henk Huijser, an educational developer at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in the People's Republic of China, why he keeps coming back to ASCILITE each year. Here's what he had to say.
ASCILITE has developed into the main educational technology and blended learning conference in Australasia over the years, and it has also developed into one of the most social of conferences.
These are the two main reasons why I always want to attend ASCILITE whenever I can. Not only are the key figures in blended and technology enhanced learning and teaching usually at this conference, and you can get details on the main trends, but it is also a great conference to present at, as there is a real ‘community of practice’ feel to it. In other words, the content is broad enough to be inclusive of many researchers’ and practitioners’ interests, but not too broad to become too unfocused. This is further helped by the yearly theme of the conference.
The social element is partly due to the timing of the conference, and the organisers usually put a lot of effort into this. The conference is always in early December, when most of the attendees are winding down towards the end of the year. This affects the atmosphere at the conference and everyone tends to be up for a good time and ready to have a bit of fun, which is important and usually makes it a memorable conference.
In short, if there is one conference to choose from the many available, then ASCILITE is an excellent choice, both for professional and social reasons.
The ASCILITE 2017 call for participation closes on Monday 5 June 2017. You've got two weeks to get your submission in! Check out the call for participation for all the details.
Deadline extended: call for participation
We've had a few requests for extensions on submissions for ASCILITE 2017 so we've decided to extend the deadline for the call for participation til 5 June 2017.
If you haven't started working on your ASCILITE submission, now's the time! You've got just under three weeks to make your submission.
Check out the call for participation and the submission guidelines to see what you need to do to submit. You can choose from a range of different types of submissions, including:
- Full paper
- Concise paper
- Digital poster
- Debate
- Lightning talk
- Lightning round
- Open fishbowl
- Experimental session
- Post conference workshop
You can also get in touch with us to discuss other submission types if you have something else in mind. Just email us at ascilite2017@usq.edu.au.
We're looking forward to receiving your submissions.
Oops! What were we thinking?! Revised submission requirements
For this year's conference, we decided to do away with a complex template and formatting requirements in an effort to make it simpler for authors to make a submission. In doing so, we decided to have only three formatting requirements: font size; line spacing; and referencing style.
We went with the same maximum paper lengths as previous years (5 pages for short papers and 10 pages for full papers), but we used a larger font size and different line spacing. And in doing so, we inadvertently reduced the volume of text you could fit into your papers.
In response to feedback from authors, we have decided to revise the font size and line spacing requirements to match last year's conference, and to allow you to fit more words into your submissions.
All submissions will need to use 10 point Arial and single line spacing.
We have revised the submission guidelines and the submission templates accordingly.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused by the change in requirements, but we felt it was important to address this feedback to allow authors sufficient space to write a high quality submission.
If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact the committee. You can email us at ascilite2017@usq.edu.au.
Help us make ASCILITE 2017 great!
The intellectual strength of the ASCILITE 2017 conference derives in part from the rigour of our peer review process. We need your help to ensure we can review submissions and provide quality feedback to authors in a timely manner.
We're looking for people with a range of experience - academics, learning designers, educational technologists, librarians, teaching and learning scholars and more - to peer review submissions.
This year, we have invited submissions in a variety of formats, including:
- Full papers
- Concise papers
- Digital posters
- Debates
- Lightning talks
- Lightning rounds
- Open fishbowls
- Experimental sessions
- Post conference workshops
Full papers, concise papers and digital posters will be double blind peer reviewed. All other submission types will be double peer (not blind) reviewed.
You can sign up to undertake double blind peer reviews, double (not blind) peer reviews, or both! If you choose to undertake double blind peer reviews, we'll allocate you 2 to 4 submissions in areas that match your expertise. If you'd rather undertake double (not blind) peer reviews, you'll be allocated between 4 and 6 submissions (these are shorter submissions) in areas that align with your expertise.
Many hands make light work, and a robust review process makes for a great conference! Please consider raising your hand to review for ASCILITE 2017. We'd love to have you on board!
Find out more or sign up to review now!