We are community of educators, teachers, lecturers, professors, researchers, engineers and scientists who meet online on the first Monday of every month to discuss papers on Computer Science Education.
Leaders are readers
As a journal club, we discuss how published research can be used to improve the teaching and learning of Computer Science, particularly in higher education. While the literature is vast and daunting, participating in our journal club helps our community to:
- engage in free, friendly, frequent and fun continuous professional development (CPD) every month. It will further your career too.
- network with and learn from discussion with like-minded people and experts in their field
- read the friendly manual (RTFM), one paper at a time
We hope that the modest goal of one paper per month is a realistic and achievable target for many people. If you miss a month, we’ll be back next month with another paper to discuss. Readership will help your leadership.
We welcome new members from inside and outside academia, whatever kind of teaching, training or research they do. What’s journal club all about? When, where and why do we meet? Who are we? Read on for the details…
What?
Just like a book club, we meet to discuss literature, but instead of chatting about novels, we talk about interesting research papers the group have chosen on Computer Science Education. You can see the kind of papers and topics we discuss at sigcse.cs.manchester.ac.uk/papers.
SIGCSE journal club is part of a professional European chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (acm.org), a global organisation which advances computing as a science and a profession. We’re also part of a wider Special Interest Group (SIG) on Computer Science Education (CSE), sigcse.org based in the UK, uki-sigcse.acm.org.
When?
In Manchester, we get together on the first Monday of the month, hosted (virtually) by the Department of Computer Science, at the University of Manchester, see sigcse.cs.manchester.ac.uk/when. Other groups meet in parallel during the same week, contact your local group for details.
Where?
We meet online, see sigcse.cs.manchester.ac.uk/join-us. As of 2023, there are three groups discussing the same papers, centred around communities at:
- The University of Kent, chaired by Sally Fincher
- The University of Glasgow, chaired by Quintin Cutts
- The University of Manchester, chaired by Duncan Hull
Since the lockdown, physical locations are less important so join whichever group you like or setup your own and let us know about it via the channels below. We look forward to continuing our online discussions face-to-face in the future.
Why?
We are a community of practice (CoP) that cares about Computer Science Education at University and beyond. By meeting regularly, we can learn from each other and share best practice, see our sigcse.cs.manchester.ac.uk/club-rules. There aren’t enough opportunities for people who are busy teaching or training to meet regularly, network and share their knowledge. Journal club fills this gap.
Who?
Who are we? See sigcse.cs.manchester.ac.uk/who. You might be interested in two UK based conferences organised and hosted annually by our community:
- The United Kingdom and Ireland Computing Education Research (UKICER) see ukicer.com (various locations)
- The Computing Education Practice (CEP) at Durham University
See uki-sigcse.acm.org/event for more details.
References
- Truman, Harry S. (1955) Columbian School, Ott School & Independence High School, The Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, Independence, Missouri, trumanlibrary.gov