Doctoral Consortium

Call for Submissions

What is the RESPECT Doctoral Consortium? 

The SIGCSE 2025 Doctoral Consortium (DC) at ACM RESPECT will provide doctoral students working at the intersections of computing education and broadening participation with the opportunity to grow as researchers alongside like-minded peers and faculty mentors. This workshop will allow students the opportunity to cultivate valuable relationships and community among their cohort. Students will also see their project ideas bloom as they gain skills, feedback, and advice from established researchers and mentors in the field. This DC is a chance to bring your questions and work-in-progress (from tiny seeds to nearing harvest) into a setting with peers, organizers, and mentors committed to seeing the work of this community (including you!) flourish and thrive. 

Please Note: This Doctoral Consortium will be held in person on  Sunday, July 13th, the day before the ACM RESPECT 2025 conference. 

Organizers

• Briana Bettin (co-chair), Michigan Technological University
  • BCBettin at mtu dot edu 
• Raja Kushalnagar (co-chair), Gallaudet University 
  • Raja dot Kushalnagar at gallaudet dot edu
• Colleen Lewis (co-chair), University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
  • ColleenL at illinois dot edu 

If there are any questions or concerns about the DC, please do not hesitate to reach out to us using the email addresses listed above or ACM RESPECT2025-DC@easychair.org. 

Faculty Discussants

To be announced – please stay tuned for more information! 

Am I (Or My Student) Eligible to Attend the DC? 

Students at any stage of their doctoral studies are welcome and encouraged to apply, so long as they will not have defended their dissertation prior to the DC event. Students from across disciplines are also welcomed, so long as their research is focused in and around the intersection of computing education and broadening participation. Related disciplines may include: Human Factors, Cognitive Psychology, Learning Sciences, Software Engineering, and more. This list is by no means exhaustive – if the research areas of the ACM RESPECT conference relate well to the student’s research activities, then the ACM RESPECT DC is likely to be a fit!

Why Should I (Or My Student) Apply to Attend the DC? 

Attending a DC can be an invaluable experience for doctoral students at any stage of their studies. Students attending a DC can expect to gain:

• Feedback in a growth-focused and supporting environment on their research direction, goals, and process. 
• Opportunities to support the scholarship of others through providing feedback, peer mentorship, and community.
• Discussion and perspectives on their work with peers and mentors from beyond their institution. 
• The chance to expand their network and build a meaningful community with scholars in their field. 
• Advice and insights for their journey into academic and research careers. 
• Guidance, ideas, advice, and new colleagues to help foster meaningful conference experiences and interactions. 

The DC at ACM RESPECT is expected to have space for fifteen (15) students to attend.

All applicants who are selected to attend the DC will receive free registration to the ACM RESPECT conference, as well as a fixed travel stipend to help support their attendance. 

What Do I (Or My Student) Need to Do to Apply?

Students will need to prepare the following items to apply for the DC. The following two documents should be combined into a single pdf and submitted to EasyChair:

• A one-page “attendee” PDF. All DC participants will have the opportunity to publish a 1-page document within the ACM RESPECT proceedings. The content of this 1-page will vary. For example, a student early in their PhD program may describe their current interests, their motivation, and a request for resources that would help them. A student near the end of their PhD may describe their completed work, their broader career goals/vision, and a request for resources that would help them. All submissions should include the following:
  • A 200–500 word abstract describing your dissertation research. This section should be labeled “Abstract” and the goal of this abstract is for a reader to learn about your current and proposed work.  Note: EasyChair may ask you for a 150-word abstract. You can leave that blank. We will only review your submitted pdf.
    
  • A 200–500 word section describing key goals, questions, and connections you’d like the DC to be able to assist you with at this stage of your doctoral studies. This section should be labeled “Questions and Connections”. Please keep in mind that this will be shared with conference attendees as part of the proceedings to help others connect with you as well.  This section is your space to share open questions you’re still exploring, ideas you’re seeking advice or perspectives on, and connections you want to foster. 

Your goals will vary, but here are some ideas that you may find valuable. Hopefully, this list of ideas helps you get started! 

• Recommendations for literature on a specific topic 
• Advice for recruiting participants
• Perspectives on Research Methodology 
• Preparing for a job talk or on-campus visit
• Colleagues interested in cross-institute collaborations
  
• Any additional text (up to one page total with the other two sections included) that you would like to present as part of your doctoral work thus far that you are proud of. This may be a portion of your literature review, the motivation for your work, research questions, key ideas of your methodology – whatever! Choose a section you are most proud of and would most like to showcase that fits onto your single page. Since the documents will vary in structure, we encourage you to add section headers to help readers understand the structure of the content of your 1-pager.

• Formatting: ACM RESPECT requires that all PDF documents are accessible PDFs and provide guidance for how to achieve this. Please refer to those resources and use one of the following templates:
  • MS Word Authors: Please use the interim Word template provided by ACM. (Note: Best results for Accessibility!)
  • Overleaf provides a suitable two-column sig conference proceedings template. (Note: May not export an accessible pdf. You’ll have to manually tag in Adobe.)
  • Other LaTeX users may alternatively use the ACM Primary template, adding the “sigconf” format option in the document class to obtain the 2-column format. (ACM has recently changed the ACM template and we have not yet had a chance to verify that the new version works correctly.) (Note: May not export an accessible pdf. You’ll have to manually tag in Adobe.)
    
• A single PDF containing a 2–4-page research description. You can directly reuse text from your 1-pager. You will have an opportunity to update this document based upon feedback from the chairs and the resulting version will be shared with all of the DC participants. There is no required formatting for this document. However, we expect that most people will also use the double-column ACM formatting for this document. This document should include:
  • Motivation that drives your dissertation research
  • Literature review of key works that frame your research
  • Hypothesis, thesis, and/or key ideas
  • Your research approach and methods
  • Progress on your research
  • Your anticipated timeline to finish your PhD
  • A paragraph or few questions to describe what you hope to get guidance on during the DC (i.e., a feedback request)
    

What is the Timeline for the DC Application Review? 

Submission deadline: April 1st

Notification of acceptance decisions: April 8th

Invited participants’ deadline to RSVP: April 11th

All participant’s deadline for completing the ACM E-rights: April 18th, 2025

Final Camera-ready 1-page document due for all participants: May 2nd

What Does the Review Process Look Like for the DC?

When reviewing applications for the DC, we will be balancing and considering several factors to ensure an engaging and meaningful cohort experience across the doctoral student progression. We will look at factors such as: 

• Student research topic 
• Student doctoral program status 
• Range of applicant topics, program statuses, and backgrounds 
• Student institutional affiliation
  • To ensure students get a broad range of perspectives and networking and given the small cohort size, it is less likely that multiple students from a single institution will be selected.

All submissions to the DC will be kept confidential, and all rejected submissions will be kept confidential in perpetuity. 

What Will Be Published for Accepted Applicants in the Proceedings? 

Accepted applicants (hereafter, authors) will have their one-page “attendee” PDF published in the conference proceedings. Authors will also receive feedback from the organizers before publication to ensure they can present the best form of their document. 

The authors of accepted submissions will receive detailed instructions for submitting a publication-ready copy of their one pager. These submissions will not be published without a release of copyright to the ACM, which will require a signed form (this is detailed in the instructions). Any required permission for proprietary content, identifiable images of people, or audio/video will be the responsibility of the authors, not the ACM RESPECT conference or the ACM. 

The one-page publications will be made available publicly on the date the proceedings are available within the ACM Digital Library. Usually, proceedings are available one week prior to the first day of the conference. This may be important for some authors, as the official publication date may affect timelines for any patent filings that are related to published works. 

What Will the Program and Activities for the DC Look Like?

This is ACM RESPECT’s first-ever DC, which is very exciting!! We are working hard to make the event special. We will release more details about programs and activities soon, so please stay tuned!