Birds of a FeatherSIGCSE TS 2026

A Birds of a Feather session (BOF) provides an environment for researchers and practitioners with similar interests to meet for informal discussions. Proposers of BOF sessions should serve as discussion leaders only. BOFs are not intended to be presentations. Each BOF should involve active participation for attendees and should be planned for a 50-minute session.

BoF proposals should include plans to facilitate active participation for attendees of diverse backgrounds. Proposers may find the following resources useful in identifying inclusive practices to include in the BOF activities:

• An inclusive meeting guide from Harvard University
• An article on facilitating effective discussions from the University of Waterloo

Authors submitting work to SIGCSE TS 2026 are responsible for complying with all applicable conference authorship policies and those articulated by ACM. If you have questions about any of these policies, please contact program@sigcse2026.sigcse.org for clarification prior to submission.

BOF submissions consist of responses to a series of prompts rather than a PDF submission.

ACM has made a commitment to collect ORCiD IDs from all published authors (https://authors.acm.org/author-resources/orcid-faqs). All authors on each submission must have an ORCiD ID (https://orcid.org/register) in order to complete the submission process. Please make sure to get your ORCID ID in advance of submitting your work.

Presentation Modality

SIGCSE TS 2026 will only include in-person BOFs.

By SIGCSE policy, ALL authors of an accepted accepted BOF are required to register, attend, and present the work.

Accepted Submissions

Deadlines and Submission

BOF submissions consist of answers to a series of prompts, including an abstract that introduces the topic, further analysis of the relevance of the topic, a consideration of the likely audience for the session, a description of the form and structure of the BoF, and an indication of the expertise of the session leaders.

BOF submissions to the SIGCSE TS 2026 must be made through EasyChair no later than Monday, 6 October 2025. The track chairs reserve the right to desk reject submissions that are incomplete after the deadline has passed.

Important Dates

Authors may find it useful to read the Instruction for Reviewers and the Review Form to understand how their submissions will be reviewed. Also note that when submitting, you will need to provide between 3-7 related topics from the Topics list under Info.

Submissions

All BoF submissions for SIGCSE TS 2026 will be done using a form on EasyChair. In addition to providing answers to the standard information (e.g., authors, ACM policy confirmations, topic selections, keywords), authors are asked to respond to the following questions. For each section (except the abstract), you may include references inline.

Abstract: Please prepare an abstract of up to 250 words. This abstract will appear in the online program and in the conference proceedings. Abstracts should not contain subheadings or citations.

Significance and Relevance: Please include information about any trends in relation to the topic and possibly describe (or cite) evidence to that effect. Your objective here is to explain why the topic is significant. You should also justify how your BOF session will enhance future connections between attendees. This information can help your proposal to be selected if resources become an issue.

Expected (and Unexpected) Audience: Briefly describe the nature and size of the expected audience. Please explain how you will ensure that the BOF remains an inclusive space for all attendees, including attendees with different backgrounds or perspectives. If you expect a particularly large or small audience, please explain why. If you have a rough estimate of attendees based on previous years, please include it here to help assist with room scheduling.

Background and Expertise of Discussion Leader(s): Give a summary of the qualifications of the discussion leader(s) as it relates to the proposed BoF session.

Structure and Activities: Provide a brief description of the structure and activities planned for the BoF session. Proposals will be assessed on their potential to (1) facilitate active participation from attendees and (2) include attendees with diverse social identities and experiences.

We strongly recommend that you prepare this information in a separate document and then copy and paste into EasyChair. EasyChair has been known to time out.

Accessibility

SIGCSE TS 2026 authors are strongly encouraged to prepare their submissions in such a manner that the content is widely accessible to potential reviewers, track chairs, and readers. Please see these resources for preparing an accessible submission.

Single Anonymized Review

Submissions to the BOF track are reviewed with the single-anonymous review process. Submissions should include author names and affiliations. Thus, the author identities are known to reviewers, but reviewers are anonymous to each other and to the authors.

The reviewing process includes a discussion phase after initial reviews have been posted. During this time, the reviewers can examine all reviews and privately discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the work in an anonymous manner through EasyChair. This discussion information can be used by the track chairs in addition to the content of the review in making final acceptance decisions.

The SIGCSE TS 2026 review process does not have a rebuttal period for authors to respond to comments, and all acceptance decisions are final.

ACM Policies

By submitting your article to an ACM Publication, you are hereby acknowledging that you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies, including ACM’s new Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects (https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/research-involving-human-participants-and-subjects). Alleged violations of this policy or any ACM Publications Policy will be investigated by ACM and may result in a full retraction of your paper, in addition to other potential penalties, as per ACM Publications Policy.

ORCiD ID

ACM has made a commitment to collect ORCiD IDs from all published authors (https://authors.acm.org/author-resources/orcid-faqs). All authors on each submission must have an ORCiD ID (https://orcid.org/register) in order to complete the submission process. Please make sure to get your ORCID ID in advance of submitting your work. See also the authorship policies.

Additional details are in the instructions for authors.

• Make sure that all authors have obtained an ORCiD identifier. These identifiers are required for paper submission.
• Check the author list carefully now and review with your co-authors. The authors on the submission must be the same as the authors on the final version of the work (assuming the work is accepted). Authors may not be added or removed after submission and must also appear in the same order as in the submission. These authors must attend the conference and lead the BoF session.
• Identify at least one author who is willing to review for the symposium. Have that author or those authors sign up to review at https://tinyurl.com/review-sigcse25. (If they’ve done so already, there is no need to fill out the form a second time.) Researchers listed as co-authors on three or more submissions must volunteer to review. (Undergraduate co-authors are exempt from this requirement.)
• Review the additional resources for the track.
• Review the instructions for reviewers and the review form to see what reviewers will be looking for in your submission.
• Look at the EasyChair submission page to make sure you’ll be prepared to fill everything out. Note that you are permitted to update your submission until the deadline, so it is fine to put draft information there as you get ready.
• Look at the list of topics in the Info menu on this site or on EasyChair and pick 3-7 appropriate topics for your submission.
• Prepare the longer responses in a separate document. (EasyChair is known to time out, so you will want to copy and paste into EasyChair.) These include
  • The abstract
  • A discussion of the significance and relevance of the topic
  • A discussion of the expected audience and how you will ensure that the BoF is appropriately inclusive
  • A discussion of the background and expertise of the discussion leader(s)
  • A discussion of the structure and activities in the BoF
• Submit your answers on EasyChair by 11:59 p.m. Monday, 6 October 2025.

What Gets Published?

The full text of accepted BOF submissions will not appear in the ACM digital library. Only the title, author metadata, and the 250-word abstract will be included in the official conference proceedings.

Presentation Details

SIGCSE TS 2026 will only include in-person BOFs.

By SIGCSE policy, ALL authors of an accepted BOFs are required to register, attend, and present the work.

IMPORTANT:
Since BOFs are intended to be interactive discussions rather than presentations, there will be no audio/visual support during these sessions. Some BOFs will be placed in rooms without any audio/visual equipment. Any furniture that is rearranged for a BOF must be returned to the room’s original configuration. Failure to do so will result in the conference being charged.

Language Editing Assistance

ACM has partnered with International Science Editing (ISE) to provide language editing services to ACM authors. ISE offers a comprehensive range of services for authors including standard and premium English language editing, as well as illustration and translation services. Editing services are at author expense and do not guarantee publication of a manuscript.

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Submission and Review System
• Dual-Anonymous Review Process
• Getting Started Reviewing
• BOF Review Guidlelines
• Discussion
• Recalcitrant Reviewers

Overview

Birds-of-a-Feather sessions provide an environment for colleagues with similar interests to meet for informal discussion. Proposers of BOF sessions should serve as discussion leaders only. BOFs are not intended to be presentations.

Submission and Review System

The review process for SIGCSE TS 2025 will be done using the EasyChair submission system (https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=sigcsets2025). Reviewers will be invited to join/login into EasyChair, update their profile, and select 3-5 topics that they are most qualified to review. To do so, reviewers select SIGCSE TS 2025 > Conference > My topics from the menu and select at most 5 topics. More topics make it harder for the EasyChair system to make a good set of matches. Reviewers also identify their Conflicts of Interest by selecting SIGCSE TS 2025 > Conference > My Conflicts.

Single-Anonymous Review Process

Submissions to the BOF track are reviewed with the single-anonymous review process. Submissions should include author names and affiliations. Thus, the author identities are known to reviewers, but reviewers are anonymous to each other and to the authors.

The reviewing process includes a discussion phase after initial reviews have been posted. During this time, the reviewers can examine all reviews and privately discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the work in an anonymous manner through EasyChair. Reviewers can refer to each other by their reviewer number on that submission’s review. This discussion information can be used by the track chairs in addition to the content of the review in making final acceptance decisions.

The SIGCSE TS 2025 review process does not have a rebuttal period for authors to respond to comments, and all acceptance decisions are final.

Getting Started Reviewing

Before starting your review, you may be asked by the Track Chairs to declare conflicts with any submitting authors. Please do so in a timely manner so we can avoid conflicts during the assignment of submissions.

As a Reviewer, we ask that you carefully read each submission assigned to you and write a constructive review that concisely summarizes what you believe the submission to be about. When reviewing a submission, consider:

• the strengths and weaknesses,
• the contribution to an outstanding SIGCSE TS 2025 program and experience for attendees, and
• how it brings new ideas or extends current ideas through replication to the field and to practitioners and researchers of computing education.

BOF Review Guidelines

In your review, you will be asked five questions.

Summary. Please provide a brief summary of the submission, its audience, and its main point(s).

Plans to facilitate active participation. How does the proposal indicate plans to facilitate active participation from attendees?

Plans to include attendees with diverse social identities and experiences. How does the proposal indicate what steps it will take to make the BoF session an inclusive space for all attendees including attendees that the authors did not expect?

Recommendation. Please provide a detailed justification that includes constructive feedback that summarizes the strengths & weaknesses of the submission and clarifies your scores. Both the score and the review text are required, but remember that the authors will not see the overall recommendation (only your review text). You should NOT directly include your preference for acceptance or rejection in your review.

Confidential remarks for the program committee. If you wish to add any remarks intended only for PC members please write them below. These remarks will only be seen by the PC members having access to reviews for this submission. They will not be sent to the authors. This field is optional.

We strongly recommend that you prepare your review in a separate document; EasyChair has been known to time out.

In your recommendation, please consider the following questions:

• How does the session strengthen an existing community or form a new community?
• How does the session benefit from the discussion-oriented birds of a feather format as opposed to a panel, special session, or paper presentation?
• How does the session provide an affinity space where all participants can share and learn from each other—not only from the discussion leaders?

While your review text should clearly support your scores and recommendation, please do not include your preference for acceptance or rejection of a submission in the feedback to the authors. Instead, use the provided radio buttons to make a recommendation (the authors will not see this) based on your summary review and provide any details that refer to your recommendation directly in the confidential comments to the APC or track chairs. Remember that as a reviewer, you will only see a small portion of the submissions, so one that you recommend for acceptance may be rejected when considering the other reviewer recommendations and the full set of submissions.

Discussion

The discussion and recommendation period provides the opportunity for the Track Chairs to discuss reviews and feedback so they can provide the best recommendation for acceptance or rejection to the Program Chairs and that the submission is given full consideration in the review process. We ask that Reviewers engage in discussion when prompted by other reviewers and the Track Chairs by using the Comments feature of EasyChair. During this period you will be able to revise your review based on the discussion, but you are not required to do so.

The Track Chairs will make a final recommendation to the Program Chairs from your feedback.

Recalcitrant Reviewers

Reviewers who don’t submit reviews, have reviews with limited constructive feedback, do not engage effectively in the discussion phase or submit inappropriate reviews will be removed from the reviewer list (as per SIGCSE policy). Recalcitrant reviewers will be informed of their removal from the reviewer list. Reviewers with repeated offenses (two within a three year period) will be removed from SIGCSE reviewing for three years.

The text of review form follows. It may change slightly as we get closer to the submission deadline.

Summary: Please provide a brief summary of the submission, its audience, and its main point(s).

Familiarity: Rate your personal familiarity with the topic area of this submission in relation to your research or practical experience.

Plans to Facilitate Active Participation: Please assess the plans to facilitate active participation. Please provide constructive feedback, particularly if you have concerns about the appropriateness of plans.

Plans to include attendees with diverse social identities and experiences: Please assess the steps and structures in the proposal to make the BoF session an inclusive space for all attendees, including attendees that the authors did not expect. Please provide constructive feedback, particularly if you have concerns about the appropriateness of plans.

Overall evaluation: Please provide a detailed justification that includes constructive feedback that summarizes the strengths & weaknesses of the submission and clarifies your scores. Both the score and the review text are required, but remember that the authors will not see the overall recommendation score (only your review text). You should NOT directly include your preference for acceptance or rejection in your review.