Research paper submission deadline: May 4th, 2014 (changed from April 20th to evade Easter celebrations/vacation).

Link to full call for submissions: Open Educational Resources Research Track.

OER (Open Educational Resources) Research Track

Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning materials that are freely available to use, reuse, adapt, and share. Collaborative spaces such as wikis and blogs allow teachers to connect, share and customize materials. Open online learning environments such as MOOCs make educational material for learners available in and out of school. With OER, we can harness the power of open access to high-level education addressing learners worldwide.

The availability of large sets of user data and new analysis methods allows us to take into account individual differences of teachers and learners. By addressing learners’ different needs and various levels of prior knowledge more timely and adaptively, we may overcome the “one size fits all” solution towards a more flexible approach to teaching and learning. Connecting our students with rich and dynamic educational materials, thereby supporting self-paced learning and co-construction of knowledge, we may provoke critical thinking and ultimately enhance their learning.

The OER track seeks contributions from researchers and practitioners investigating learning with OER looking at various aspects that make OER distinct from other educational resources such as openness, access, usage and adoption patterns of OER, collaboration etc.

Research Topics include but are not limited to:

• Personalized curricula
• Learning analytics and educational data mining
• Social network analysis
• MOOCs and other open online learning environments
• Metadata for OER
• Mass collaboration
• Peer assessment and peer feedback
• Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL)
• Knowledge sharing and knowledge building
• Communities of practice
• Collaborative writing using wikis, blogs etc.

Submission Information and Instructions

The following types of submissions are invited:

• Long research papers (5 to 10 pages)
• Short research papers (1 to 4 pages)
• Research-in-progress presentations (1 to 10 pages)
• Research posters (1 to 2 pages)

Research papers present integrative reviews or original reports of substantive new theoretical or empirical work. Research papers will be reviewed by the research track program committee to meet rigorous academic standards of publication. Papers will be reviewed for relevance, conceptual quality, innovation and clarity of presentation. They must be written in English. At least one author of accepted papers is required to attend the conference in order to present the paper.

Research-in-progress presentations present integrative reviews or original reports of substantive new theoretical or empirical work. This is a new format is specifically aimed at social science researchers enabling those researchers to use OpenSym 2014 as a pre-publication venue before journal publication. Only the abstracts of these papers will be published as part of the proceedings thus leaving open the opportunity for journal publication at a later date. Research presentations will be reviewed by the research track program committee to meet rigorous academic standards just like research papers.

Research posters enable researchers to present late-breaking research results, significant research work in progress, or research work that is best communicated in conversation. OpenSym’s lively poster sessions let conference attendees exchange ideas one-on-one with authors, and let authors discuss their work in detail with those attendees most deeply interested in the topic. Successful applicants will display their posters, up to 1x2m in size, at a special session during the event.

The OpenSym website provides more information about the available paper types.

Submissions for experience reports (long and short), tutorials, workshops, panels, non-research posters, and demos are also sought but are handled through the community track, please see the community track call for submissions.

Submissions to OpenSym’s Doctoral Symposium are sought but are handled separately, please see the doctoral symposium call for submissions.

Submissions should follow the standard ACM SIG proceedings format. A Word Template is available. All papers must conform at time of submission to the formatting instructions and must not exceed the page limits, including all text, references, appendices and figures. All submissions must in PDF format.

All papers and posters should be submitted electronically through EasyChair using the following URL: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=opensym2014.

Submission and Notification Deadlines

• Submission: May 4th (in the local timezone of the submitter)
• Notification to authors: June 15th, 2014
• Camera-ready: July 15th, 2014

As long as it is May 4th somewhere on earth, your submission will be accepted.

Research Track Chairs

• Astrid Wichmann (Ruhr University Bochum, Germany)
• Ulrike Cress (IWM Tübingen, Germany)

Research Track Committee

• Ryan Baker (Columbia University, US)
• Pierre Dillenbourg (EPFL, Switzerland)
• Leonard Dobusch (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany)
• Ulrich Hoppe (University Duisburg-Essen, Germany)
• Michele Notari (PH Bern, Switzerland)
• Jim Slotta (University of Toronto, Canada)
• John Stamper (CMU Pittsburgh, US)