Following highly successful conferences in Auckland'02, Adelaide'03, Perth'04, Brisbane'05, Sydney'06 (and 18 previous years), Singapore'07 is ascilite's 24th annual conference and the Society's first in Southeast Asia. Hosted by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 2007 will take ascilite's conference series into a new level of international recognition and engagement.

The theme for ascilite 2007, "ICT: Providing choices for learners and learning", focuses on catering for the diversity of learners and learning, and how we as educators can provide stimulating and engaging learning environments and experiences for all our learners through the use of ICT in higher education.

You are invited to develop full papers, concise papers, and proposals for posters and workshops for ascilite Singapore 2007. The submission deadlines for all papers and proposals have been extended to the following dates:

•	Deadline for full and concise papers: 20 August 2007
•	Deadline for all poster proposals: 8 October 2007
•	Deadline for all workshop proposals: 20 August 2007

To explore the range of topics and perspectives we expect to be represented at ascilite Singapore 2007, please browse in the Proceedings listed under http://www.ascilite.org.au/index.php/Conferences, and in ascilite's journal AJET, under http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/

And there will be much more to ascilite Singapore 2007 besides a premier academic and professional experience. Singapore will provide an opportunity to sample the fantastic diversity of food and culture of South East Asia in the spectacular setting of a 21st century global city.

 

Deadline for all full and concise papers 20 August (previously 23 July) Deadline for all poster proposals 8 Oct (previously 23 July) Deadline for all workshop proposals 20 August (previously 23 July) Reviewing process 27 August to 14 September Completed reviews sent back to authors 20 to 24 September Revised papers due 12 October Workshops 2 December Conference presentations 3 to 5 December

 

Full papers should not exceed 10 pages. Page limits include references. In addition to the page limits, there is a file size limit for all categories: not exceeding 2 MB. Please refer to Formatting your paper for details of page size, margins and fonts. You are limited to one first authorship for a paper, although there is no limit on the number of times a person may appear as an author other than first. Full papers are expected to contain major reviews, or to report on large case studies, evaluations, developments or projects.

Concise papers should not exceed 4 pages. Page limits include references. In addition to the page limits, there is a file size limit for all categories: not exceeding 2 MB. Please refer to Formatting your paper for details of page size, margins and fonts. You are limited to one first authorship for a paper, although there is no limit on the number of times a person may appear as an author other than first. Concise papers may be accepted for full or concise presentation. Concise papers are intended to provide an avenue for work in progress, for pilot studies, small scale exploratory projects, reports on highly specialised topics, or brief studies on recent developments.

Poster presentation proposals should not exceed 2 pages. Please refer to Formatting your paper for details of page size, margins and fonts. Poster presentation proposals, if accepted by the Conference Committee, will appear in the Proceedings. Posters do not count towards the limit of one first authorship for papers. Poster display panels will cater for A0 size, 1189 x 841 mm, and landscape orientation is recommended. Whilst poster presentation proposals must be in MS Word format, your A0 sized poster for display at the Conference may be prepared with any software and does not have to be submitted to Committee.

Workshops constitute the Conference's most direct contribution towards staff development and professional development in educational technology and related topics. In many cases the workshops are derived from staff development activities conducted previously at the presenters' own institutions. Workshops enable participants to work with experts in specific areas to acquire knowledge, enhance skills and develop broader perspectives. These are not research presentations, although some workshops may include topics in research skills and techniques. Workshops are longer sessions, typically half day or full day, to enable detailed discussion and interactive consideration of substantial topics and issues.

Workshop proposals should be no longer than 1,500 words (about three pages). Use Formatting your paper below as a general guide, and include the following information.

• Length of workshop (specify half day or full day).
• Facilities required and maximum number of participants.
• Intended audience and degree of expertise required by workshop participants.
• Clear statement of the objectives of the workshop.
• A detailed description of the workshop format including activities workshop participants will be expected to engage in.
• A list of previous presentations (if any) of the workshop and website or publication references (if any). Optionally, the proposers may nominate one or two referees whom the Committee may contact.
• A summary of the workshop presenter's qualifications.

 

Use MS Word or compatibles only. Use Normal style only and do not use any templates. Whatever file name you use for your paper, the Conference's web based submission system, MyReview, will rename it.

Note that the advice in this section relates to the preparation of your paper for review, omitting author and affiliation details, acknowledgments and bionotes. Refer to Submitting a revised version if accepted, below, which will advise you to include these items.

Paper title in sentence case Arial 16 bold

Author 1                                               In the cases of full and concise papers for review, omit these lines
Department or Centre
Institution

Author 2                                               In the cases of full and concise papers for review, omit these lines
Department or Centre
Institution

Place your abstract here ... no more than 250 words … in Times New Roman 10, indented 1.0 cm left and right margins, left aligned. Title, author details and abstract are the only parts of your paper that will appear in the Conference's printed program booklet. Title and abstract are the most critically, vitally important parts of your writing!

Keywords: One line of key or focus terms by which your paper can be indexed.

First level heading in Arial 12 bold

Body of your paper … use Times New Roman 10 point, left aligned, single spaced. Blank lines before and after headings and paragraphs are to be sized the same as text lines, i.e., 10 point (Times NR).

For paragraphing, use a single blank line between each paragraph, and no indents. Do not use Spacing Before or Spacing After your paragraphs.

Second level heading in Arial 10 bold

Put a blank line before and after the second level heading.

Third level heading in Times New Roman 10 point italic
Do not include a blank line after a third level heading. Use bulleted or numbered lists in preference to third level headings where possible.

[This is a quotation] Use Times New Roman 10 point, left aligned, single spaced, indented 1.0 cm left and right, not italicised, without quote marks, one blank line before and after. Indents may be varied slightly from 1.0 cm to improve the fit. Referencing for the quotation may be given in the running text immediately before the quotation, or may be appended to the end of the quotation. In general, very short quotations using only a few words should be given with quote marks in your running text, whilst only longer quotations using a line or more should be formatted as quotations. (reference)

This is a bulleted list:

•     Times New Roman 10 point
•     left aligned, single spaced
•     no indents except a hanging indent 0.5 cm. Indentation may be varied slightly to improve the fit.

This is an ordered list:

i.    Times New Roman 10 point
ii.   left aligned, single spaced
iii.  no indents except a hanging indent 0.5 cm. Indentation may be varied slightly to improve the fit.
iv.  select only from these kinds of ordering: 1., 2., …; i., ii., …; a., b., … Do not use any other kind.

Do not use page breaks or sections breaks. Where necessary or desirable, use several carriage returns to obtain a page break.

Figure 1: Sample of a figure (legend is below figure, centred, bold)

Figures must be placed in their correct, appropriate locations in your running text. All figures should be included in your Word file, and not in separate graphics or drawing packages. Labelling should be consistent with the fonts used in the text of your paper, i.e., Times New Roman. Number sequentially, Figure 1, Figure 2, etc. Do not use variations such as Figure 1a, 1b.

 

Table 1: A sample table (title is above table, centred, bold)

Location	Tables must be placed in their correct, appropriate locations in your running text
General	In general use Times New Roman 10 point and other body text specifications for all text within a table and its title, though 9 point may be used as required for narrow columns. In general all tables should have a title with consecutive numbering (e.g.: Table 1: Title of the table), bolded, using sentence case, centred, and located at the top of the table. For headings within tables use sentence case, with bold and centering optional.
Format	Centre each table and select appropriate widths for the table and for each column, using percentages. Use of borders for all cells ('All', with style '1/4 point') is recommended, mainly because borders seem to be helpful for on screen reading. In columns of numbers, use centre or decimal point alignment.
Explanatory text	If your table requires explanatory text that is inappropriate for placing in your running text, place it at the bottom of the table, formatted to the same width as the table.
Other features	Cell background colouring or shading may be used, but check that grey scale printing (600 dpi) is not impaired, and note that when a web version file is created, the Proceedings editors may use a standard background colour for the first row or other elements of a table.

References

In your reference list please use APA 5th edition style. This style prescribes alphabetical order by first author. Use Times New Roman 10 point, left aligned, hanging indent 0.5 cm, with no blank lines. Wherever possible, insert URLs for references. However, do not insert URLs for publications which offer only pay per view or institutional subscriber only, on campus only, access to full text. Date of viewing may be omitted for journal and proceedings URLs considered to be of high reliability. The following list provides examples of referencing for the main kinds of publications.

Beasley, R.E. & Vila, J.A. (1992). The identification of navigation patterns in a multimedia environment:
     A case study. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 1(2), 209–222.
Chen, C. J. (2006). The design, development and evaluation of a virtual reality based learning
     environment. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 22(1), 39-63.      http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet22/chen.html
Kearsley, G. (2004). Explorations in learning & instruction: The theory into practice database.      http://tip.psychology.org/ [viewed 8 May 2007].
O'Shea, T. & Self, J.A. (1983). Learning and teaching with computers. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc.
Underwood, J. (1997). Breaking the cycle of ignorance: Information technology and the professional
     development of teachers. In D. Passey & B. Samways (Eds.), Information Technology: Supporting change
     through teacher education. (pp.155-158). London: Chapman & Hall.

 

After a final proof reading of your paper or proposal, and immediately prior to submitting it for review, please check this web page for any additional instructions that may appear. Remember that in the case of papers your file has to be suitable for double blind reviewing without any editorial intervention. Ensure that you have deleted Author, etc, details from your file's File Properties (MS Word menu) and resaved. Then proceed to the URL for the Conference's web based submission system, MyReview. Please follow the advice given there.

http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/review/index.php?authorsInstructions=1

This is accessable via http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/

 

Allocations of presentation format will be made by the Program Committee, taking into account the recommendations made by reviewers. Allocations of "traditional" and "short" presentation formats will not necessarily correspond to the category of acceptance for the Conference proceedings (a full paper may be allocated a short session, and a concise paper may be allocated a traditional session).

Kind of presentation Time allocation Brief specification Traditional 25 minutes Presenters may select any conventional style of presentation, but are very strongly urged to allocate at least one third of the time to interactive discussion. Short 15 minutes Presenters may select any conventional style of presentation, but are very strongly urged to allocate at least one half of the time to interactive discussion Poster Continuous, plus 1 program period exclusively for posters Poster presenters are expected to be present at their posters for the whole of the program period reserved for posters. Workshop Half day (3 hr) or full day (6 hr) The time allocation does not include lunchtime (1 hr). We recommend that presenters adjourn for a 15-20 minute tea-coffee break at an appropriate stage.

A laptop or desktop personal computer will be available in all of the presentation venues, together with data projection and Internet access. Further advice on facilities and presentation style will be given when offers of presentation format are made on 17 September 2007.

 

All full and concise papers will be subjected to a double blind peer review process using an external panel of reviewers [Advice to Reviewers]. Having in mind the criteria outlined below, reviewers will assign ratings and make recommendations that will enable the Program Committee to prepare offers of acceptance or rejection to authors. The acceptance offers will specify a publication format and presentation format (options detailed above), and may include advice on mandatory revisions or desirable revisions. Owing to the tight timetable of only six weeks for the review and notification process, the Program Committee will not be able to provide specific, detailed formative feedback to authors who are not offered their first preference for publication and presentation formats, or to authors of declined submissions.

Reviewers and the Program Committee will be guided by criteria expressed in six categories.

Category Description Weight Suitability Interest and relevance to ascilite Conference 20% Originality Meets the definition of research 15% Lit review Quality of literature review and research questions 15% Method Sound, documented methods, clearly presented results 15% Analysis Clear, logical findings, conclusions and implications for practice 20% Writing Ease of reading, grammar, spelling, format, referencing details 15%

As with previous ascilite Conferences, one of the purposes for the review process is to obtain DEST recognition of the work in the category "Conference publication" (DEST, 2006). To this end, we confirm that refereed proposals accepted for ascilite 2007 Conference publication will:

• meet the definition of research in relation to creativity, originality, and increasing humanity's stock of knowledge
• be selected on the basis of a DEST compliant peer review process (independent, qualified expert review; double blind reviews conducted on the full articles, prior to publication)
• be published and presented at a conference having national and international significance as evidenced by registrations and participation
• be made available widely through ... the Conference website (DEST, 2006).

Papers submitted as poster proposals will be reviewed by the Conference Committee, but will not be eligible for DEST recognition, regardless of final, published length, because of the lack of external reviewing. Workshop proposals will be reviewed by the Conference Committee.

 

The role of Reviewers
Reviewers are pivotal in ensuring the quality of the papers and thus the Conference. Reviewers provide an independent assessment of the quality of each submission. Whilst Reviewers have considerable latitude, and a considerable responsibility, for interpretation of the concept of quality, we hope that the notes below will help us towards a reasonable uniformity of perception of quality standards, a fair, unbiased review process, and helpful, formative feedback for authors.

Papers under review and completed Review Forms are confidential and the contents are not to be revealed to other persons.

Double blind reviewing
ascilite Conferences use a double blind review process. That is, reviewers are not given the names and institutional affiliations of the authors, and authors are not given the names of the reviewers assigned to their article. If you feel that your objectivity as a Reviewer has been compromised because you have identified an author, either inadvertently through routine checking of references, or other avenues, please advise the Program Committee and we will seek a replacement reviewer.

ascilite Conferences commission at least two double blind reviews for each submission. These may be supplemented, if appropriate, with another double blind review by a third Reviewer, or non-blind reviews obtained from members of the Conference Committee.

Selecting and appointing Reviewers
Reviewers are appointed on the basis of their expertise and experience in areas relevant for the Conference. It is an honorary role, being rewarded only by acknowledgement in the online and CD versions of the Proceedings. Each ascilite Conference relies to a large extent upon Reviewers commissioned for previous Conferences. This has helped us sustain a uniformly high standard of reviewing over the years, as most of our Reviewers are 'experienced'. The ranks of 'experienced' Reviewers may be supplemented from other sources, such as AJET reviewers and authors. It is not necessary for reviewers to be members of ascilite, or to be registrants for the Conference. ascilite Conferences also have an established policy of encouraging the induction of 'novice' Reviewers, who will broaden the Reviewer pool, and be in line to become the next generation of 'experienced' Reviewers. This policy is facilitated by ensuring that a review allocated to a 'novice' Reviewer is also allocated to 'experienced' Reviewers, and is backed up by Program Committee reviews, if appropriate.

The review process: Accessing papers and forms
We anticipate that each Reviewer will be allocated 2 or 3 papers, usually a mix of full and concise papers, made available on about 27 August, with a due date 14 September.
You will be advised by email on your login name (it will be your email address) and password for your access to the Conference paper review system, via the URL

http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/review/Review.php

Whilst three weeks may seem to be a hectic deadline, it is similar to review process deadlines used for past Conferences. Given that ascilite Conferences offer authors the latest possible submission dates, it is essential that Reviewers maintain good turnaround times. If you find that you must call for help and seek re-allocation of all or part of the reviewing assigned to you, it will be vitally important to inform the Program Committee sooner rather than later!

After downloading and reading the papers assigned to you, we recommend that you compose your 'Summary of contribution' and 'Detailed comments' (see below) in your word processor. Save for doing 'copy and paste' entries during your next login to the Conference paper review system.

Applying the review criteria
You will have to use your own best judgment on the six criteria listed above in [Review procedure], weighted as shown. For each criterion you will be asked to select a rating from the seven point scale:

Strong Accept

Accept

Weak Accept

Neutral

Weak Reject

Reject

Strong Reject

You will be asked to 'self rate' on a three point 'Reviewer's expertise' scale.

Next you will find two free form text entry boxes:

1. Summary of contribution. Please provide one to several sentences summarising your overall impression and recommendation.
   
   
2. Detailed comments. In plain text format, these will be the principal formative feedback. Here you should specify revisions that are to be completed to improve the quality of the paper. You could give amplifying comments and brief, illustrative examples to help authors understand the summative judgments that you have given under review criteria ratings. Please remember that the aim here is to encourage authors to improve their work, not only for this Conference, but also for future conference and journal submissions. It is a section in which you can emphasise 'how you may progress...', in contrast to emphasising 'your work is bad because...'. Another aim in this section is to alert the Proceedings editors to minor or major revisions that they should check, upon receiving a revised version from the authors. Owing to production time constraints, it won't be possible to send revised versions to the original or new Reviewers.

This is followed by the Yes or No question, "Candidate for the best paper award?" This item provides the Program Committee with a basis for compiling a short list for determining one to several Outstanding Paper Awards. Both 'Full' and 'Concise' papers may be eligible.

Comments for Program Committee (not shown to the authors) is another free form text entry box, where you may add any special, confidential comments for 'Program Committee eyes only', that may assist the Program Committee with the selection process, and in using its discretion when providing feedback to authors. Other matters that you may raise could include alerting the Committee to instances of excessive repetition of previously published work, or inadequate acknowledgment of the work of other writers.

Full papers and concise papers are to be reviewed using the same criteria, using your own best judgment about how well the authors have used their chosen length. The 'amount' of research represented in a concise paper may be about one third to one half the 'amount' in a full paper, but the quality is to be the same. However, with concise papers Reviewers can allow a weighting towards the statement in [Categories of papers and proposals] that concise papers are "an avenue for work in progress, for pilot studies, small scale exploratory projects, reports on highly specialised topics, brief studies on recent new developments with evaluation in progress, and similar".

In some cases, the Reviewer may feel that it is appropriate to recommend to the Program Committee that the authors be offered a format differing from the format they nominated, e.g., an outstanding Concise paper may be given a 'Traditional' 25 minute presentation slot. However, please note that some changes of format cannot be offered. For example, changes from 'Concise' or 'Poster' to 'Full' in publication format cannot be offered. Also, changes from 'Full' to 'Concise' should be recommended only in exceptional cases where the paper could be substantially improved by a major revision with shortening. Papers submitted as 'Full' or 'Concise' which are recommended by Reviewers for acceptance, but with the Reviewers or the Committee changing the Presentation format to 'Poster', may be published in full if the authors so desire, upon accepting the 'Poster' offer from the Committee.

 

Should your submission be accepted for publication, you will be asked to submit a revised version. The Summary of deadlines (see above) gives authors only a limited time between 'Completed reviews sent back to authors' and 'Revised papers due'. In essence, you should aim to improve your paper as best you can, in the light of reviewer comments and other advice that may appear in the notification of acceptance of your submission.

In the revised version, you must add authors and affiliations (after title), and at the end, acknowledgements (optional), author contact details (mandatory) and brief bionotes (optional), to be placed after the references and before the ‘Please cite as’ box. The material appearing after acknowledgements, etc, will be completed or adapted by the Proceedings Editors. It will be in the general form shown below, and is outside your category's page limit.

Copyright © 2007 Author(s) name(s).
The author(s) assign to ascilite and educational non-profit institutions a non-exclusive licence to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The author(s) also grant a non-exclusive licence to ascilite to publish this document on the ascilite web site and in other formats for Proceedings ascilite Singapore 2007. Any other use is prohibited without the express permission of the author(s).

You will submit the revised version of your accepted paper, poster text or workshop in MS Word or compatible format directly to the Proceedings Editors. Your file name should be the first author’s surname. Your Subject line should be firstauthorsurname revised ascilite paper. Please send to all three addresses as follows

ascilite2007@ntu.edu.sg, rjatkinson@bigpond.com, c.mcbeath@bigpond.com

 

The ascilite 2007 Conference Proceedings will be published on a CD and on the Internet under the URL http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/procs/. There will be no printed version. The CD will be included in your Conference satchel, delivered to you personally at the Conference registration desk at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The online version will be made available several days before the Conference begins.

 

DEST (2006). Higher Education Research Data Collection. Specifications for the collection of 2006 data.
     [viewed 16 May 2007] http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/research_sector/online_forms_services/
     higher_education_research_data_collection.htm

The Macquarie Dictionary (1997). 3rd ed. Sydney: The Macquarie Library.

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2001). 5th ed. Washington DC: APA.

Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Publishers (2002). 6th ed. Wiley Australia. (Previous editions were known
     with great respect and affection as the AGPS Manual).