[OCWIC] MIDWIC - WRITE A PAPER; be a published author!

Sun Sep 10 21:19:55 EDT 2006

Fyi.

-----Original Message-----
From: Gloria Townsend [mailto:gct at depauw.edu] 
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2006 3:00 PM
Subject: WRITE A PAPER; be a published author!

If you are a professor, please forward this to your female students!

There is still time to submit a paper before this Friday's (the 15th)
midnight deadline.  
Papers from undergraduate and graduate school women will be published in
the MidWic conference proceedings, which will be distributed to all
conference attendees and also distributed from the ACM-W booth at
SIGCSE2007 to conference attendees.  We invite submissions for two
tracks:  Technical papers in any area of computing and papers regarding
social, ethical, educational, pedagogical, outreach, non-traditional,
curricular, etc. issues of computing (especially gender issues).  

A six-pack of ideas . all very practical and, therefore, very useful!
(No idea concerns research, b/c everyone understands that her research
paper would "be about her research"!)

1)  A tribute to a role model:  What a specific woman did to help me;
why her efforts "worked".  [Instructors need to hear what works!  We
could use SEVERAL of these papers.  Would make a cool section of the
Proceedings!]  

2)  An open letter from a CS1 (or some other class) student to her
instructors:  What works and what doesn't.from the student perspective.
[editorial comment:  I've never read a paper with a similar theme.  I
think it could be awesome.]

3)  An activity or two that our Women in CS organization conducted that
was/were really successful.  Or an activity or two that I wish our
organization (if we had one??) would conduct.  [very valuable for
sponsors to know what students WANT!]

4)  Tips for mentoring.  What works and what doesn't - from the student
perspective.  [Have you been a mentor or been mentored?  Write a paper!]

5)  I'm a junior/senior:  What I've learned that I'd like to tell a
first-year woman, in order to help her.  [similar for older grad
students.]

6)  My internship [or research] experience:  What I learned; how I'd
like to help another woman avoid pitfalls and/or tips for success.
Describe the experience and give tips to younger women.  [important:
how did you find the internship/research project?  Too many women are
hesitant/lacking-in-confidence, regarding finding/conducting an
internship or research experience.  You advice from your perspective
should help lots of young women!]

Use ACM guidelines (http://www.cs.potsdam.edu/sigcse07/format.shtml) to
format the paper of **any length**.  Submit the paper through:

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/cgi-pub/midwic/papers/paper_upload.php
**Papers will be lightly reviewed for content and suitability only.**
Our goal is to mentor young researchers and to encourage young women to
gain confidence in the publication process. The top three papers in each
of the two tracks will be chosen for presentation, during the
conference.

If you are an instructor, please encourage all of your female students
to write a paper and attend our conference.  If you are a student,
please write a paper and urge your friends to do the same. You might
co-author a paper, as well.  Our call-for-participation is appended
below the "top 10" list that follows.

************************Summary of old emails and the
call-for-participation follow: #5  Career Fair.  Both Google and
Microsoft are sending representatives to collect your resumes and talk
with you at MidWic.  (Google may collect ahead of time; stay tuned for
that information.)  The Career Fair is a repetition of an extremely
popular and beneficial event at our February 2006 conference, where many
attendees received email interviews, phone interviews, on-site
interviews, internships and/or jobs!  

#6  Apply for a scholarship.  Google has provided 20, $200 scholarships;
Microsoft, 15; ACM-W, 10.  (We use the terms Google Scholar, Microsoft
Scholar, ACM-W Scholar).  See:
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/cgi-pub/midwic/register/scholarship.php
for details and for the application protocol.  Recall that the
registration price (which includes food) is only $40, and hotel prices
in our neighborhood are extremely reasonable - more so, if you share
rooms.  

#7   Propose a BOF.  BOFs are very informal events organized for more
open discussion than occurs during a panel or paper presentation.   See
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/MidWic/       for more details.  At our last
regional conference, we had BOF topics such as:  Artificial Intelligence
(led by undergrad student), Women in CS Organizations, etc.  See
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/InWic/bofs.html   for more BOF examples that
will spark your imagination.

#8  Consult http://www.cs.indiana.edu/midwic/  to submit a proposal for
a Lightning Talk.  This gives students who write papers an additional
chance to give a presentation (and to have a publication too), if the
paper is not one of the six "winners".  We'll reserve the Lightning Talk
slots for students only.

#9 tells you that there is another benefit from the paper:   We will
choose 3 papers from each of the two tracks for presentation, during two
sessions.  It would be cool to be a "top 3 papers" winner in either
category! 

#10: Would you like to publish a paper?  Our fall conference will
feature a proceedings.  We will review papers **lightly** for content
and suitability.  See the attached Call for Participation or
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/midwic/  for details.
***************************************
Call for Participation
MidWIC
Great Lakes, Great Links to New Friends and New Ideas
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/midwic/

Midwest Celebration of Women in Computing
DePauw University
Greencastle, Indiana
September 29-30, 2006

Save-the-date:  Midwest conference for high school, undergraduate, and
graduate women in computing in Indiana and in surrounding states.  We
describe several ways that you may participate:

1)  Papers from undergraduate and graduate school women will be
published in the conference proceedings, which will be distributed to
all conference attendees and to SIGCSE2007 attendees (from the ACM-W
booth).  We invite submissions for two tracks:  Technical papers in any
area of computing and papers regarding social, ethical, educational,
pedagogical, outreach, non-traditional, curricular, etc. issues of
computing (especially gender issues).  Use ACM guidelines
(http://www.cs.potsdam.edu/sigcse07/format.shtml) to format the paper of
any length.  Submit the paper through:

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/cgi-pub/midwic/papers/paper_upload.php

by September 15.  Papers will be lightly reviewed for content and
suitability only.  Our goal is to mentor young researchers and to
encourage young women to gain confidence in the publication process. The
top three papers in each of the two tracks will be chosen for
presentation, during the conference.

2) The conference will host three additional (and overlapping)
opportunities for participation:  a Posters session, a "Lightning Talks"
(five-minute talks) session and a Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) session.
Submit abstracts for all three through individual links on:

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/midwic/participation.html

3) Costs for the conference will be minimal.  The conference will be
held in tandem with another conference, Consortium for Computing
Sciences in Colleges:  Midwest (CCSC:  MW).  A $40 conference
registration (which includes three meals, programming contest, dinner
speaker and other conference events) will be collected through the Web
pages for the tandem conference.  (Register as a student!)  Please
register by September 14 ($10 additional charge for registration after
September 14):

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/cgi-pub/midwic/register/

The URL above provides directions for a second on-line registration for
MidWiC itself (where Papers, Posters, Lightning Talks, BoFs, a
Proceedings, and fun food are provided at no additional cost).

4)  Please also consult the following page for reasonably-priced hotel
reservations:

http://www.ccsc.org/midwest/Conference/LodgingAndDirections.html

You may further reduce costs by sharing a room.   You may contact us, if
you wish roommate matching service.

5)  Google, ACM-W and Microsoft scholarships are available to help
defray costs.  Upon submission of receipts, scholarship awardees may
claim up to $200, through the generosity of the Google and Microsoft
Corporations.  The scholarship application site is:

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/cgi-pub/midwic/register/scholarship.php

6) Consult the MidWIC conference Web pages, as the program and other
conference details evolve:

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/midwic/program.html

We hope to see you soon!

Suzanne Menzel (menzel at cs.indiana.edu)
Gloria Townsend (gct at depauw.edu)