ACM Europe Update on Educational Activities Education Council Meeting, Portland, Oregon 16 th September 2014 Andrew McGettrick

Outline Background to Educational Efforts Main Activities The Athens ACM Europe Meeting Summary

Background to Educational Efforts Context –Around 15% of ACM membership is European (approx 16,000) –60% of ACM student members are from outside the US –ACM Europe is now a legal entity within Europe and its aim is to serve the needs of ACM membership in Europe –In the educational sphere it aims to advance the status, standing, and role of informatics education across Europe –In its educational activities it works with Informatics Europe (IE) Informatics Europe (IE) –This is a coming together of (some) Heads of Computing in Europe; some 74 institutions are involved –Originally set up to be a CRA for Europe –Membership costs 2500 euros (zone 1), 1000 euros (zone 2) –5 universities from the UK are members ;

Schools report - published Joint Report produced by ACM Europe and Informatics Europe: Informatics Education: Europe Cannot Afford to Miss the Boat –Draws a clear distinction between education in digital literacy and informatics –Argues informatics is a major enabler of technology innovation, the principal resource for Europe's drive to become an information society, and the key to the future of Europe's economy. –Calls for all students within Europe to have access to a high-quality education in informatics at the secondary (schools) level

Committee on European Computing Education (formerly the Joint Advisory Committee) ACM Michael CaspersenDenmark, SIGCSE Michael KollingUK, SIGCSE Serdar TasiranTurkey, ACM Europe Informatics Europe Barbara DemoItaly Antoine Petit France Jan VahrenholdGermany

Immediate projects Refine and further develop the schools report Undertake a two-year study to conduct a deep assessment of the state of informatics education within each European country; note the parallel with the ACM study Running On Empty: The failure to Teach K-12 Computer Science in the Digital Age See runningonempty.acm.org Give consideration, with Informatics Europe, to creating anew high profile computing education conference within Europe

Some Observations ACM Europe and Informatics Europe now jointly fund Mirko Westermeier who is based at the University of Munster, to assist with these plans, e.g. the survey, but this is at an early stage. Engaging the membership of Informatics Europe has been seen to be of particular importance With respect to the conference, –Within ACM conferences have traditionally been seen to be the responsibility of the SIGs; hence SIGCSE involvement has been important in the Joint Advisory Committee –the intention is to have a conference that is European in character, run by Europeans, primarily for Europeans –ITICSE has tended to take place in Europe, but in 2015 is going to Peru; this was seen by SIGCSE as an opportunity for the European conference to ‘take off’

CaMIES Project CaMIES = Creating a Map of Informatics Education in Schools Project duration: runs from 1 st April 2014 until 31 st March 2016 (24 months) Four work packages are envisaged: –WP 1: Mapping –WP 2: Identification of Case Studies –WP 3: Data Collection and Interpretation –WP 4: Reporting

More Details Mapping Goal is ‘to map out the state of informatics education across Europe in a high-level fashion’. Authors from special issue of ToCE on Computer Science Education in Schools being used as primary contacts in countries Identification of Case Studies Aim is to compile a list of 5 – 10 countries to provide case studies for the report, countries being selected to provide broad geographic coverage and diversity of approaches Data Collection and Interpretation Seen as the major part of the project and involves collecting date from case studies and interpreting it Reporting

The Athens ACM Europe Meeting The ACM Europe Council will meet in Athens, Greece on 19 th September, 2014 At its meetings it often holds a panel discussion on a topic of particular relevance to that country On this occasion there will be a panel discussion on education; there have been problems in Greece over recognition of and acceptance of computing at school level.

Details of Athens panel Topic: Status of CS education in Europe Chair of panel: Wendy Hall, former ACM President Members of panel –Alex Wolf, ACM President –Kathy Kikis-Papadakis from FORTH, a national research centre in Greece –Muffy Calder, Scottish Chief Scientific Officer –George Metakides, former EC Esprit Director –Michael Caspersen, Committee on European Computing Education –Andrew McGettrick, ACM Europe Council