The call for lectures is closed now. We are pleased to announce that we accepted over 30 offers for courses.

• Presenters
• Participants
• Planning a course
• Next steps
• Important dates
• Form for online submission of course offer

The Computing Women Congress (CWC) is a meeting-place for female students, academic and professional staff who study or work in Information Technology. CWC provides an arena to learn about and share the latest ideas of computing related topics in a supportive environment. CWC provides an open, explorative learning and teaching environment. Experimentation with new styles of learning is encouraged, with an emphasis on hands-on experience and engaging participatory techniques. Each day of the CWC will offer a number of individual courses followed by a keynote presentation in the evening.

This call for lectures invites women in computing, IT, and related interdisciplinary fields to submit offers for lectures, courses, and seminars. We welcome topics from the whole spectrum of computer science as well as topics from IT related gender research. Participants from all levels of experience and any variety of background are welcome to present or teach.

The Computing Women Congress is the first Pan-Pacific congress for women in IT; we welcome submissions from around the world, but primarily focus on those from the Pan-Pacific region. The congress aims to provide role models for those early in their computing careers. We welcome female students at undergraduate and graduate level, and professionals from academic, scientific or commercial backgrounds. By learning from each other’s skills and experiences, we seek to form a community that shares interests and knowledge. The CWC is based on the concept of Informatica Feminale, developed by the University of Bremen (Germany), and is organised in co-operation and with the support from the University of Bremen. We aim at establishing a series of annual congresses for Australasian women in IT.

CWC is run by women for women—whatever your contribution or background, we look forward to seeing you!

We welcome lecturers who are

• Professors and lecturers who search for commited female students to experiment with new concepts of teaching,
• Researchers and doctoral students who want to develop their own courses and present them in a supportive and comfortable environment,
• Practitioners who want to pass on their experience or who want to make first attempts in tertiary teaching,
• Researchers and practitioners from other fields who want to initiate interdisciplinary discussions with women in computer science,
• Graduate students who want to lead discussion groups for exchanging experiences as female students in computer science, and
• Participants from industry offering orientation for issues arising in study, when entering the business world, and in professional practice.

We welcome participants who are

• Students at graduate and undergraduate level  
• Students from universities and polytechnics with a major or minor in computer science or information science 
• Students studying engineering, natural sciences, mathematics, statistics, as well as social sciences and humanities, 
• High school students with an interest in studying computer science, 
• Teachers for computer science, as well as  
• Practitioners and women from IT who are looking for opportunity for further study on a high level. 

Our experience with similar events has shown that the diversity of careers and life experiences amongst particpants triggers discussions and interesting contacts—contributing to the special attraction of the event.
 

What to consider when planning a lecture/course/seminar

Topics

We are looking for offers ranging over the complete spectrum of computer science: theoretical computer science, as well as applied and technical topics; gender and IT, applications of IT in adjoining areas, interdisciplinary topics. Undergraduate students often ask for courses teaching elementary skills in an hands-on manner, e.g., programming languages, databases, and basis computer interaction. Courses that encourage stonger social competence of the students are also very welcome. Graduate students often ask for management-related courses, e.g., project management, time management, and team building.

Courses jointly lead by people participants have been proven to be very rewarding; this is also an opportunity to 'live out' interdisciplinary topics.

Types of courses

When preparing a course you should explicitly indicate the target audience and the required previous knowledge.

We will assign course levels and time frames to the course. You can define the length of an offered course ranging from 1 hours to 21 hours. The following course types are possible:

Lecture

teaching 'ex-cathedra', you talk - the participants listen,

Course

lecture with exercises and tutorials,

Project

using a larger project assignment, participants get hands-on experience,

Seminar+Lecture

'ex-cathedra' teaching of basic information, participants research and present detailed information,

Tutorial

using applied exercises to practice certain skills,

Workshop

decide on topics in cooperation with the participants, collective effort in accessing a topic,

Presentation

you present a specific topic and lead a subsequent discussion,

Excursion

visit and reseach an IT system on location,

Plenary

Discussion and exchange of experiences amongst lecturers and/or participants.

For all successful courses, participants will be awarded participation certificates. The courses will take place at the University of Waikato; technical details will be discussed individually.

Course Selection

The acceptance of an offer of course will be decided by the programme comittee of the CWC. So far, we cannot guarantee funding for travel and accomodation lecturers (but we are working on it). If your employer offers to sponsor you participation as a lecturer, we will announce them in our list of sponsors.

What are the next steps  in 2004/5

Deadline: All offers of courses have to be handed in by the 5th July. After that we will decide about the accepted courses; June and beginning July we will create the preliminary program for the CWC 2005. To allow for easy consultation with you, all lecturers should provide us with a contact adress for that time period. Before we publish the program, all lecturers receive their relevant details from the program for acknowledgement per email. The couses are only offered after this final acknowledgement by the lecturers. The program will be available on the Internet at www.cwc.org.nz.

Important Dates for CWC 2005 

Form for Online Submission of Course Offer

Click here to get to the form.