Ricardo Queirós, researcher at the Centre for Advanced Computing Systems (CRACS), and lecturer at the School of Media Arts and Design of the Polytechnic of Porto (IPP-ESMAD), was one of the organisers of ICPEC. The International Computer Programming Education Conference (ICPEC) was held online June 25 and 26. It was the first world conference dedicated exclusively to the study of the current status of teaching computer programming, and the sharing of new methodologies, techniques and tools to facilitate the teaching-learning process in this very demanding field.
The first edition of ICPEC received 48 submissions, proposed by 130 authors from 21 countries (Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Gambia, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Ivory Coast, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Ukraine and Vietnam) spread across four continents. Among the 48 submissions, 28 articles were accepted (68% long and 32% short), resulting in a rejection rate of around 42%.
Over the course of two days, the participants had the opportunity to watch 24 presentations out of these 28 articles, as well as two presentations on the paths of two renowned researchers in the area, also associated with INESC TEC: José Paulo Leal (creator of the automatic program evaluator called Mooshak) and Pedro Ribeiro (coach in national/international programming contests). More than 50 people on average attended the conference via Zoom, and almost 400 people partially attended the conference via Facebook.
The proceedings of this first edition are available online, and people can also purchase them in physical format. The organisation, composed of professors Ricardo Queirós (ESMAD), Mário Pinto (ESMAD), Filipe Portela (UM) and Alberto Simões (IPCA), would like to thank all authors, reviewers, participants and sponsors for their availability and interest in making this conference a reality, while looking forward to the second edition – whose hosts will be announced in November 2020.
According to Ricardo Queirós, this conference “is a dream come true and a scientific milestone in the field of teaching programming, as it is the first international conference dedicated exclusively to promoting excellence in the teaching-learning process of computer programming. The first edition was a success, and it’s crucial to work hard to improve at all levels and organise a second edition that addresses all the challenges that teachers face in teaching programming, especially during these unusual times of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The INESC TEC researcher mentioned in this news piece is associated with IPP-ESMAD.
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