The latest ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) SIGCSE (Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education) chapter, SIGCSEire, was officially launched this week in the UCD School of Computer Science.
The ACM was founded in 1947 and is the world’s largest scientific and education computing society with nearly 100,000 members. was founded in 1970 and has nearly 3,000 members. SIGCSE is the third largest and second oldest of nearly 40 ACM Special Interest Groups. From the outset SIGCSE’s goal was to provide a global forum for educators to discuss research and practice related to the learning, and teaching of computing, the development, implementation, and evaluation of computing programs, curricula, and courses at all education levels, as well as broad participation, educational technology, instructional spaces, and other elements of teaching and pedagogy related to computing. In addition SIGCSE sponsors four Computer Science Education conferences all over the world with a total attendance of around 2,500 each year, and about a dozen “in cooperation with” conferences.
In having a SIGCSE chapter chartered, Ireland joins only four other countries (or country conglomerates) to have SIGCSE Chapters, the others being Australasia, China, India and the United Kingdom.
The mission of the Ireland ACM SIGCSE Chapter is:
- to provide a unifying forum to foster and advance the state of Computing Education in Ireland
- to promote dissemination of best practices in Computing Education research and practice
- positively influencing equality, diversity, inclusion and accessibility in computing
This mission transcends all stakeholders in Computing Education in Ireland including formal and informal educators and students as well as government, industry, volunteer and grass-roots stakeholders.
Although SIGCSE traditionally focuses on university level and most members are university academics, membership is open to anyone, regardless of location, level or sector, provided you have a genuine interest in the chapter, Ireland, and SIGCSE. Membership is free and you can signup here.
For more information on the new chapter see SIGCSEire.acm.org or follow @SIGCSEire.