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A Scientometric Perspective on the Evolution of the SIGCSE Technical Symposium: 1970–2021

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Past, Present and Future of Computing Education Research

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Abstract

ACM’s Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education’s (SIGCSE) Technical Symposium is considered by many to be ACM’s flagship conference for computing educators. SIGCSE Technical Symposium has been held annually since 1970 as an in-person conference, with the exception of 2020, when it was cancelled (with some papers presented in 2021). The conference attracts many computing educators, numbering in the thousands in recent times and is by far the top publication outlet in computer science education with regards to number of published articles. This chapter explores the evolution of the first 51 years of SIGCSE from its inception in 1970 to the present day, using primarily scientometric data. We explore the evolution of the SIGCSE conference with regards to shifts in research themes, influential authors, author networks and clusters of keywords. We also explore the potential for internationalization of the conference. Participation in the SIGCSE symposium has strong US roots, and we examine the impact on participation as ACM SIGCSE membership expanded to Europe and Australasia, and new conferences such as ACE, ICER and Koli Calling established themselves.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Although the ACM Library also covers all the SIGCSE Technical Symposium proceedings, the Scopus metadata identify authors by their author IDs, allowing to disambiguate authors that use multiple names and affiliations and, thus, yielding more accurate results. Moreover, the citation count by Scopus is more representative of an article’s impact since Scopus coverage is much larger than that of ACM library.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland

    Sonsoles López-Pernas, Mikko Apiola, Mohammed Saqr & Matti Tedre

  2. KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

    Arnold Pears

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  1. Sonsoles López-Pernas
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  2. Mikko Apiola
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  3. Mohammed Saqr
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  4. Arnold Pears
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Correspondence to Sonsoles López-Pernas .

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  1. University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland

    Mikko Apiola

  2. University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland

    Sonsoles López-Pernas

  3. University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland

    Mohammed Saqr

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López-Pernas, S., Apiola, M., Saqr, M., Pears, A., Tedre, M. (2023). A Scientometric Perspective on the Evolution of the SIGCSE Technical Symposium: 1970–2021. In: Apiola, M., López-Pernas, S., Saqr, M. (eds) Past, Present and Future of Computing Education Research . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25336-2_10

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