The ICWL 2016 Doctoral Consortium is a forum where doctoral students can present, discuss, and get feedback on their research, as well as develop and extend their doctorate dissertation, on Web-based learning and related topics. The DC is intended mainly for those PhD students who have a clear research topic and approach, and some preliminary results as well, and whose research can still benefit from the consortium feedback.

Areas of interest include (but are not limited to) the topics listed on the ICWL 2016 website (see Submission-CFP).

All contributions submitted to DC will be reviewed by the Doctoral Consortium Program Committee (DC-PC) and the accepted ones will be presented on DC sessions and published in electronic form provided with ISBN. If a sufficient number of submissions will be accepted, the proceedings will also be published on CEUR site, one of the most popular open dissemination platforms, especially for doctoral works.

According to the DC-PC chairs decision right after the acceptance notification, one or more members of the DC-PC will be specifically assigned to each accepted contribution with the aim to provide the student with the feedback and further remarks about her work (prior to the DC session as well as during her presentation).

Special sessions of the conference will be dedicated to the Doctoral Consortium. Each selected student will have 30 to 40 minutes for her presentation and discussion.

After the Doctoral Consortium is finished, the authors of the three best contributions will receive special awards, sponsored by Springer under agreements with ICWL, and will also be mentioned on the conference Web site.

Submission procedure

  1) The application to the Doctoral Consortium takes the form of a 5 pages extended abstract paper, produced according to Springer Authors Guidelines. The paper in PDF format should be submitted by email to doct_cons_icwl2016@dis.uniroma1.it with the subject header
    "ICWL 2016 - DC-proposal - <student's name and surname>"

The extended abstract paper must include:
  • Title
  • Three keywords
  • Motivation of the research
  • Related work
  • Main research questions and description of the undertaken research
  • Advancements that can be derived in the field of interest, by the proposed research
   2) The submission will have to be supported by a letter, sent by the doctoral student's advisor to the DC-chairs at the email address above.
The email should have "ICWL 2016 – DC-letter - <student's name and surname>" in the subject header.
The letter should state:
  • that the advisor supports student’s participation in the DC
  • how valuable the participation in the DC is expected to be for the student
  • how close is the doctoral dissertation proposal to be completed, and by when the thesis defense is expected.
Both the extended abstract paper and the supporting letter must be received by the DC-chairs by 11:59pm PDT on August 30, 2016. (EXTENDED)

The submission of a Doctoral Consortium paper does not prevent the student from submitting, alone or in collaboration, an extended research paper, or a poster, to the ICWL 2016 conference or co-located SETE workshops/tracks.

Multiple submissions involving a Doctoral Consortium student will undergo the usual checks by the conference and DC Program Committees.

Important dates

Deadline for application: August 30th (EXTENDED)
Notification of Acceptance: September 20th (EXTENDED)
Camera Ready: September 30th (EXTENDED)
Doctoral consortium: October 28th (tentative)

Please note that, by the Camera Ready deadline above, the student has to complete a Student Registration, unless (s)he is already registered for a regular paper at ICWL or SETE.

Doctoral Consortium Program Committee

  • (chair) Maria De Marsico, Dept. of Computer Science, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy
  • (chair) Zuzana Kubincová, Dept. of Informatics Education, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia
  • (chair) Carla Limongelli, Dept. of Engineering, RomaTre University, Rome, Italy
  • Damiano Distante, Unitelma-Sapienza University, Rome, Italy
  • Ralf Klamma, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany (tentative)
  • Mart Laanpere, Tallinn University, Estonia
  • Elvira Popescu, University of Craiova, Romania (tentative)
  • Olga Santos, aDeNu Research Group, Dept. of Art. Intelligence, Computer Science School, UNED, Madrid, Spain
  • Filippo Sciarrone, Dept. of Engineering, RomaTre University, Rome, Italy
  • Davide Taibi, ITD, National Council of Research, Palermo, Italy