ACM UK SIGCSE Newsletter
Spring 2026
Quarterly updates: events, practice, calls, and ways to get involved across the UK computing education community.
Chair’s Update
I am pleased to share the first issue of a new quarterly newsletter for the ACM UK SIGCSE Chapter. Our aim is to provide members with a concise and useful snapshot of what is happening across the chapter, highlight opportunities to get involved, and help strengthen connections across our growing community. As this is a new format, we are keen to see how the community and membership shape it into something they find genuinely valuable.
Alongside this, I encourage members to keep an eye on upcoming activities, including Duncan Hull’s Journal Club, and to consider submitting to this year’s UKICER conference in Cambridge while there is still time. UKICER remains an important opportunity to share research and practice, particularly for early-career researchers and first-time authors.
Finally, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the CEP conference leadership at Durham University for their excellent stewardship of this year’s event. In particular, my thanks go to the Programme Chair, Steven Bradley, and the General Chair, Karl Southern, whose care and professionalism ensured a welcoming and high-quality conference for all.
CEP Trip Report
This year’s Computing Education Practice (CEP) conference was once again a highlight for the Computing Education Research community, providing a space for researchers and practitioners to share, discuss, and learn from one another about teaching practice. This year was a notable year for CEP: it celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2026, and it brought together colleagues from across the UK and the globe to share insights on a wide range of themes – and with Durham putting on its best winter weather of snow and ice, delegates certainly earned their coffee and pastries.
Presentations throughout the day sparked insight and discussion on a range of topics, from assessment design and pedagogy to student engagement and inclusive practice. A particular highlight this year was the large number of workshops, offering five different opportunities for delegates to interact directly with authors on their practice, ranging from decolonisation and accessibility to information studies and libraries.
It was also wonderful to see students in attendance and presenting their own work, proving once again that CEP is a fantastic venue for computing education practitioners making their first step. The community spirit was on full display, too, when poor European weather shifted one presentation to a hybrid format; everyone took it in stride, and the day continued without missing a beat.
Outside the formal programme, CEP once again proved itself a friendly, welcoming venue for discussion. Informal chats between colleagues were common between formal sessions, with a dedicated space full of groups of colleagues, new or old, having conversations over coffee, tea, and pastries. And in typical conference fashion, the conference dinner was a highlight, offering a relaxed, informal setting for discussions both professional and personal, and acting as a meeting point for colleagues from different institutions, whether rekindling old friendships or putting faces to names for the first time.
CEP continues to be a highlight within the calendar, proving time and again that practice goes hand in hand with research, and that the community is welcoming, friendly, and collegiate. It is particularly well suited to new practitioners and early-career researchers taking their first steps in the community – and if the snow does not put you off making the trip, you really will not regret it. If anyone is ever unsure of whether they should attend a conference, CEP is a first step.
UKICER Call for Participation
The UK and Ireland Computing Education Research (UKICER) conference is the joint conference of the two SIGCSE chapters for the UK and Ireland, and a leading forum for sharing advances in computing education research and practice.
UKICER is known for its supportive, inclusive, and collegial community, bringing together researchers, academics, industry practitioners, and teachers from across the UK and Ireland, as well as from the rest of Europe and the wider world. We particularly welcome contributions from first-time authors, doctoral researchers, and established researchers.
UKICER 2026 will take place in Cambridge on 3-4 September. The conference is co-chaired by Sue Sentence and Jake Byrne, with Sally Fincher and Jane Waite serving as Programme Chairs. We warmly encourage submissions across all UKICER tracks, including full research papers, RIPPA, the Doctoral Consortium (DC), and Critical Research Review.
Key dates:
- Abstract deadline: Monday 13 April
- Full paper deadline: 21 April
- RIPPA / DC / CRC deadline: 11 May
- Notification of acceptance: 2 June
Further details, submission guidance, and updates are available at https://www.ukicer.com.
Teaching Practice
A recent CEP article reports on an innovative approach to teaching computing ethics through a video-based group assessment. Over several weeks, students collaboratively produce short videos exploring legal, ethical, and social issues surrounding technology within a fictional technologically advanced society. Their work addresses themes such as surveillance, social scoring systems, AI in healthcare, cybersecurity, cryptocurrencies, and others. The activity has been designed both to deepen students’ understanding of these issues and to strengthen essential professional skills including teamwork, time management, information-seeking, and minute-taking.
By moving beyond traditional essays, the approach encourages students to debate ethical dilemmas, negotiate perspectives within their teams, and translate their ideas into a format aimed at a general audience, highlighting through narrative and visual storytelling the risks that technology may pose if misused. Creating multimedia artefacts was found to increase engagement and stimulate richer discussion around professional and ethical responsibilities in computing.
The open-ended design of the assessment also gives students considerable creative freedom. Groups can present traditional exposes that reveal ethical harms or adopt a satirical, propaganda-like style to critique technology misuse. The fictional aspect also allows students to consider hypothetical ethical challenges that may arise in the future as technology develops. The final videos mark the culmination of a five-week process in which students develop initial ideas, research their chosen topics, refine key arguments, gather and create visual material, including both authentic footage and AI-generated elements, and weave these components into a coherent, compelling narrative.
To try this in your teaching, consider replacing or supplementing a written ethics assignment with a short structured video task that asks students to present and justify ethical decisions in a realistic or fictional scenario. This can provide an accessible, engaging way for learners to demonstrate ethical reasoning while developing teamwork and communication skills essential for modern computing professionals.
Journal Club
Duncan Hull, University of Manchester
The ACM SIGCSE Journal Club is a friendly, monthly forum for educators, researchers, and practitioners interested in improving the teaching and learning of computer science. We meet online on the first Monday of each month to discuss one research paper, focusing on how published work can inform teaching practice. All are welcome, whether you join regularly or occasionally.
Contact / How to Get Involved
Getting Involved: Pathways to Participation and Governance
There are many ways to get involved in the ACM UK SIGCSE Chapter, and members are encouraged to contribute at a level that fits their interests, experience, and availability. For many colleagues, engagement begins through participation in events and develops naturally into more sustained leadership and governance roles.
Common entry points include attending, presenting at, or volunteering for the chapter’s flagship events (CEP and UKICER), as well as participating in the monthly Journal Club. From there, members often take on informal contributions before moving into formal committee or governance roles.
A typical pathway is:
Attend and engage at events -> Volunteer and contribute -> Take on event roles (reviewer, programme committee member, chair) -> Move into chapter governance and committee roles.
Typical roles along this pathway include reviewer, programme committee member, workshop or posters chair, submissions administrator, website or communications roles, and event leadership positions such as Programme Chair, General Chair, or RIPPA Chair. Appointed roles provide a flexible and supportive route into governance, and no prior experience is required.
If you are interested in contributing, whether informally or through a governance role, we encourage you to contact a board member, event chairs, or complete the chapter’s volunteer form here: https://uki-sigcse.acm.org/volunteer/.
Looking Ahead: The Next 10 Years
The chapter board is starting to plan for the next ten years of ACM UK SIGCSE, and we would really welcome your ideas about where the chapter should go next.
Should we explore new venues and formats for events? Should we engage more with a wider computing education community? Should we think more about how the chapter can support people as they develop and progress in their roles?
We will be holding events in the coming months to gather views from the community. In the meantime, if you have ideas or suggestions, please email uksigcse@gmail.com.