ICER

We are delighted to welcome you to the eleventh annual International Computing Education Research Conference, ICER'15, sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE). Omaha, Nebraska, USA, is the host city for this year's conference, with sessions taking place on the campus of the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Now entering its second decade, ICER proudly continues its tradition as the premier ACM forum for dissemination and lively discussion of the latest findings in computing education research. ICER papers represent significant, rigorous contributions to the field, and the conference provides avenues for discussion of preliminary work by continuing the lightning talks track and adding a new poster track for 2015. The conference also serves a vital mentoring and advising role for upcoming CS discipline-based education researchers through the doctoral consortium. For the second year, the work in progress workshop (formerly called the critical research review) provides an opportunity for other researchers to receive extensive feedback on draft manuscripts or proposals related to a new computing education research project.

ICER'15 has seen dramatic growth across all categories, and we saw 40% more paper submissions than in 2014. The call for papers attracted 96 full research papers. These papers were doubleblind peer-reviewed by members of our international program committee, with the three conference co-chairs and two associate chairs serving as meta-reviewers. Ultimately, 25 papers (26%) were accepted for publication and presentation. We also had a record 27 students apply for the doctoral consortium, and 20 were selected for participation this year. Papers and student abstracts are included in these proceedings. In addition, the conference program includes 10 lightning talks and 23 poster presentations. A further 10 researchers will take part in the work in progress workshop. Authors and presenters represent 9 countries: Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Finland, Germany, Jamaica, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

This year's program highlights a wide range of research topics, including block-based programming languages, cognitive and social aspects of learning computing, computing education policy matters, e-books, and novice compilation behaviors-just to name a few. We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Jim Spohrer from IBM for the ICER'15 keynote address. Spohrer's early work on novice programmers is widely recognized as foundational for much of today's computer science education research. His keynote, Empowering Makers in the Cognitive Era, will examine how past and present research findings can be leveraged to foster a true generation of independent, creative, and responsible technology creators.