Abstract Submission is Now Open!

All abstracts and proposals must be submitted electronically by 14 January 21 January 2014.

Call for Participation

We invite submissions on a wide variety of topics related to learning, along with all other topics related to professional and technical communication. We also welcome submissions that report on completed research, as well as preliminary results from works-in-progress. Example topics include:

Download a PDF (printable) version of Call for Participation here.

Example Topics

• Innovations in teaching methods, assessment, or curriculum development
• Success stories about building bridges from classroom to industry
• Cross-cultural/intercultural learning
• Approaches to creating, managing, and delivering technical and professional communication
• How new media shape, constrain, facilitate, or create affordances for learning
• Learning through both visual and verbal means
• Lessons and best practices learned from industry
• Original research contributing to learning theories and practices in engineering communication
• New and innovative technologies applied to technical/professional communication
• Innovative applications of technology to support learning and collaboration
• Techniques for measuring the effectiveness of professional and technical communication
• Applications of learning science theory and research to practice
• The places and spaces where learning takes place
• Analysis of case studies that further our learning about professional and technical communication
• Other topics related to technical/professional communication
• Strategies and best practices for teaching visual and oral communication
• How collaborative teams function to create and communicate a design and a product

Submission Guidelines for Abstracts

Online submission will become available on the IPCC 2014 website on December 1, 2013. Authors may submit no more than two papers as first author, but it is possible to appear as a co-author on other papers.

Submission Decision Flow Chart

Paper Submissions (Full Papers, Short Papers, or Extended Abstracts)

Choose one of the following submission types you deem most appropriate for your current work. Opting to write an abstract for a full paper, a short paper, or extended abstract neither advantages nor disadvantages your proposal.

• Full paper (700-word abstract) — 6-8 page paper for publication in proceedings. Full papers are appropriate for late-stage research projects with conclusive results; mature, theoretically-grounded position papers; or papers reporting on a well-tested professional or teaching practice.
• Brief (350-word abstract ) — 4-page (max) paper for publication in proceedings. Short papers are appropriate for research and position papers that are works-in-progress, or papers reporting on short-term or experimental professional or teaching practices.
• Extended Abstract (700-word abstract) — this is for participants who only want to present at the conference, without a paper in the proceedings. However, the abstract will be published in the proceedings. This option is only available for Tracks 1 and 2 (Teaching and Professional Practice).

Preliminary abstracts for all submission types are due for review via the conference website on January 14, 2014. Upon acceptance of a preliminary abstract, authors opting to write full papers or short papers will be invited to submit drafts of their papers for review by April 15. Authors of extended abstracts may be asked to revise their abstract. All accepted authors must register to present at the conference for their paper or extended abstract to be published in the conference proceedings. At the conference, each author will have 15-20 minutes to present, and will be grouped with other authors along similar thematic lines during a 75-minute session. In order for your paper to be published in the proceedings, you must register to present at the conference.

Submission Paper Tracks
As part of your submission, please select a “Track” for your paper from the options below. Tracks are used to identify reviewers and help them provide optimal feedback, and to help conference organizers arrange the program. Although your paper may fall into more than one category, please select the one that best describes your paper’s primary focus. The acceptance of proposals will not be based on submission type or proposal length, but on criteria established by the IPCC 2014 Planning Committee.

• Track 1: Teaching Practice Papers address classroom practices, including program, course, or assignment design; instructional practices; and assessment methods. Submissions will be reviewed based on the paper’s relevance to teaching practice, and concrete evidence of success and/or failure.
• Track 2: Professional Practice Papers address workplace practices, including guidelines, best practices, or exemplary efforts for government, industry, civic or public discourse; approaches to technology management; and related arenas. Submissions will be reviewed based on the paper’s relevance to professional practice, and concrete evidence of success and/or failure.
• Track 3: Empirical Research Papers present data-driven studies (all methods are welcome, including textual analysis, qualitative studies, quantitative studies, and mixed-methods research). Submissions will be reviewed based on relationship to prior studies, soundness of methodology, quality of results or findings, and strength of conclusions.
• Track 4: Position Papers present theoretically grounded discussions related to communication practices. Submissions will be reviewed based on relationship to prior work and soundness of reasoning.

Panel Submissions (700-word abstract)

Panels will be given a 75-minute session. Abstracts for panel submissions should include a description of the panel’s overall goals, as well as brief descriptions of each participant’s contribution to the panel discussion. Panels may be comprised of either multiple speakers organized around one of the tracks described above, or they may include multiple perspectives from different tracks organized around a single theme. It is expected that all members of the panel will register for and attend the conference.

Workshop Submissions (700-word abstract)

Workshops include one or more facilitators presenting a 75-minute “how to” or “about” session addressing relevant practices, issues, or technologies of interest to professional engineers, technical communication specialists and/or people teaching in those fields. Abstracts should include:

• an overview of the workshop topic and its relevance/importance to technical communicators,
• an overview of the desired learning outcomes for the workshop,
• a description of the intended target audience,
• a description of projected activities, and
• a description of qualifications of the facilitator(s) for delivering this workshop.

Carnegie Mellon University Diversity Scholarship

In addition, we are pleased to announce the Carnegie Mellon University Diversity Scholarship, which offers three graduate student travel scholarships for the purpose of increasing diversity in technical and professional communication. These scholarships are available to graduate students from a variety of fields (a) who have submitted a final paper accepted for inclusion in the IPCC 2014 proceedings, and (b) who either represent or have demonstrated a commitment to advancing an underrepresented community in technical and professional communication in their respective region, or internationally. Click here for more details.

Important Dates

Questions?

Contact Program Co-Chairs:
Peter Weiss (weissp@ecf.utoronto.ca)
Necia Werner (nkw@cmu.edu)