SIGITE conferences represent the core of the organization’s operations. For many, it has become the destination conference to which they travel each year. While smaller in nature than other computing education conferences like SIGCSE, the focus on IT education and community are prominent draws. See the Testimonials page under the About tab to see words from attendees about their experiences.
Beginning in 2011, a parallel conference is held co-incident with the SIGITE conference. This conference — Research In IT (RIIT) — will emphasize the non-education research IT faculty are doing.
This past weekend I attended and presented at the SIGITE Conference located in Midland, Michigan. It was the second weekend in a row that I was going to be gone, and all of that in the middle of the quarter, so I wasn’t as enthusiastic going into it as I normally am about conferences. As it turns out it was the best conference experience I’ve had in a long time!
The sessions at the conference are scheduled so that each talk has a 45-minute slot, with 30 minutes for the presentation and 15 minutes for questions. In most of the sessions I attended, including my own, the questions were in fact intermixed with the presentation. And what a difference it makes to have more time and a more interactive environment. I got excellent feedback on my work and was able to provide a lot more background information than was on my slides because of the questions. The questions themselves were also terrific. I was impressed by the insight that the audience members had into the work. I also got good questions and offers for collaborations after the talk, but it was the interactive presentations that really had me hooked.
On top of that, I met friendly, intelligent, and insightful people during the breaks, meals, and the reception. I had some of the best conference conversations ever, and I’m hoping that I’ll get a chance to stay in touch with the people I met. So overall, I highly recommend SIGITE as a conference. Next year it will be at West Point in New York, and they’ve promised private tours of things that even tourists don’t get to see. That combined with the lively and friendly experience make it don’t miss opportunity.SIGITE is the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Information Technology Education. Our members include information technology faculty (teachers and researchers), students, and industry professionals.
With over 400 members worldwide, SIGITE drives the creation and dissemination of the computing discipline of information technology. The organization has created a model undergraduate curriculum and helped create accreditation guidelines for IT programs, and is now defining and promoting IT research.