The ``Showcase for NSF DUE CCLI Projects at the ACM SIGCSE Conferences'' project is allowing recipients of the National Science Foundation's Division of Undergraduate Education Course, Curriculum & Laboratory Improvement Program (NSF DUE CCLI) grants to present their research to the wider computer science education community. These presentations are taking place at the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) Symposium, which is held annually in the Spring. The SIGCSE Symposium annually attracts an average of 1,500 faculty to discuss undergraduate computer science education. The showcase is providing a venue for community building around, and dissemination of, CCLI computer science projects.
Introduction Increasing the quality of proposal submissions is a goal of any granting agency. Improved grant submissions indicate an improvement in the scientific research conducted by those grants. The purpose of this grant is to help imrpove future NSF grant submissions in the field of computer science education. The SigCSE Symposium is an annual conference in the spring that is the most attended computer science education conference. This grant is to organize and hold a showcase of NSF grant awardees at the SigCSE Symposium each year. The showcase allows for conference attendees to learn about successful grant applications, as well as talk with both the grant awardees and NSF program officers about how to improve their ideas for a grant application. There are five showcase sessions, with each session having four preseneters. Project Outcomes This grant covered three showcases in full (2008, 2009, and 2010), as well as half of the 2007 showcase (the other half of the 2007 showcase was covered by a different grant). Throughout the granting period, the quality of the showcase steadily improved, allowing for a better dissemination of NSF grant knowledge. A number of aspects allowed for these highly successful showcases: strategic positioning of the showcase booth, as well as an innovative booth design, allowed for increased traffic flow strategic timing of the showcase sessions maximized the amount of traffic a high quality program increased awareness of the showcase inclusion of the showcase preseters in the main conference program further increased awareness of the showcase inclusion of other NSF granting programs allowed for awareness of other NSF granting opportunities The net result was four highly successful showcases, allowing for an improved set of grant applications. ?Broader Impact The SIGCSE Symposium is an international conference held annually in the United States, and it is one of the few dedicated solely to issues of undergraduate computing education. The conference attracts over 1000 educators from primarily the United States and Canada with a growing worldwide participation. The audience that the conference attracts is the same audience that these granting programs reach out toward. Thus, this showcase allows for the PIs to present their work to an appropriate group of individuals. Intellectual Merit While everybody can propose a funding idea to the NSF, creating a worthy proposal is a difficult task. The goal of the showcase is to improve upon the quality of proposals that are currently submitted. It achieves this by allowing showcase attendees to see the existing grants that have been funded, as well as speak to the NSF program officers about their individual funding ideas. This will have the effect of increasing the quality of future proposals.
