Gerry StahlCollege of Information Science & TechnologyDrexel University emailprotectedDan SuthersInformation and Computer SciencesUniversity of Hawai’i emailprotectedAbstract. In this paper, we describe the formatting requirements for CSCL 2005 publications, and we offer a number of suggestions on writing style for the worldwide CSCL readership. These instructions pertain to the published component of submissions only. Some submissions may require other documentation in addition to the published paper.
Keywords: Guidelines, formatting instructions, author’s kit, conference publicationsINTRODUCTIONThe CSCL 2005 Proceedings will provide a persistent record of the conference, published in both CD-ROM and paper formats. We hope to give the proceedings a uniform, high-quality appearance. To do this, we ask that authors follow some simple guidelines. In essence, we ask you to make your paper look exactly like this document. The easiest way to do this is simply to download this template and replace the content with your own text and graphics, being careful not to add any new styles or redefine the template styles. You may want to open this document in Word and then Save As “CSCL 2005 Template.dot” by saving the Change As Type pull-down list to Document Template.
PAGE SIZEAll material on each page should be centered on an A4 (8.26 x 11.69 inch) page with 2.5cm (or 1 inch) margins all around. It is important to check these margins even if you use this Word template, because they might have been overwritten by your local settings.
TOTAL NUMBER OF PAGESLong papers should be 8-10 pages. Short papers should be 4-5 pages. All other published material, including doctoral consortium abstracts and descriptions of interactive events and workshops, should be 2-3 pages. This includes everything: from the title to the references. FORMATTED TEXTCarefully format your submission using the following styles:Title and AuthorsThe title (Helvetica 18-point bold), authors’ names (Times New Roman 12-point bold) and affiliations (Times New Roman 12-point not-bold) run across the full width of the page. We also recommend that you add your e-mail address using the affiliations style. If only one address is needed, center all address text. For two addresses, use two centered tabs or a table (as in this paper), and so on. For more than three authors, you may have to improvise. There should be one blank Normal (10 pt.) line between the title and authors. Abstract and KeywordsPlace two blank Normal (10 pt.) lines after the title, followed by an abstract of about 100 words. The abstract should begin with the word “Abstract.” in bold, and should be formatted in the “Abstract” style provided in this template (like Normal, but indented 1cm each side). The abstract should be a concise statement of the problem, approach, findings, and conclusions of the work described.
Place one blank Normal line after the abstract, followed by the word “Keywords.” in bold, followed by a set of keywords, this being also formatted in Abstract style. The keywords should be chosen to be suitable for both an index of the proceedings and for electronic search.
One Normal line should follow the keywords before the first section header of your paper. Body TextFormat the first paragraph of each section (following the section title) in the style “Body Text,” like this paragraph. Please use a 10-point Times New Roman font, or other Roman font with serifs, as close as possible in appearance to Times New Roman in which these guidelines have been set. The goal is to have a 10-point text, as you see here. Please use sans-serif or non-proportional fonts only for special purposes, such as distinguishing source code text (use 9 point Courier or similar). The Press 10-point font available to users of Script is a good substitute for Times New Roman. If Times New Roman is not available, try Times or Computer Modern Roman.
Format all remaining paragraphs of your paper in the style “Body Text First Indent,” like this paragraph. This style is like Body Text, but the first line is indented 0.5cm. Lists For lists, bulleted lists, and numbered lists, please use the MS Word styles “List,” “List 2,” “List Bullet,” “List Bullet 2,” “List Number,” “List Number 2,” etc. See example of List Bullet later in this paper. In general, use of styles rather than manual formatting is preferable to enable us to give the proceedings a uniform appearance. References and CitationsUse the standard APA (American Psychological Association) format for references – that is, a list at the end of the article, ordered alphabetically by first author, and referenced by publication year in parentheses. Be consistent with capitalization. See the examples of references at the end of this document. Within this template file, use the style named “References” for the text of your references (hanging paragraphs indented by 1 cm, with no space between lines). Within your text, cite the references with (Author, year).
References should be published materials accessible to the public. Internal technical reports may be cited only if they are easily accessible (i.e., you give an Internet address within your citation). Proprietary information may not be cited. Private communications should be acknowledged, not referenced, e.g., “(Robertson, personal communication).”Page Numbering, Headers and FootersDo NOT include headers, footers or page numbers in your submission. These will be added when the publications are assembled.
SECTIONSThe heading of a section should be in Helvetica 12-point bold in all-capitals. Sections should NOT be numbered. Provide 12 points space before the heading and 6 space points after. SubsectionsThe heading of subsections should be in Helvetica 10-point bold with only the initial letters capitalized. Provide 12 points space before and 6 points after the heading. Note: For sub-sections and sub-subsections, a word like “the” or “a” is not capitalized unless it is the first word of the heading.
Sub-subsectionsShort papers and abstracts should not use third level headings. If you need to use them in a long paper, the heading for sub-subsections should be in Helvetica 10-point italic with initial letters capitalized. Provide 6 points space before the heading and no space after. FIGURESFigures should be inserted at the appropriate point in your text. Each figure should have a figure caption in Normal Times New Roman 10 point font.
Although the CD-ROM and Internet versions of the proceedings will display figures in color, the printed proceedings will be printed in black and white. Therefore you should make sure that all graphics look good in black and white. You may use colored figures for the sake of the version on the Internet, as long as it also looks good in grayscale.
LANGUAGE, STYLE AND CONTENTPlease make sure that your paper is in clear, readable, proper English. Have it reviewed by a professional technical writer or native English speaker.
The written and spoken language of CSCL 2005 is English. Spelling and punctuation may consistently use any dialect of English (e.g., Australian, British, Canadian, or US). Hyphenation is optional. Please write for an international audience:Write in a straightforward style. Use simple sentence structure. Try to avoid long sentences and complex sentence structures. Use semicolons carefully or not at all.
Use common and basic vocabulary (e.g., use the word “unusual” rather than the word “arcane”).
Briefly define or explain all technical terms.
Explain all acronyms the first time they are used in your text.
Explain local references. For example, not everyone knows all city names in a particular country, and the names of different levels of schooling may differ between countries. Explain “insider” comments. Ensure that your whole audience understands any reference whose meaning you do not describe (e.g., do not assume that everyone has used Windows XP or a particular application).
Explain colloquial language and puns. Phrases like “red herring” require a cultural knowledge of English. Humor and irony are difficult to translate.
Use unambiguous forms for culturally localized concepts, such as times, dates, currencies and numbers (e.g., “1-5-99” or “5/1/99” may mean January 5th or May 1st, and “seven o’clock” may mean 7:00 am or 19:00).
Be careful with the use of gender-specific pronouns (he, she) and other gendered words (chairman, manpower, man-months). Use inclusive language (e.g., she or he, s/he, they, chair, staff, staff-hours, person-years) that is gender-neutral. If necessary, you may be able to use “he” and “she” in alternating sentences, so that the two genders occur equally often. See (Schwartz, et al., 1995) for further advice and examples regarding gender and other personal attributes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTSWe thank the people who wrote previous versions of this document, which Gerry Stahl modified for CSCL 2002 and Dan Suthers modified for CSCL 2005. REFERENCESAnderson, R. E. (1992) Social impacts of computing: Codes of professional ethics. Social Science Computing Review, 10, 2, 453-469.
Conger., S., and Loch, K. D. (Eds.) (1995) Ethics and computer use. Communications of the ACM, 38, 12 (entire issue).
Mackay, W. E. (1995) Ethics, lies and videotape. Proceedings of CHI ’95 (Denver, CO, May 1995), ACM Press, 138-145.
Schwartz, M., and Task Force on Bias-Free Language (1995) Guidelines for Bias-Free Writing. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN.
