2016 Best Practices in Education Award

Informatics Europe proudly announces its 2016 Best Practices in Education Award devoted to initiatives promoting Informatics education in primary and secondary schools.

The Informatics Europe Best Practices in Education Award recognizes outstanding European educational initiatives that improve the quality of informatics teaching and the attractiveness of the discipline, and can be applied and extended beyond their institutions of origin.

The Award will reward a successful teaching/dissemination effort in Europe that:

• has made a measurable difference in Informatics education
• is widely applicable and useful for the teaching community
• has made a measurable impact in its original institution(s) and beyond

Examples of impact include course results, traditional and online courses, learners’ projects, textbooks, professional development, and influence on the curriculum of other institutions/countries.

The 2016 Award is devoted to curriculum and professional development initiatives for promoting Informatics in schools as a mandatory subject for all students, initiatives at the (upper) secondary level are particularly encouraged. The Award will honor original contributions that emphasize successful initiatives for teaching of Informatics fundamentals in schools. Experiences and reports showing how to use software or hardware tools in order to improve learning in other disciplines than informatics will not be considered.

The Award is sponsored by Microsoft and carries a prize of EUR 5,000.

The Award can be given to an individual or to a group. To be eligible, participants must be located in one of the member or candidate member countries of the Council of Europe (www.coe.int), or Israel. Members of the Informatics Europe Board and of the Award Committee are not eligible.

The Award Committee will review and evaluate each proposal. It reserves the right to split the prize between at most two different proposals (individuals or teams).

The proposal should include:

• Names and addresses of the applicant or applicants;
• Indication of whether the submission is on behalf of an individual or a group;
• Description of the achievements (max 5 pages);
• Evidence of availability of the curricula materials to the teaching community (max 2 pages);
• Evidence of impact (max 5 pages);
• A reference list (which may include URLs of supporting material);
• One or two letters of support. The letters of support may come for example from school or university management, associations, or colleagues in the same or another institution.

Deadlines:

• Proposal: June 1, 2016
• Notification of winner(s): August 1, 2016

The Award will be presented at the 12th European Computer Science Summit (ECSS 2016) in Budapest, Hungary, October 2016, where the winner or winners (one representative in the case of an institution) will be invited to give a talk on their achievements.

Award Committee:

• Michael E. Caspersen, Aarhus University (Chair)
• Gerard Berry, Collège de France
• Muffy Calder, University of Glasgow
• Judith Gal-Ezer, The Open University of Israel
• Mark Guzdial, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Lauri Malmi, Aalto University
• Carsten Schulte, Paderborn University
• Letizia Tanca, Politecnico di Milano

Further inquiries:

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