Special SessionsSIGCSE Virtual 2026

Special sessions are your opportunity to customize and experiment with the SIGCSE Virtual format. Special sessions should NOT replicate existing session formats (e.g., panels, paper presentations, poster sessions, tutorials) that are part of the SIGCSE Virtual. Sessions last 75 minutes. Within these constraints, the form is yours to design.

For example, a special session might be a seminar, a committee report, a curricular or accreditation forum, or a discussion of strategies proven to improve retention of computing topics. Possible topic areas include management of large classes, projects and assignments, teaching computer science using culturally relevant pedagogy, experiments on collaborative learning, a report of an ACM committee addressing issues at two-year colleges, or special issues arising when teaching computing outside of North America.

Authors submitting work to SIGCSE Virtual are responsible for complying with all applicable conference authorship policies (https://sigcsevirtual2026.acm.org/info/authorship-policies) and those articulated by ACM. If you have questions about any of these policies, please contact program@virtual2026.sigcse.org for clarification prior to submission.

ACM has committed to collecting ORCiD IDs from all published authors (https://authors.acm.org/author-resources/orcid-faqs). All authors on each submission must have an ORCiD ID (https://orcid.org/register) in order to complete the submission process. Please make sure to get your ORCiD ID in advance of submitting your work.

Authors may find it useful to read the Instructions for Reviewers and the Review Form to understand how their submissions will be reviewed. Also note that when submitting, you will need to provide between 3-7 related topics from the Topics list under Info.

Abstracts

All special session submissions must have a plain-text abstract of up to 250 words. Abstracts should not contain subheadings or citations. The abstract should be submitted to EasyChair along with the submission metadata and included in the PDF version of the submission at the appropriate location.

Submission Templates

All special session submissions must be in English and formatted using the 2-column ACM SIG Conference Proceedings format and US letter size pages (8.5x11 inch or 215.9 x 279.4mm).

Page Limits: Special session submissions are limited to a maximum of 2 pages of content (including all titles, author information, abstract, main text, tables and illustrations, acknowledgements, and supplemental material) plus an optional additional page for references.

MS Word Authors: Please use the interim Word template provided by ACM.

LaTeX Authors:

• Overleaf provides a suitable two-column SIG conference proceedings template.
• Other LaTeX users may alternatively use the ACM Primary template, adding the “sigconf” format option in the documentclass to obtain the 2-column format.

Requirements for Single-Anonymous Review Process:** Submissions to the special session track are reviewed with the single-anonymous review process. Submissions should include author names and affiliations. Thus, the authors’ identities are known to reviewers, but reviewers are anonymous to each other and to the authors.

The reviewing process includes a discussion phase after initial reviews have been submitted. During this time, the reviewers can examine all reviews and privately discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the work in an anonymous manner through EasyChair. This discussion information can be used by the track chairs in addition to the content of the review in making final acceptance decisions.

The SIGCSE Virtual review process does not have a rebuttal period for authors to respond to comments, and all acceptance decisions are final.

Other requirements: Include space for authors’ e-mail addresses on separate lines. Even if multiple authors have the same affiliation, grouping authors’ names or e-mail addresses, or providing an ‘e-mail alias’ is not acceptable, e.g., {anon1,anon2,anon3}@university.edu or firstname.lastname@college.org. NOTE: Poster submissions may omit the following sections from the standard ACM template: keywords, CCS Concepts. Because Poster submissions are 2-pages long this year, they should include BOTH the ACM Copyright Block and the ACM Reference Format.

Desk rejects: Submissions that do not adhere to page limits or formatting requirements will be desk-rejected without review.

Accessibility: SIGCSE Virtual authors are strongly encouraged to prepare submissions using these templates in such a manner that the content is widely accessible to potential reviewers, track chairs, and readers. Please see these resources for preparing an accessible submission.

Additional Format Instructions

Authors submitting to the special session track should use the standardized section names and additional formatting information below when preparing the main content of their proposals.

• Overall objective of the session: Describe the topic of the special session and explain how the session will be organized (e.g., as a committee report, hands-on exercise, …). Indicate why the proposed session is important and relevant to the SIGCSE community.
• Outline of the session: Organize this section by subtopics, activities, or a similar scheme. If more than one participant is involved, label each section of the outline with the name of the participant(s) who will be presenting that section. Note that in the case of a committee report, the presenters might be a subset of the authors. We suggest that you allow at least 40 - 50% of the time for questions and answers or other interaction with the attendees.
• Expectations: State the intended audience. Indicate how much the session will cover and what the audience should learn. If feedback from the audience is desired, indicate how it will be elicited.
• Suitability for a special session: Include a brief description that justifies the inclusion of this presentation as a special session. Explain why the proposed presentation is better suited for a special session than a paper or panel or other standard track format.
• References: Citing relevant work where appropriate is encouraged, but not required. If references are included, they should be placed in a separate section titled References and should follow the formatting guidelines.

ACM Policies

By submitting your article to an ACM Publication, you are hereby acknowledging that you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies (https://sigcsevirtual2026.acm.org/info/authorship-policies), including ACM’s new Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects (https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/research-involving-human-participants-and-subjects). Alleged violations of this policy or any ACM Publications Policy will be investigated by ACM and may result in a full retraction of your paper, in addition to other potential penalties, as per ACM Publications Policy.

ACM’s New Open-Access Publishing Model

Please review details of ACM’s new open-access publishing model at https://sigcsevirtual2026.acm.org/info/information-on-acm-open.

ORCiD IDs

ACM has made a commitment to collect ORCiD IDs from all published authors (https://authors.acm.org/author-resources/orcid-faqs). All authors on each submission must have an ORCiD ID (https://orcid.org/register) in order to complete the submission process. Please make sure to get your ORCiD ID in advance of submitting your work. (If EasyChair does not request the ORCiD ID for your coauthors, you do not need to find a way to enter one.)