Well, Mark, the problem with "peer review" (and "trial by a jury of 
peers") is that they almost never come up with actual peers. (I 
personally have always detested (and ignored) this mechanism in ACM 
and NSF, etc.)

Cheers,

Alan

------

At 9:55 PM -0500 11/4/01, Mark Guzdial wrote:
>Did anyone get any papers on Squeak accepted at the ACM SIGCSE 
>(Computer Science Education) conference?
>
>I submitted both a workshop (on teaching with Squeak) and a paper 
>(on the computer music class I've been teaching and the active 
>essays we're using), and both were rejected.  Workshops aren't 
>reviewed (decision made by committee), so I have no feedback on 
>that.  The paper had four reviews:
>- First reviewer didn't get why anyone would want to teach computer 
>music in a CS department: "A type of course that is not common in 
>computing, but that has been used in mathematics and physics (at 
>least) for a number of years to illustrate various mathematical 
>concepts. May be of interest to some attendees, but of little 
>interest to the majority."  Gave it a 4/6.
>- Second reviewer gave it 5/6. "A demonstration of the coding for a 
>couple algorithms along with the resulting output would be a 
>striking demonstration. "
>- Third reviewer gave it 6/6. "Please accept this paper.  Live demos 
>of every aspect -- SQUEAK, Active Essays. The audience will be 
>delighted."
>- Fourth reviewer killed it with 2/6. "I am not sure where this 
>material would be incorporated in a typical CS curriculum. "  He 
>didn't like the idea of teaching a "specialized language" (Squeak) 
>nor of teaching "computer professionals how to _generate_ music" -- 
>he says that they should just use "recordings."
>
>The lesson for me is that the hardcore CS educator is harder to sell 
>than I realized.  I'm hoping that some others fared better -- anyone?
>
>Mark
>--------------------------
>Mark Guzdial : Georgia Tech : College of Computing : Atlanta, GA 30332-0280
>Associate Professor - Learning Sciences & Technologies.
>Collaborative Software Lab - http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/csl/
>(404) 894-5618 : Fax (404) 894-0673 : guzdial at cc.gatech.edu
>http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/Faculty/Mark.Guzdial.html


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