Tutorials

General Information

The Tutorials program at Cognitive Science 2008 allow participants to gain new insights, knowledge, and skills from a broad range of areas in the field of cognitive science. Tutorial topics will be presented in an interactive lecture format and range from practical guidelines to academic issues and theory.

Attending any portion of the tutorial program requires conference registration, but there are no additional fees associated with the tutorials. Participation in the tutorials is included with your conference registration.

Call for Tutorial Proposals

Tutorial participants will be from a wide range of the cognitive sciences. Their interests will range from insights into their own areas to summaries of other areas providing tools, techniques, and results to use in their own teaching and research.

Tutorials must present well established results. Yesterday's results from your lab are not encouraged. Tutorials in an interactive format are encouraged. They can involve an introduction to technical skills or methods (e.g., cognitive modeling in ACT-R, Bayesian modeling, eye-tracking, fMRI, methods of analyzing qualitative observational data). They could include substantial review of material.

Most tutorials should be at the introductory graduate school level or higher. That is, the tutorials should be accessible to postgraduate students, but should also assume a first degree in one of the cognitive sciences.

Arrangements

Each tutorial is designed to be a half-day or full-day in duration. Half-day tutorials are about 3 hours long (not including breaks). Full day tutorials are about 6 hours long (not including breaks). Please indicate the duration of your proposed tutorial in your application.

Review Process

Tutorial proposals will be evaluated by the tutorial committee on the basis of their estimated benefit for prospective participants and on their fit within the tutorials program as a whole. Factors to be considered include relevance, importance, and audience appeal; suitability for presentation in a half-day or full-day tutorial format; use of presentation methods that offer participants direct experience with the material being taught; how much they might help unify cognitive science; teaching a skill or covering a topic that would not have another outlet; and past experience and qualifications of the instructors with their tutorial. Selection is also based on the overall distribution of topics, approaches (overview, theory, methodology, how-to), audience experience levels, and specialties of the intended audiences.

Proposal

Prepare a proposal for review purposes composed of the following parts:
• Contact details: Contact details have to include: name of contact person, affiliation, address (including post code/zip and country), telephone, fax, e-mail, names and affiliation of additional author(s).
• Abstract: A one page overview suitable for inclusion in the conference proceedings.
• Specification of the tutorial: The specification of the tutorial has to be no longer than 1500 words, and it should:
  • state whether the tutorial will introduce participants to an area, or whether it will cover an advanced topic for participants who already have knowledge in a particular area.
  • describe in detail the background of attendees assumed by the tutorial. State any skills that are needed to understand tutorial content or to complete the exercises.
  • describe in detail the material that will be covered in the course.
  • justify the tutorial for a cognitive science audience.
  • explain how the tutorial will be conducted.
  • give a schedule of events with time allocations.
• If the proposed tutorial has been given previously, the proposal should include a brief history of where the tutorial has been given and how it will be modified for Cognitive Science.
• List of requirements: As part of the proposal, please specify your audio-visual and computing equipment requirements. Based on previous year's experience, you can assume that participants will be able to bring laptops.
• Sample materials: The proposal should include representative sample materials for the tutorial, e.g., handouts, slides, lecture notes. These can be included with the proposal, or a web address can be given.
Please send your proposal directly to katja@niu.edu. Proposals should be in plain ASCII text or in a format that easily converts to ASCII (Word / RTF without graphics / tables). Sample materials can be provided in PDF or HTML format.

Upon Acceptance

Tutors will be notified of acceptance or rejection by March 28, 2008. Acceptance is conditional upon the tutors' compliance with deadlines and requirements.

Abstracts of accepted tutorials will be included in the calls for participation for the conference and in the proceedings.

Compensation

A budget of $125 will be awarded for each half-day tutorial that is taught, $250 for each full-day. If a tutorial has two or more instructors, the budget will be shared among them. Tutors will not be charged for attending their own tutorial. Tutors may bring a helper to the tutorial at no cost.

Important Dates

Tutorial Chair

Katja Wiemer (Northern Illinois University)

Program Committee

Contact Address