Call for Papers
Aims and Scope
The 22nd annual ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research (ICER) aims to gather high-quality contributions to the Computing Education Research discipline. The “Research Papers” track invites submissions describing original research results related to any aspect of teaching and learning computing, from introductory through advanced material. Submissions are welcome from across the research methods used in Computing Education Research and related fields. Each contribution will be assessed based on:
- the appropriateness and soundness of its methods
- its relevance to teaching or learning computing,
- the depth of its contribution to the community’s understanding of the question at hand.
Research areas of particular interest include:
- design-based research, learner-centered design, and evaluation of educational technology supporting computing knowledge or skills development,
- discipline based education research (DBER) about computing, computer science, and related disciplines,
- informal learning experiences related to programming and software development (all ages), ranging from after-school programs for children, to end-user development communities, to workplace training of computing professionals,
- learnability of programming languages and tools for learning programming and computing concepts,
- learning analytics and educational data mining in computing education contexts,
- learning sciences work in the computing content domain,
- measurement instrument development and validation (e.g., concept inventories, attitudes scales, etc) for use in computing disciplines,
- pedagogical environments fostering computational thinking,
- psychology of programming,
- rigorous replication of empirical work, relevant to computing education, to compare with or extend previous empirical research results,
- professional development for computing educators at all levels.
Full submission instructions will be made available soon.
ACM Open
Starting January 1, 2026, ACM will fully transition to Open Access. All ACM publications, including those from ACM-sponsored conferences, will be 100% Open Access. Authors will have two primary options for publishing Open Access articles with ACM: the ACM Open institutional model or by paying Article Processing Charges (APCs). With over 2,600 institutions already part of ACM Open, the majority of ACM-sponsored conference papers will not require APCs from authors or conferences (currently, around 76%).
Authors from institutions not participating in ACM Open will need to pay an APC to publish their papers, unless they qualify for a financial waiver. To find out whether an APC applies to your article, please consult the list of participating institutions in ACM Open and review the https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/policy-on-discretionary-open-access-apc-waivers. Keep in mind that waivers are rare and are granted based on specific criteria set by ACM.
Understanding that this change could present financial challenges, ACM has approved a temporary subsidy for 2026 to ease the transition and allow more time for institutions to join ACM Open. The subsidy will offer:
- $250 APC for ACM/SIG members
- $350 for non-members
This represents a 65% discount, funded directly by ACM. Authors are encouraged to help advocate for their institutions to join ACM Open during this transition period.
This temporary subsidized pricing will apply to all conferences scheduled for 2026.
ACM Policies and ORCID
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, including ACM’s new Publications Policy on 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.
Please ensure that you and your co-authors obtain an ORCID ID, so you can complete the publishing process for your accepted paper. ACM has been involved in ORCID from the start and we have recently made a commitment to collect ORCID IDs from all of our published authors. We are committed to improve author discoverability, ensure proper attribution and contribute to ongoing community efforts around name normalization; your ORCID ID will help in these efforts.
All questions about this call should go to the ICER 2026 program committee chairs at pc-chairs@icer.acm.org.
Important Dates
All submission deadlines are 23:59, “anywhere on Earth” (AoE, UTC-12).
| What | When |
|---|---|
| Titles, abstracts, and authors due. (The chairs will use this information to assign papers to PC members.) | Friday, February 20th, 2026 |
| Full paper submission deadline | Friday, February 27th, 2026 |
| Decisions announced | Friday, April 17th, 2026 |
| “Conditional Accept” revisions due | Friday, May 1st, 2026 |
| “Conditional Accept” revisions approval notification | Monday, May 11th, 2026 |
| Final versions due to TAPS | Wednesday, May 27th, 2026 |
| ICER 2026 Conference | Tuesday, August 11th through Friday, August 14th 2026 |
| Published in the ACM Digital Library | The official publication date is the date the proceedings are made available in the ACM Digital Library. This date will be the first day of the conference. The official publication date may affect the deadline for any patent filings related to published work. |
Changelog since last year
- Our page limit will be 18 single-column pages (vs last year’s 18+3 format).
- This year is the first year of ACM Open; check if your institution is a member or not.
- The submission dates are 3-4 weeks earlier this year due to ACM’s publication timelines, and we anticipate this pattern will remain in future years.