Abstract: In the following we describe the authoring guidelines for CGEMS materials. The CGEMS – Computer Graphics Educational Materials Source is a free online repository for educators and students in Computer Graphics (CG) and related fields. Materials are refereed by recognized members of the international CG community and exhibited at the annual SIGGRAPH conference.

Keywords: Computer graphics and related fields, educational material, peer reviews.

1   Introduction

CGEMS materials can be submitted anytime online at http://www.cgems.inesc.pt. Before preparing your educational work, please read the CGEMS Editorial Statement and Policies available online. Most important, check your material against the CGEMS scope (computer graphics and related fields) and copyright (academic fair use). Acceptability and reviewing criteria are listed in Section 4.

After registration, upload your submission as zip file. The zip file must include material documentation in Word or PDF format. Details on preparing the documentation are given in Section 3. If you encounter problems in preparing your documentation, please contact the CGEMS editors.

You can use this Documentation Template for Word.

2   Submission Types

CGEMS considers educational material in the following categories:

• Curriculum: The body of knowledge (BOK) of a specific curriculum with knowledge areas, units, and exemplary topics.
• Complete Module: A self-contained, single-topic teaching unit, e.g. a book or course slides.
• Course Syllabus: A course description with a sequence of educational units, course requirements and student readings.
• Lab Notes: An annotated laboratory session with a list for materials, equipment, and procedures required to conduct the experiments.
• Problem Set: Student assignment with underlying rational and structure.
• Teaching Gem: An innovative bit of teaching material that highlights an approach to teaching a particular problem.
• Student Work: Annotated, representative bodies of student work, e.g. images, videos, interactive pieces that can be used as support materials for classes.

Submitted curricula should be formatted as follows. Any BOK must be structured into three levels (SIGITE 2005). The first level lists knowledge areas, particulary disciplinary subfields identified by a two- or three-letter abbreviation. The second level lists individual, smaller units within a knowledge area; a numeric suffix is added to the area. Each unit can be further subdivided into a set of topics; topics are merely examples and neither formally prescriptive or proscriptive. Please state the BOK in an unformatted text file.

Other materials can be given in any common format. Be sure to check the acceptability and review criteria stated in Section 4.

3   Documentation

CGEMS material documentation is meant to explain and contextualize your contribution, first and foremost for other educators who will be using it in their educational setting. Documentation can be brief, but should include objectives, background, and references as follows.

• Title, authors, affiliation, and contact information.
• Abstract: A brief paragraph that summarizes rather than introduces the content of the submitted documentation. This should be a single paragraph that states all of the main points of the documentation but most importantly the conclusions attained.
• Keywords: Name three to five words describing the content best, e.g. taken from the CGEMS keywords that are listed online as part of the Web forms.
• Introduction: One to three paragraphs that introduce the content of the paper, state the problem that was addressed, and review previous works on the same theme. It is used to prepare the reader for the material that is to follow.
• Educational Goals: One to three paragraphs that state the educational goals that were derived from the problem stated in the introduction. Learning objectives should clearly specify what the student is expected to demonstrate in a final exam. Use standard educational terminology, e.g. Bloom’s taxonomy (1956):
  • Knowledge: The novice learns about a concept in an educational setting. As a first goal, (s)he can memorize the concept and use its vocabulary.
  • Comprehension: The concept can be explained in own words. The student can reconstruct given examples or proofs. (S)he recognizes lacks in understanding and has gained the ability to ask questions.
  • Application: A concept is learned flexible enough to put it into practice, i.e. the student can transfer it to a modified setup. Custom examples can be generated.
  • Programming: Students in computer science fields should be able to implement the concept and to state the algorithm’s correctness.
• Methodology: Several paragraphs that describe both the educational component(s) created to meet the stated educational goals, and how they were used in an educational setting – at what level, in a lecture, a lab or for an assignment, etc.  It should enable the reader to actually apply the material. If needed, list technical requirements and interface usage.
• Assessment: One to two paragraphs that discuss how the educational component(s) were evaluated with respect to the stated educational goals. State the assessment methods used, how data was acquired and analyzed, and whether or not the component(s) met the goals.
• Conclusion: A summary paragraph that essentially indicates the lessons learned by the author(s). This paragraph can also be used to suggest further work on new or improved components.
• References: Related work and student reading, sorted alphabetically by the lead author’s last name. ACM reference formats should be used with items cited as (Lastname Year) in the text. Student reading for single concepts should state chapters, sections, and pages.

  Reference format:
  Authors Year. Title. Journal Volume(Issue), Publisher, City, ch. Chapters.Sections, pp. Pages. URL.

  Two Authors: Lastname1, Initials1, and Lastname2, Initials2.
  Cited as (Lastname1 and Lastname2 Year).

  More Authors: Lastname1, Initials1, Lastname2, Initials2, Lastname3, Initials3,...
  Cited as (Lastname et al. Year)

• Figures: Include at least one preview of the material. Figures must include descriptive captions and can be placed between sections.

4   Reviewing and Publishing

Submitted materials become checked by the CGEMS Editors-in-Chief (EIC) against basic acceptability criteria for scope, copyright, technical barriers, documentation, and style.

• Scope: Does the material address education in CG or related fields? Your submission should match with at least one of the categories listed in the CGEMS Editorial Statement and Policies.
• Copyright: Can the material be used under academic fair use? Make sure you agree with the granted material use as stated in the CGEMS Editorial Statement and Policies.
• Technical barriers: Does your submission use common codecs, software, or hardware? CGEMS reviewers and users should not encounter technical problems.
• Incomplete documentation: Have you created the material documentation? See section 3.
• Incomplete material: Are all fonts, images, videos, classes, etc., bundled with the submission?
• Style: Basic educational requirements for consistency and style must be fulfilled.

Valid submissions enter the CGEMS reviewing cycle. The system notifies the contact authors about the new status of their submission. At least three reviewers evaluate the material with the following review criteria.

• Rating and comments for
  • Pedagogical content
  • Scientific content
  • Quality of exposition
• Portability
• Supported formats for text, image, audio, video, interactive media, programs
• Supported platforms
• Supported browsers
• Media
• Comments
• Overall recommendation and comments

Once materials are accepted and considered ready to be published by the EIC, they are catalogued and made available to the CGEMS community.

5   Conclusions

The CGEMS supports the CG community in collecting and sharing educational values. Publishing under academic fair use assures that materials are available for classroom use with due credit being assigned. The next server versions will support community-side comments and rating, and strengthen peer recognition by adding CGEMS member profiles.

References

Assunção, S., Figueiredo, F., Jorge, J. 2002. Proposal for a CG Educational Content Online Submission and Reviewing System. Eurographics/SIGGRAPH Workshop on Computer Graphics Education. Bristol, UK. http://virtual.inesc.pt/cge02

Bloom, B. S. 1956. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Book 1 Cognitive Domain. Longman, London.

Cunningham, S. 2000. GVE’99: Report of the 1999 Eurographics/SIGGRAPH workshop on graphics and visualization education. ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics 33(4), ACM, pp. 96–102. 

Figueiredo, F., Eber, D. E., Jorge, J. 2004. Refereed digital publication of computer graphics educational materials. Computers & Graphics 28(1), Elsevier, pp. 119–124.

SIGITE - Special Interest Group on Information Technology Education, 2005. Computing Curricula Information Technology Volume. ACM, p.53. http://www.acm.org/education/curric_vols/IT_October_2005.pdf