Following the highly successful events in Barcelona, Spain (#PLE_BCN), and Southampton, UK (#PLE_SOU), the next PLE Conference will be held simultaneously in Aveiro, Portugal and Melbourne, Australia (#PLEConf) from July 11th to 13th 2012.

The Personal Learning Environment (PLE) Conference is intended to produce a space for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas, experiences and research around the development and implementation of PLEs – including the design of environments and the sociological and educational issues that they raise. Whilst the conference includes a traditional research paper strand, we also encourage proposals for sessions in different formats including workshops, posters, debates, cafe sessions and demonstrations aiming to sustain the dynamic and interactive discussion environment established by the previous events in Barcelona and Southampton.

A Personal Learning Environment (PLE) includes the tools, communities, and services that constitute individual educational platforms that learners use to direct their own learning and pursue their educational goals. This represents a shift away from the traditional model of learning, and towards a model where students draw connections from a growing matrix of online and offline resources that they select and organise. To gain something of the flavor of the last conferences search for #PLE_BCN and #PLE_SOU and see http://pleconference.citilab.eu/ and http://www.pleconf.org/2011.

Call for papers and keynote speakers

Abstract submission

The conference organisers welcome 1200 word extended abstracts for full papers or 700 words for short papers, posters and doctoral consortium panel participation (please check important dates). The submission of abstracts proposals can be done by using only the text areas of the form available in the submission page or you can use this simplified template.

Submissions for other types of presentation, such as Pecha Kucha, workshops, symposia, demonstrations and installations are also encouraged. If you are planning to submit another type of proposal, not a paper, you could use this document template instead.

Submissions should also include the preferred location for presentation (Aveiro or Melbourne).

This year’s edition of The PLE Conference will take the unConference model a step further. Authors of extended abstracts will have the opportunity, if attending in
Aveiro, suggest a keynote for day 2. If you’re interested to submit your abstract to present in Aveiro, please add two names that, as a team, you believe could have an awesome performance as keynote speakers. All proposals should be gender balanced (i.e. a team composed by a man and a woman) and preferably from different countries.

To star your submission please click here.

Conference themes

Conference themes include (but are not limited to):

• Theories and frameworks for Personal Learning Environments
• Technologies and software for developing Personal Learning Environments
• PLEs in Practice (case studies, approaches to using PLEs)
• Educational institutions, change and PLEs
• Pedagogical approaches to personal and self-regulated learning
• The development and management of Personal Learning Networks
• Emerging technologies for PLEs
• Supporting informal and contextual learning
• Using PLEs in organizations
• Using PLEs for Work Based Learning

The PLE conference is especially looking for originality and relevancy of ideas and for creative proposals, in both form and content. Formats for publication and communication of research are two different things! Regardless of the publication format you decide to contribute, full paper, workshop etc., the organising committee encourages interactive and creative ways of communicating research.

Paper submission

We invite you to submit your contribution in the publication format you prefer (for papers we require formatting according to the Springer LNCS template http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0) .
In the submission form you may select your preference regarding the type of presentation you wish to make (e.g.: round table discussion, bring your own laptop, cafe session). Once the review of papers is concluded, presentations will be organised by topics and session chairs will start liaising with participants regarding the organisation of their session. Our goal is to create spaces for meaningful discussions. In short, the purpose is to create opportunities for delegates to interact with each other and achieve real communication. We aim to promote dialogue and interactivity throughout the conference.

In celebration of User Generated Content we will have a Mediacast Contest during the PLE Conference 2012 with awards for the best three mediacast productions on Personal Learning Environments.

Review Process

Extended abstracts for full and short papers proposals will be subject to a double-blind peer review process and authors of accepted proposals are invited to submit full versions of their papers. Authors of accepted abstracts are expected to submit a final paper of no more than 3000 words (short papers) or 8000 words (full papers) by 13.05.2012. The word limits include everything (title, abstract, keywords, bibliography). Figures and tables account for 250 words each. These full versions will also be subject to a peer review process and authors of accepted papers will be notified by 10.06.2012.

All proposals accepted will be published electronically with an ISSN number.
In addition to the proceedings, we intend to publish selected conference papers in special editions of the journals that support the conference.

Please note that all submissions should be licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Guidelines

A complete set of guidelines is available for download.