Visiting the CSEE&T conference and presenting our article

Our article published in Data Knowledge & Engineering journal deserves a wider audience. That is why we submitted it to be presented as a journal first on the CSEE&T conference in Würzburg. This conference is a perfect fit for this article, and the date set in summer means it was possible for me to attend. Würzburg is also very easy to reach by train from my hometown, so I took the opportunity to go there with help of the Deutsche Bahn.

The conference took place in a university building, which, although located right in the city centre, has a very quiet, almost serene atmosphere.

Monday

I arrived on Monday, just in time for the Academy for Software Engineering Education & Training (ASEE&T) workshop which consisted of four invited talks related to Software Engineering education, the field in which I am a practitioner and researcher. It was very interesting to see all the different perspectives and ideas on this field. Some presentations where very relatable to, while others showed a completely different vision from my own. I guess that is exactly what makes these kinds of conferences interesting.

Although the social program with a boat trip on the Donau (or Danube in German), in the evening sounded very interesting, I opted to spent my time visiting the city on foot during a 10k run. This is much needed practice for my upcoming marathon.

Tuesday

After the opening of the conference, a keynote was presented on the balance between design qualities. It also featured a call to action to incorporate meaningful, real world projects in SE programs. I agree with this, and the approach presented had some interesting ideas. I think the problems with this approach are sort of universal, since the description was relatable for me.

Next, four presentations followed on AI and Machine Learning. Unavoidable it seems these days. The first presentation featured some interesting ideas on role playing games with LLM’s for students. I think we can incorporate this in our program.

Followed by these interesting presentations in the morning and an excellent lunch, I presented our article at the end of the afternoon during a set of other journal first papers. One about serious gaming, and one on parsons problems. Both very interesting!

Finally, after this fully packed day, I returned home by train.