Call for Papers

Call for Papers:
Special Issue of ITALICS on Green IT and Sustainable Development in ICS
June 2010 issue

The June 2010 issue of ITALICS will be on the topics of Green IT and Sustainable Development. This special issue will provide an opportunity to explore the growing interest and relevance of Green IT, and more generally sustainable development, in Information and Computer Sciences.

Green IT is of growing interest to the computing sector – becoming more of a factor in the design and procurement of IT systems. Furthermore, taking account of the impact of IT and computing on the environment is often perceived as part of professional and ethical practice in the industry.

The impact of IT on the environment can itself be considered as a subset of the more general ethical and professional context that comes under Sustainable Development – which encompasses a wide range of ideas – with a focus on social, environmental and economic aspects.

The United Nations, the UK Government, HEFCE, professional bodies such as the BCS, as well as employers are all beginning to expect – or even require - that graduates be well-versed in the relevance and approaches to these topics. In particular, the interest in Green IT is increasing as a part of the more general concerns about climate change.

This issue of ITALICS calls for papers that address the issues around these topics, such as, but not limited to:

• Why should we teach these topics? Do they provide material for developing critical analysis in ICS students?
• How do we effectively teach these topics? Should we focus on pragmatic or ethical arguments - saving money versus (possibly) saving the planet?
• Innovative approaches to motivating students in these topics.
• Developing debate in ICS students.
• Professionalism and sustainable computing.
• To embed or not to embed Green IT in teaching?
• Education for Sustainable Development – what does it mean in ICS?
• Green IT in teaching – do we practice what we preach?
• 2010 is the midpoint in the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) – how has ESD impacted on the ICS curriculum in the UK?
• Case studies and examples of teaching these subjects within ICS courses.
• How do students perceive these subjects – do they think they are relevant?

Dr Neil Gordon, Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hull is the guest Editor for this issue. He led a HEA-funded project on improving student awareness of sustainable development and related employability issues.

Important Dates

• Deadline for submission of papers – Friday 12th March 2010
• Notification of outcome - Friday 30th April 2010
• Deadline for revised papers - Friday 21th May 2010

Papers should be submitted in electronic format and sent to heacademy-ics@ulster.ac.uk and should not exceed 6000 words.

Submission Guidelines

Before submitting a paper to ITALICS, we would ask all authors to refer to our Guidelines for submission.