We invite you to submit a paper or a poster for the 25th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research (Koli Calling 2025) to be hosted in Koli, Finland, November 13-16, 2025.

Submit your paper at the Koli Calling 2025 EasyChair site (coming soon).

Koli Calling is one of the leading international conferences dedicated to the scholarship of teaching and learning and to education research in the computing disciplines. It is a single-track conference for original and novel work with research, practice and systems presentations as well as a keynote and invited talks. The conference is known for its moderate size, intimate atmosphere, and lively discussions.

As in previous years, there will be a doctoral consortium before the main conference. See below for more details.

There will be a pre-conference workshop held in Joensuu, Finland on November 12th, the conference itself will begin on November 13th in the afternoon (travel will be organized from Joensuu in the morning of the 13th).

All accepted submissions need to be presented in person at Koli Calling. At least one author has to attend the conference in person for the paper to be included in the proceedings.

We welcome submissions in the area of computing education: the teaching and learning of computing topics. Within that broad scope, contributions may involve one or more of the following:

• Empirical studies of computing education;
• Teaching approaches and assessment in computing education;
• Development, use, and evaluation of tools to support computing education;
• Theory in computing education;
• The learning of computing in any context; e.g., higher education, K-12, informal learning, lifelong learning, teachers’ professional development;
• Distance, online, and blended learning of computing topics;
• Learning analytics and educational data mining in the area of computing education;
• Methodological development and instruments for computing education research;
• Reviews to support computing education or computing education research;
• Any other aspects of the teaching and/or learning computing topics.

Please note that generic educational technology and applications of computing for educational purposes are not in scope, except where they are used for computing education.

Important note to authors about the new ACM open access publishing model

ACM has introduced a new open access publishing model for the International Conference Proceedings Series (ICPS) such as Koli Calling. All the publications at Koli Calling 2025 will be open access. Authors based at institutions that are not yet part of the ACM Open program will be required to pay an article processing charge (APC) to publish their ICPS article in the ACM Digital Library, unless one of their co-authors’ institutions is a member or they qualify for a waiver. To determine whether or not an APC will be applicable to your article, please follow the detailed guidance here: https://www.acm.org/publications/icps/author-guidance.

For 2025 ACM is providing a subsidy on APC pricing for ICPS, as follows:

• The 2025 subsidized APC rate for ICPS papers will be $350.
• For papers where any of the authors is a member of ACM, the APC rate will be $250.
• For ICPS papers whose corresponding author is based in a lower-middle-income country, the APC rate will be $175.
• For ICPS papers whose corresponding author is based in a lower-middle-income country and where any of the authors is a member of ACM, the APC rate will be $125.
• For ICPS papers whose corresponding author is based in a low-income country, no APC is required.

Further information may be found on the ACM website:

• Full details of the new ICPS publishing model: https://www.acm.org/publications/icps/faq
• Full details of the ACM Open program: https://www.acm.org/publications/openaccess

Please direct all questions about the new model to icps-info@acm.org.

For more detailed information on ACM Open please see the SIGCSE Bulletin article on this change: https://sigcse.org/about/bulletin/bulletin.57.1.pdf.

Submission Categories

Koli Calling 2025 will accept submissions of three types, in various categories. Each category of paper will be reviewed using a reviewer template specific to and appropriate for the submission category by reviewers interested in papers of that type. 

Full papers up to 10 pages in length in the double-column format excluding references and, optionally, supplemental material in either of the two categories:

1. Research papers present high-quality research. These submissions will be evaluated on the quality of the contribution, its contextualization in the literature, and sound application of methods appropriate to the topic of investigation. Most research papers can be described as empirical, theoretical, or review papers.

• Empirical papers report on studies that collect and analyze empirical data and employ methods rigorously, whether qualitative, quantitative, or mixed.
• Theoretical papers formulate, extend, apply, critically evaluate, or otherwise discuss theory for the purpose of improving computing education or computing education research. The discussion is grounded in the research literature and advances the field.
• Review papers survey the literature on a particular topic.

2. System and tool papers present a software system or other tool of value in a computing education setting. They will be evaluated based on the potential contribution of the system to the community, the effectiveness of the comparison to and differentiation from existing similar systems, and the quality of the evaluation and/or discussion of the design of the tool. We expect contributions in this category to present tools that have a certain degree of maturity and matching empirical evaluation! Papers featuring a system or tool can also be submitted to the research paper category, if the evaluation is the emphasis. This category focuses on the contribution of the system/tool, as supported by evidence of its unique contribution (differentiation from other tools), efficacy, and/or quality of design.

Discussion papers up to 6 pages in length in the double-column format excluding references and, optionally, supplemental material disseminate and discuss new ideas and promising initiatives in computing education practice or research. They will be reviewed based on the quality of the discussion, their use of appropriate evidence or argumentation, and their potential to be of interest to the community. Examples of discussion papers include:

• Short empirical papers, which are limited in scope or produce tentative results but are nevertheless of interest to the computing education research community and suggest paths for future research. 
• Proposition papers, which propose an innovation, debate a theoretical issue, or advance a cause. The argumentation must be solidly grounded in the research literature. A discussion paper must provide fresh perspectives or insights and present a compelling case to indicate how it promotes discussion and raises questions for future research to answer.

Poster/demo papers up to 2 pages in length in the double-column format excluding references are presentations of emerging ideas for research, teaching practice, or tools. These presentations are typically interactive with the participants.

We expect that all empirical submissions adhere to one of the reporting standards of SIGSOFT (https://www2.sigsoft.org/EmpiricalStandards/docs/standards). Authors can indicate upon submission the category that they have chosen as most appropriate for their work and follow the respective checklist to ensure that their submission fulfills the required standard. The standards will also be suggested to reviewers as a basis for their decision. We will evaluate the appropriateness and usefulness of this approach in the context of our community afterwards.  

For all accepted works, instructions for the in-person presentation will be given closer to the time of the conference. We expect at least one author from each accepted paper will participate in the conference to present their work and be available for discussion. 

All papers will be evaluated prior to review to ensure that they are in the right track, have been correctly anonymised, and are ready to be reviewed by the program committee. Each paper that goes to review receives at least three reviews, with senior PC moderation of the review process.

Papers may be accepted, conditionally accepted, or rejected. Papers in the second category will receive an opportunity to make requested revisions or to explain why revisions are not needed prior to undergoing final review by a shepherd, and will be moved to the accepted or rejected categories based on the shepherd’s review.

Doctoral Consortium

The Koli Calling Doctoral Consortium will be organized before the conference, November 11-12 as an in-person event at Koli. A separate Call for Applications will be released later in 2025.

Important Dates

• All deadlines are Anywhere on Earth (AoE), which is UTC-12.
• Abstract submission deadline (full papers and discussion papers): Midnight Sunday, July 20
• Full paper submission deadline (full papers and discussion papers): Midnight Sunday, July 27
• Notification of acceptance (full papers and discussion papers): September 7
• Re-submission deadline for conditionally accepted papers: September 14
• Submission deadline (posters and demo papers): September 14
• Notification of acceptance (conditionally accepted papers, posters, and demo papers): September 28
• Final submission of revised manuscripts (all categories): October 5
• Registration opens: September 4
• Early Bird and Author registration deadline (at least one author from every accepted paper): October 3
• Conference registration deadline: October 17 for in-person participation
• Conference: Thursday, November 13 to Sunday, November 16

For full papers and discussion papers, if the meta-information (authors, title, abstract, keywords, and submission topics) for the paper is submitted by the first deadline, it will be possible to submit the full version of the paper until Midnight July 27. Papers that are not first submitted by July 20 will not be considered.

Special Author Notes

1. The official publication date is the date the proceedings are made available. This date is expected to be one week prior to the first day of the conference. The official publication date affects the deadline for any patent filings related to published work.
2. The Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture has released a policy recommending a freeze on cooperation with Russian institutions. The sponsoring university has forbidden creation of new research collaborations with Russian and Belarusian scholars. As a result, if any author only has status at a Russian or Belarusian institution, we are unable to welcome you to Koli this year.

Paper Formatting and Length Requirements

For full information on formatting and Koli policies, see the submission guide.

We look forward to welcoming you to Koli!

Organized by

Aalto University

Federal Institute of Brasilia

University of Eastern Finland