Call for Doctoral Consortium
mLearn 2012 pushes further the paradigm of learning and mobility in converging technological environments. This includes applications of trendy devices in various contexts, but also calls for investigating new educational and technological ways and concepts for supporting formal and informal learning as well as transitions between different types of learning. mLearn was the first conference on Mobile Learning and is the premiere international conference on learning with mobile technologies and learning across contexts. The conference provides a unique forum for knowledge sharing and transfer for academia, developers, practitioners, industry, government, and organisations. Every year, mLearn attracts a great number of participants from more than 60 countries representing all continents.

The mLearn Doctoral Consortium will provide a unique opportunity to present and discuss work by PhD students in the field of mobile learning. Prominent researchers and members of the IAMLearn Association will provide feedback to selected papers in an interactive session. The intention of this doctoral consortium is to support and inspire Ph.D. students during their ongoing research efforts. The Doctoral Consortium will be part of the conference program and the selected papers will be part of the conference proceedings.

ELIGIBILITY:
In contrast to regular conference papers, submissions should address specifically doctoral work! Therefore, it is necessary that authors will have neither achieved their Ph.D. degree nor officially submitted their thesis before the doctoral consortium (October 2012).

STRUCTURE OF A PAPER FOR THE DC:

A submission to the Doctoral Consortium of mLearn 2012 should address the following aspects:

A clear formulation of the research question,
An identification of the significant problems in the field of research,
A brief outline of the current knowledge of the problem domain, as well as the state of existing solutions,
A presentation of any preliminary ideas, the proposed approach and the results achieved so far,
A sketch of the applied research methodology,
A description of the Ph.D. project's contribution to the problem solution,
A discussion of how the suggested solution is different, new, or better as compared to existing approaches to the problem.

APPLICATION PROCESS:
The max length of submissions should not exceed 4 pages in the conference template. Please submit your paper via E-Mail to: marco.kalz@ou.nl with short information about the PhD project (expected graduation date & supervisor/professor). All papers will be reviewed by at least two senior researchers. Additionally, a discussants, members of the doctoral consortium committee, will be appointed to each paper. Discussant comments will be followed by a plenary discussion of the paper. At the end of the consortium there will be a general discussion, including a brainstorming session about current and future research topics in the area.

TIMELINE:
Submission Deadline for the DC: 15 July (strict)
Notification of acceptance: 24 July
End of early bird registration: 26 July
Date of the DC: to be announced (within the main conference 16-18 October 2012)

CHAIRS OF THE DC:
Marco Kalz, Center for Learning Sciences and Technologies, Open Universiteit Nederland, The Netherlands
Wong Lung Hsiang, Learning Sciences Lab, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University