Conference blog: Fuzzing Workshop @ NDSS 2026
Thanks to SICSA Cybersecurity theme, I had the opportunity to attend the Usenix Network and Distributed Systems Security conference (NDSS) and present my paper Hardfuzz: DataFlow-Guided On-Device Fuzzing for Microcontrollers, which was accepted to the International Fuzzing Workshop. The journey did not get off to a great start. My flight was repeatedly cancelled because of …
Pre-CHI 2026 Programme
Hello CHI community! This short note is an open invitation to any and all of you HCI researchers, practitioners, students, and teachers, to join us for our annual Pre-CHI mini-conference on April 1st, 2026. No fooling! This hybrid event will be at the Stirling Court Hotel, on the campus of the University of Stirling, from …
Getting Started in Computing Education Research Through ITiCSE Working Groups
Getting started in computer science education research can feel daunting. The field is broad, the community is large, and for those coming from a more technical background, it’s not always obvious where to begin – or how to build a network and a research identity in the area. For me, conference working groups – in …
SPLV ’26: Scottish Programming Languages and Verification Summer School
Registration for SPLV 2026 at University of Glasgow is now open. The Scottish Programming Languages and Verification Summer School is a collaborative effort between the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Heriot-Watt, Strathclyde and St Andrews. This summer school provides core and advanced classes that cover foundational as well as state of the art knowledge on the underlying principles needed to use or design new languages and verifying program correctness. The school is aimed at PhD students in programming languages, verification and related areas. Researchers and practitioners are welcome, as are strong undergraduate and masters students with the support of a supervisor.
SICSA Seminar – From Large to Small Building Affordable Language Models with Limited Resources
This talk aims to question the limitations and harms of Large Language Models, followed by a review of Small Language Models, covering prominent examples, their key techniques, and their capabilities. It will also give an overview of even smaller ‘baby’ language models. Finally, the talk will conclude by presenting some recent studies in which we …
Scoping CS Education Research in Scotland
SICSA’s Education Champions are conducting a short survey to map current engagement with Computing Science Education research across Scottish universities, with an aim to better understand who is involved, where this work is taking place, what areas are being explored and what support is needed. SICSA colleagues are invited to complete the survey below, which …
Scottish Argumentation Day: SAD 2026
Registration is now open for Scottish Argumentation Day 2026, hosted at University of Dundee by Eimear Maguire, Kamila Górska and Ramon Ruiz-Dolz on 29 May 2026. About the event Scotland has a particularly high concentration of research groups working in the AI subfield of computational argumentation. Scottish Argumentation Day has previously been attended by researchers based both …
Teaching Programming in an LLM-Dominated Era: Maintaining Engagement, Skills, and Responsible AI
Large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT are now embedded in how students learn programming. For computing educators, this raises a central question: How do we maintain meaningful student engagement with learning materials and conceptual understanding while preparing learners for an AI-rich computing landscape? My recent research [1] compared students’ perceptions of programming learning difficulties …
Pre-CHI 2026
The Pre-CHI Day is a chance for the Scottish HCI community to see some of the world-leading research going on across Scotland, and allow those not travelling to Spain to talk to authors first-hand and hear about their work.
The event will be hybrid, and virtual attendance and virtual presentation will both be supported. We expect a mixed audience, including researchers of the Scottish HCI community as well as interested students, designers, industry, practitioners etc., as well as newcomers to the field of HCI.
SICSA Seminar – From Large to Small: Building Affordable Language Models with Limited Resources
Join us on Wednesday, 25 February for an AI & Data Science Seminar.
Dr Burcu Can of University of Stirling presents
From Large to Small: Building Affordable Language Models with Limited Resources
This talk aims to question the limitations and harms of Large Language Models, followed by a review of Small Language Models, covering prominent examples, their key techniques, and their capabilities. It will also give an overview of even smaller ‘baby’ language models. Finally, the talk will conclude by presenting some recent studies in which we developed baby language models using very small amounts of data.