Call for Papers 2025

The 132nd ASEE Annual Conference will take place from June 22-25, 2025 in Montreal, Canada.

The Experimentation and Laboratory-Oriented Studies (ELOS) Division invites abstracts for papers for the 2025 ASEE Annual Conference. ELOS is a multidisciplinary division devoted to innovations and best practices for laboratory instruction.

Papers addressing, but not limited to, the following topics are requested:

  • Pedagogy and best practices of laboratory courses
  • Inquiry-based experiential learning
  • Hands-on laboratory instruction
  • Virtual and remote experiments and laboratory instruction
  • Laboratory exercises using augmented reality (AR)/virtual reality (VR)
  • Integration of laboratory experiments and courses in an online environment
  • Computer-assisted data acquisition
  • Laboratory exercises or design projects that use microprocessors (Arduino, Beagle Bone, Raspberry Pi, Android, etc.)
  • Horizontal or vertical curricular integration of laboratory experiments and courses
  • Unique, multidisciplinary laboratory experiments and programs
  • Pedagogy and best practices for undergraduate research projects
  • Discipline-specific experiences and research in laboratory-based instruction (e.g., in mechanical, electrical, or chemical engineering)
  • Applications and integration of AI for laboratory learning (e.g., new ways of using and integrating AI into experimentation, problem solving, design process, design of experiments, etc.)

ELOS sponsors technical sessions with both traditional, slide-based academic presentations (technical and work in progress papers) and live demonstration (bring you own experiment papers, BYOE) sessions at the ASEE Annual Conference. Papers considered for both types of sessions use the standard review process for ASEE Conference papers, but with slightly different review criteria as described below.

ELOS supports a vivid discussion among a diverse group of faculty at the ASEE Annual Conference. Hence, the division encourages submissions from both scholars of teaching and learning and educational researchers. Collaborative work and submissions from representatives of both groups are also encouraged and welcome.

As experiments and laboratories play an integral role in engineering education across all disciplines, ELOS is interested in fostering collaboration across divisions. To that end, we sponsored joint sessions with Electrical and Computer Engineering, Chemical and Materials Engineering, and Civil Engineering during the ASEE 2024 Conference. We plan to arrange similar joint sessions at the ASEE 2025 Conference and actively look for further partner divisions as the year progresses. So, authors who might not have thought of submitting to ELOS in the past but discuss laboratory-related education in context with a specific engineering discipline, could benefit from the joined audiences in these sessions. Authors are encouraged to reach out to us. Finalized joint sessions will be announced at a later date.

Submission Types

1. Technical Papers

Attendees at ELOS sessions have expressed strong interest in the practical aspects of instruction, which is especially relevant to laboratory instruction. Papers describing the implementation, assessment, and integration of both hands-on and online exercises with laboratory or lecture-based classes are encouraged.

Presentation type: Slide-based presentation

2. Work in Progress (WIP) Papers

Work-in-progress papers will also be considered. Abstracts and full Submission of this paper type

MUST have a title that begins with “Work-in-Progress: paper title” with the colon separating the phrase from the remainder of the title. Work‐in‐Progress submissions are for reporting on work that is still in the process of study and/or implementation for which results will not be available by the time of draft paper submission.

Presentation type: Slide-based presentation

3. Bring Your Own Experiment (BYOE) Submissions

Unlike traditional papers and presentations, the BYOE sessions highly encourage live demonstrations of laboratory exercises and equipment! The content of the submissions in BYOE sessions focuses more on implementation, which includes fabrication, deployment, and student usage in addition to the underlying pedagogy. BYOE sessions will be publish-to-present. BYOE abstracts must be submitted using the ASEE submission portal. Submissions should be identified by including “BYOE” at the beginning of the title of the abstract. For example, a submission to demonstrate an experiment on optical encoders would be titled “BYOE: A Deconstructed Apparatus for Exploring Rotary Optical

Encoders.”

Presentation type: Live demonstration

Additional Notes

Student Papers: The division strongly encourages student authors to submit papers and accepts student papers in all the three above-described submission types. Student papers should have a student first author and a faculty member as a co-author, and students are expected to present at the conference. Student paper submissions should follow the regular guidelines and review process for the respective submission type, as appropriate.

Papers on Diversity and Inclusion: The division strongly encourages work that connects instructional experimentation and diversity and inclusion efforts. However, the contribution of the submitted work in that area should be clearly placed within the context of the technique or the methodology of the presented experiment of laboratory.

Review Process

Technical and WIP Papers

Abstracts should be 500 words or less. Authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to submit fulllength or work-in-progress papers for peer review.

Abstracts will be reviewed against the following criteria:

  1. Does the work fit with the theme of ELOS, i.e. does the paper concern experimental and/or Laboratory-oriented learning experiences?
  2. Does the abstract’s content suggest that a full paper is likely to be of sufficient merit to warrant review?

Papers in the technical paper and WIP paper categories will be reviewed against the following criteria:

  1. Readability: Is the paper well written? Is it free of grammatical and spelling errors? Is the paper easy to read? Are the key findings made obvious to the reader?
  2. Technical Merit: Is the analysis sound and well documented? Are the measurement techniques carefully defined and appropriate to the quantities being measured and the appropriate units used? Do the discussion and conclusions follow from the data and analysis presented in the paper? Are assertions of improvements in education supported by rigorous assessment?
  3. Use of Figures and Graphics: Are the figures and graphics clear and effective at illustrating the equipment and data? Do the figures and graphics support the discussion and conclusions? Are the figures and graphics explained by a discussion in the paper’s text?Are axes labeled properly and units indicated?
  4. Innovation in Education: Does the paper describe an innovative approach to laboratorybased instruction? Does the paper contribute to the advancement of laboratory-based instruction?
  5. Broad Interest: Is the paper of interest outside of a narrowly targeted audience? Is there a potential crossover of interest to other subject areas or audiences?
  6. Significance and Impact: Is the paper of significance relative to other papers in the same field of interest? Will other researchers or instructors in the same field cite the paper? Is the paper likely to have an impact on the practice of engineering education, or future research in engineering education?
  7. References: Are there enough references on prior research on engineering pedagogy applied by the authors and review of similar work done by other educators in the field?

BYOE Submissions

The review process will follow the same deadlines as the standard ASEE abstract and manuscript process with peer review. Abstracts should be 500 words or less. Authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to submit full-length submission for peer review. Note that the BYOE paper should be in the form of a procedure description and instruction. The written submission should be crafted in a way that will allow others to easily duplicate the experiment and explain the motivation for the development of the experiment and the expected learning outcomes. An example of a BYOE paper is linked here. BYOE submissions selected for presentation after reviewing the required written submission will be published in the Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference.

BYOE Abstracts will be reviewed against the following criteria:

  1. Is the motivation for the development of the experiment clearly explained?
  2. Is the description of the experiment that will be demonstrated during the BYOE session sufficient?
  3. Does the abstract’s content suggest that a full submission will interest others in the field?

BYOE Submissions will be reviewed against the following criteria:

  1. Readability: Is the description and associated support materials well-developed, easily read/understood, free of grammatical errors or visual inadequacies? (Does it communicate well what it intends to?) Is the experimental procedure made obvious to the reader such that a person in the field could adopt/adapt the experiment?
  2. Technical Merit: Is there sufficiently detailed information provided so that others can reproduce the experiment? Are the measurement techniques carefully defined and appropriate to the quantities being measured? Does the experiment achieve the stated educational objectives?
  3. Use of Figures and Graphics: Are the figures and graphics clear and effective at illustrating the experimental apparatus? Are the figures and graphics explained by description in the paper’s text? Are axes labeled properly and units indicated?
  4. Innovation in Education: Does the BYOE submission describe an innovative approach to laboratory-based instruction or an approach that addresses a fundamental student misconception through a hands-on activity?
  5. Broad Interest: Is the paper of interest outside of a narrowly targeted audience? Is there potential for a crossover of interest to other subject areas or audiences?
  6. Significance and Impact: Is the paper of significance relative to other papers in the same field of interest? Will other researchers or instructors in the same field adopt the demonstrated experiment? Is the submission likely to have an impact on the practice of engineering education?
  7. Logistical Feasibility: Is the experiment transportable enough to bring to the conference for a demonstration? If it is not transportable, has it been shown that a reasonably translatable account of its design and implementation can be presented such that the audience would be able to adequately understand it? Can it be represented without bringing it to effectively serve as a demonstration?

Awards

ELOS sponsors three (3) Best Paper Awards and one (1) Best Student Paper Award consisting of certificates and cash prizes of $300 each. Funding for these awards is graciously provided by the International Association of Online Engineering (IAOE). All papers submitted to the division will be considered for these awards. The division will make awards for ‘Best Overall Paper’, ‘Best Diversity and Inclusion Paper’, ‘Best BYOE Paper’, and ‘Best Student Paper’. Preliminary screening for Best Paper Awards will be based on the first full-length draft submitted for review after the abstract has been accepted.

For more information, contact:

ELOS-2025 Program Technical Chair: Dr. Hans Mayer; hmayer@calpoly.edu ELOS-2025 Division Chair: Dr. Dominik May; dmay@uni-wuppertal.de