Presenting at the Cybersecurity and Privacy Professionals Conference provides an opportunity to build your professional network and experience lifelong learning with lifelong friends. Presenting a content-rich session individually or as part of a team is a wonderful way to share knowledge, experiences, and ideas. The conference's community-generated program will showcase future directions, best practices, stories of successful collaborations, lessons learned, and solutions to community-wide issues within various program tracks. We welcome your submission! Please read this page carefully before you begin work on your proposal and be sure to submit by the deadline: February 1, 2022.
If you or a co-presenter are a corporate member, you have two options:
- You can go through the CFP process, in which case the Cybersecurity and Privacy Professionals Conference Program Committee will determine acceptance to the program.
- You can contact [email protected] to purchase a sponsored content session and will receive specific instructions about how to submit your session details. Limited opportunities are available.
Ready to get started? Just follow these simple steps:
- Find out how to create an excellent proposal by reading this page and the helpful tips in the EDUCAUSE Presenter Concierge pages.
- Develop a proposal in one of the program theme/focus areas. For a sneak peek at the CFP submission form and to share for collaboration, you may download or copy and share this Sample CFP Submission Form.
- Choose a session format.
- Submit your proposal by February 1, 2022. Submitters will be notified about decisions in late-February.
- If accepted, attend and present at the Cybersecurity and Privacy Professionals Conference 2022! (Registration is required of all presenters.)
Please note: We are planning for and excited to welcome attendees to our in-person conference in May 2022, while acknowledging the complexities of planning a safe and effective in-person, indoor conference that meets new and emerging local, state, and federal regulations. We will continue to monitor developments that may impact attendees and will update safety precautions as appropriate.
Conference Program: Themes, Topics, and Keywords
Theme:
The Future Is Ours to Shape: Developing Staff and Operations for Tomorrow's Cybersecurity and Privacy
The program committee has identified five suggested areas of focus (tracks/topics) for 2022. Each track/topic should be considered in the context of building, operating, and staffing information security, cybersecurity and privacy functions. Preference will be given to the proposals that sufficiently reflect what you have done or are planning to do in regard to each of these areas.
Program Tracks and Areas of Focus
Awareness, training, education, and communications are key components of successful information security and privacy programs. How do we build, staff, and operate (replicable) cybersecurity and privacy awareness programs that help educate faculty, staff, and students?
Governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) issues around information security and privacy are on the increase in higher education information technology. This track will provide examples for the leadership, organization, and operation of an institution's GRC programs now and in the future.
Today's information security and privacy workforce requires continuous learning and professional development at all levels. This track allows you to share ideas and best practices for shaping and developing the next generation of our workforce, as well as sustaining, training, and creating leadership opportunities for current employees.
What best practices shape your privacy and cybersecurity operations? This track allows you to share what you are doing to prevent, detect, assess, monitor, and respond to cybersecurity threats, privacy violations, and incidents. Share the strategies for information security and privacy controls and safeguards that are being implemented at your institution to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of institutional data.
Coordination, cooperation, and capability building are silo-busting tactics that can align cybersecurity and privacy operations with campus partners and leadership. This track showcases examples of silo-busting across our campuses—where collaboration and communication have been keys to successful cybersecurity and privacy programs and can be again.
Delivery Choices
Please note that your proposal will be carefully evaluated and may be accepted for any of the formats below, depending on the scope of content and engagement strategies proposed. Review the session formats carefully and note that although the Cybersecurity and Privacy Professionals Conference will make every effort to honor your preference for format, we reserve the right to reassign the delivery format based on space and program balance.
Demonstrations
This type of session works best if your primary objective is to offer a tour or provide an overview of an innovative product or service. Select this delivery format if you want to showcase a product or service you implemented, built, or created. This is a great way to tell your “it worked for us” story. Corporate participants: Please note that if your proposal is accepted by the program committee, your session will NOT be considered sponsored content and no fee will apply. If you do not wish to submit through the CFP, you can contact [email protected] to purchase a sponsored content session and will receive specific instructions about how to submit your session details. Limited opportunities are available. These will be either 20-minute or 45-minute sessions. You may have a maximum of two presenters for this session type.
Facilitated Discussion
Discussion sessions are opportunities for event attendees to share campus challenges and solutions through conversational exchange. By actively engaging audience participants in dialogue about hot topics or broad issues, presenters of these sessions will rely on the collective community experience among session attendees. There is no room for "sage on the stage" in a facilitated discussion session; this is a chance to have organic, topically relevant, peer-to-peer learning experiences at the conference. Corporate participants: Please note that if your proposal is accepted by the program committee, your session will NOT be considered sponsored content and no fee will apply. If you do not wish to submit through the CFP, you can contact [email protected] to purchase a sponsored content session and will receive specific instructions about how to submit your session details. Limited opportunities are available. These will be 45-minute sessions. You may have a maximum of two facilitators for this session type.
Presentation or Panel Session
These sessions are opportunities to share topics of interest, lessons learned, foresight, or evidence of impact related to a conference theme. Presenters, whether one person or a group, should include ways to actively engage the audience in the session, either digitally or in person. Panels should represent two or more opposing viewpoints for a lively group discussion. The best panels and group presentations have diversity in perspectives as well as diversity of panelists—organizationally and demographically speaking. Corporate participants: Please note that if your proposal is accepted by the program committee, your session will NOT be considered sponsored content and no fee will apply. If you do not wish to submit through the CFP, you can contact [email protected] to purchase a sponsored content session and will receive specific instructions about how to submit your session details. Limited opportunities are available. These will be either 20-minute or 45-minute sessions. You may have a maximum of four presenters/panelists for this session type.
A Special Note to Our Corporate Participants
EDUCAUSE values insights from the corporate community. As such, we have developed two options for you to contribute to the Cybersecurity and Privacy Professionals Conference 2022. If any presenter affiliated with the session is from a corporation, you can choose from the following TWO options:
- You can go through the CFP process as outlined above, in which case the Cybersecurity and Privacy Professionals Conference program committee will determine acceptance to the program. If your proposal is accepted by the program committee, your session will NOT be considered sponsored content and NO fee will apply to participate in the program. These session slots are highly competitive, and only the highest quality, most relevant, “thought leader” sessions will be accepted. Other corporate sponsorships are available for this event, and a liaison from our corporate team will reach out to you with other opportunities to invest in the conference.
- You can contact [email protected] to purchase a sponsored content session and will receive special instructions about how to submit your session details. These sessions will be integrated into the conference program with all other sessions and will also include a "sponsored content" label (or similar language). This label is necessary to be transparent about the nature of how the session was picked for the program. Limited opportunities are available.
Selection Process
Proposals are selected to ensure the conference offers a comprehensive, non-promotional/non-commercially biased, objective, and diverse program. Proposals that clearly describe innovative and creative work will receive the highest priority in the selection process. Attention will be given to diversity of institutions/organizations, presenters, and geographic location. Note: You may be invited to present in formats other than the one you selected or those noted in the proposal submission form.
Proposals will be reviewed by the Program Committee and peer reviewers using the following criteria:
- Relevance of Topic: Is the topic of relevance, importance, value, and/or interest to higher education?
- Session Outcomes Achievability: Is there alignment between the stated session outcomes and the proposal description?
- Presenter Knowledge: Does the presenter or presenters have sufficient knowledge, expertise, and authority to address this topic based on evidence provided in the proposal and/or prior experience with or knowledge of the presenter?
- Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Does the proposal show how the session will reflect or address diversity, equity, and inclusion (including subject matter, individuals of all identities, and demographic characteristics)?
Guidelines for Submission
- Profile Requirement: An EDUCAUSE Profile is required in order to submit a proposal, present, and register for the event. Please take some time NOW before submitting a proposal to ensure all presenters have profiles and that all information is updated (title, profile picture, bio, etc.). You can search for members in the member directory; if presenters don’t have a profile, they will need to create one so you’re able to add them within the submission site. Profile information will help reviewers and attendees understand a presenter's qualifications.
- Presenters and Registration: Presenters are responsible for registering in advance for the conference, paying the full conference registration fee, and securing and paying for travel and lodging.
- Presenter Commitment: Do not list co-presenters without their commitment that they will participate and that they agree to the terms and conditions for participation.
- Acceptance notifications will be sent late February 2022.
- All selected presenters must complete speaker agreement forms in order to be confirmed for a session.
- Proposal submission topics cannot be changed after the review and selection process.
- EDUCAUSE reserves the right to revise presentation titles and/or edit the session description for program publications.
- Session Resources: Presenters will be required to upload their presentation and supporting materials and resources prior to the conference. If selected, you will be provided with further instructions on uploading your presentation materials.
Diversity and New Voices
The EDUCAUSE Board and leadership have established diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as a critical priority for the association. Our program committee strives to develop a program that truly represents our diverse community. We encourage you to consider how your proposal reflects or addresses diversity, equity, and inclusion (including subject matter, individuals of all identities, and demographic characteristics).
Similarly, we are eager to expand our community of presenters by encouraging and supporting new voices in higher education information security and privacy. We’d like first-time presenters to feel energized and inspired to submit a proposal and share their ideas and experiences.