Presenting at the Cybersecurity and Privacy Professionals Conference individually or as part of a team is a wonderful way to share knowledge, experiences, ideas and information. We are seeking presentations on cybersecurity and privacy topics that would be of interest to higher education CISOs, CIOs, CPOs, and other security and privacy practitioners. Submit a proposal to share future directions, best practices, stories on successful collaborations, or solutions to community-wide issues of interest.
EDUCAUSE is committed to highlighting the diversity of perspective, opinion, and representation in our community. Our program committee therefore strives to develop a program that truly represents that diversity. We encourage you to consider how your proposal reflects or addresses diversity and inclusion.
Similarly, we are eager to expand our community of presenters by encouraging and supporting new voices in higher education cybersecurity and privacy. We’d like first-time presenters to feel energized and inspired to submit a proposal and share their ideas and experiences.
Please read this page carefully before you begin work on your proposal, and be sure to submit by the deadline: January 29, 2024.
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 tracks. If you prefer to download the CFP Template for advance work and/or collaboration, you may do so here: Call for Proposals Template.
Submit your proposal using the online submission form between January 10 and January 29,. Submitters will be notified about decisions in late February.
If accepted, attend and present at the Cybersecurity and Privacy Professionals Conference, May 1–3, 2024, in Minneapolis, MN. (Registration is required of all presenters.)
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 before submitting a proposal to ensure all presenters have profiles. Presenters can create or update their profiles on the EDUCAUSE membership page.
- ☐ Presenter Registration: Presenters are responsible for registering in advance for the conference, paying the registration fee, and securing and paying for travel and lodging. (Exceptions may include accepted full- and half-day preconference workshop presenters who may receive modest compensation in the form of an honorarium and a complimentary conference registration.)
- ☐ EDUCAUSE will not cover any additional costs such as travel and lodging expenses, online tools, assessments, books, or other presentation materials.
- ☐ Presenter Commitment:
- ☐ Acceptance notifications will be sent in late February, 2024. All selected presenters must agree to and complete speaker agreement forms in order to be confirmed for a session.
- ☐ Do not list presenters without their commitment that they will participate and that they agree to the terms and conditions for participation.
- ☐ EDUCAUSE reserves the right to edit presentation titles and/or edit the session abstract for program publications.
- ☐ Proposal titles and abstracts cannot be changed after the review and selection process.
- ☐ Session Resources: Presenters will be required to upload their presentations and/or supporting materials and resources prior to the conference. These valuable resources will then be posted for attendees to access before and beyond the session.
A Special Note to Our Corporate Community
Are you or a co-presenter with a corporation and interested in presenting at this year’s event? EDUCAUSE values the insights from the corporate community.
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Submit a presentation proposal through the call for proposals (CFP). You can go through the CFP process, in which case your proposal will be peer-reviewed and the Program and Selection Committees will determine acceptance to the program. If your proposal is accepted, there will be no fee to present other than the conference registration fee to attend. Deadline: January 29. For guidance on creating a winning corporate CFP submission, see our tips here>>
- Ratings from accepted corporate sessions in previous years indicated that the topics were timely/hot/of significant interest to the community.
- Many of the accepted corporate presentations from past years were submitted with institutional partners. Try to pin down your institutional partners prior to submitting session proposals so that you can co-create the proposal and really elevate their voice. Our audience is keen to hear institutions talk about successful partnerships.
- Higher rated sessions indicated that session outcomes clearly tied to the goals for the session.
- Higher rated sessions represent our diverse community. Before starting your proposal ask yourself: Does my proposal show how the session will reflect or address diversity, equity, and inclusion (including subject matter, individuals of all identities, and demographic characteristics)?
- The session description should always paint a clear picture about what will happen in-session. This is your opportunity to expand beyond the abstract and tell the story behind the abstract. Adding creative session elements like a design-thinking exercise or activity for the audience helps. With so much competition around session space these days, it is just as important to have an innovative, engaging session as it is to have an innovative, engaging topic.
Proposal Submission
Within the CFP submission site you will be asked the following information. In addition, each submission should include the names and biographies of the proposed presenter team.
Themes and Tracks
2024 Conference Theme: Reducing Friction While Embracing Shifting Landscapes. Learn, explore, and share ways to address cybersecurity and privacy challenges across higher education.
Conference Tracks
The program committee has identified five suggested areas of focus (tracks/topics). Each track should be considered in the context of building, operating, and staffing 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 these areas. Proposals will be selected to ensure that the conference program offers a comprehensive, noncommercial, objective, and diverse treatment of issues related to the theme and focus of this conference. You may be invited to present in a format or track other than the one you selected.
Policies that surround cybersecurity and privacy are becoming more complex as governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) issues are on the increase in higher education information technology. This track will encompass areas of leadership, organizational compliance and operation of an institution's GRC programs now and in the future.
This track will explore the ways privacy enables individuals and organizations through privacy programs, assessment of privacy risk, use of privacy engineering and embedding privacy by design, and the role privacy plays in the effective governance and management of data.
Cybersecurity awareness, training, education, and communications are critical components of successful information security and privacy programs. The Cybersecurity Awareness and Training Conference Track is a specialized segment within our conference that delves deep into the strategies, tactics, and methodologies necessary for creating and managing cybersecurity and privacy awareness programs that genuinely empower faculty, staff, and students. This track seeks to answer the pressing questions of how to not only build and staff these programs but also strategically operate them while avoiding the pitfalls of superficial compliance to meet cyber liability insurance requirements.
What best practices and technologies 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 cybersecurity and privacy controls and safeguards that are being implemented at your institution to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of institutional data.
Today's cybersecurity 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, retaining, training, and creating leadership opportunities for current employees. We also want to hear about your ideas on recruiting new talent and supporting diversity, equity, inclusion, and belong among your teams.
Delivery Choices
You should select the delivery format that best fits your session structure and presentation style. Please note that all speakers must present in person. We are not able to accommodate online presenters onsite.
Note: Although EDUCAUSE will make every effort to honor your preference for delivery format, we reserve the right to reassign the format based on space and program balance.
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. These will be either 20-minute or 45-minute sessions. You may have a maximum of two presenters for this session type.
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. These will be 45-minute sessions. You may have a maximum of two facilitators for this session type.
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. If you are proposing a panel, it 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.These will be either 20-minute or 45-minute sessions. You may have a maximum of four presenters/panelists for this session type.
Posters give participants and presenters the opportunity to share and examine problems, issues, and solutions in a casual, personal environment. Poster presenters are expected to engage with individuals, either one-on-one or in small groups, for short periods of time throughout the time slot allocated. Presenters will use a physical poster display to visually present their topics. There will be multiple poster sessions happening at the same time, allowing for attendees to visit many posters and peruse the various topics. These will be 60-minutes. You may have a maximum of two presenters for this session type.
Session Title, Abstract, Engagement Strategies, and Takeaways
Session Title
Create a short title that is creative, yet descriptive. We ask that you do not use institution, company, or product names anywhere in the title.
Abstract
This is a short description of what your session is about. If your proposal is accepted, the abstract is what most attendees will use to make decisions about which sessions to attend. What can you say that will encourage your colleagues to attend your session?
Session Takeaways and Participant Engagement Strategies
Clear session outcomes/takeaways and creative engagement strategies are essential components of every session. Proposal reviewers will closely examine and rate each proposed session's takeaways, which should clearly describe what participants will know or be able to do as a result of participating in the session. A successful proposal must also include the specific and creative ways in which the presenter(s) will engage with participants.
Session Description
This is where you get to more fully describe the plan for your session and the importance, relevance, value, uniqueness and/or interest to our community of higher education professionals. You’ll describe how the session will unfold (timetable), the key findings or points you will present, supporting evidence, and so forth.
Keywords
These are areas of specific interest and will help attendees fine-tune their personalized schedules. Optional: You will be asked to provide three keywords or short phrases that relate to your presentation.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion & Additional Information
DEI Content: You will be asked to explain whether your session reflects the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion and, if so, how does it?
Submitter Comments: We have an open field for you to provide any comments you would like the Program and Selection Committees to know.
Selection Process
Proposals are selected to ensure the conference offers a comprehensive, non-promotional, not 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.
The identity of proposal submitters and proposed presenters will be hidden during the main review process. Proposals will be reviewed by peer reviewers and the conference Program Committee using the following selection 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?
- ☐ Quality of Submission: Does the proposal demonstrate quality, as measured by accuracy, clarity, comprehensiveness, and depth of demonstrated understanding of the topic?
- ☐ Engagement/Knowledge Transfer: Does the proposal provoke discussion, audience engagement, and/or facilitate knowledge transfer and development of new competency?