2026 Program

Program Updates

Please note the program, speaker and session details are subject to change. Please check this page regularly

Program Time Zone

The sessions are shown in Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT) UTC +11.

Use a time zone converter to check your time: timeanddate.com

Tuesday 10 February 2026

08:30 – 17:00	Registration
Stream	Plenary
Room	Wadawurrung 1 & 2
Session Chair
09:00 – 09:15	ACSW Official Opening and Welcome Michael Hobbs, Co-chair, Deakin University
09:15 – 09:30	CORE Award Presentations Rachel Cardell-Oliver, President, CORE
09:30 – 10:30	CORE AGM
10:30 – 11:00	Morning Tea
Stream	Plenary
Room	Wadawurrung 1 & 2
Session Chair
11:00 – 12:00	CORE Outstanding Research Contribution Associate Professor Xin Yu, The University of Queensland
12:00 – 12:30	CORE Award for the Australasian Distinguished Dissertation Dr Xin Zheng, RMIT University Automated Graph Machine Learning: Toward a Data-centric Framework Automated graph machine learning is emerging as a powerful paradigm for building efficient and deployable models across a wide range of real-world applications, from scientific discovery to recommender systems. In this talk, Dr. Xin Zheng presents a data-centric perspective on automated graph learning, focusing on the full pipeline—from graph data-level scalability to graph model-level deployment. The talk introduces a structured framework that addresses three key dimensions (1) Scalability, through data-driven graph condensation techniques (2) Automation, via neural architecture search guided by graph properties and learning tasks; and (3) Deployability, through test-time evaluation and adaptation mechanisms for practical model deployment. The presentation offers a unified perspective on efficient and deployable automated and data-centric graph learning.
12:30 – 13:30	Lunch
Stream	Plenary		ACE
Room	Wadawurrung 1 & 2		Gunditjmara 1
Session Chair
13:30 – 14:00	CORE Distinguished Service Award Professor Alistair Moffat, The University of Melbourne S-E-R-V-I-C-E Alistair’s students learn early each semester that he sometimes breaks out into song or rhyme. But surely he wouldn’t do that at an event like ACSW? Would he?? And if not, how else could he possibly fill 30 minutes talking about “service”? Only one way to find out!		What Do Students Pay Attention to While Watching Others Code? Matthew Rau, John Edwards
14:00 – 14:30	Panel Session Computer Science 2026: Challenges and Opportunities		Integrating Human Skills and Debates into Computing Education: An Experience Report Eric Fouh
14:30 – 15:00			ACE Poster Lightning Talks Understanding the impacts of adapted activities for learning Agile processes in first-year subjects Nicole Ronald Developing Historical Personas using LLMs – An International AI Competition for Engaging Prospective University Students Matthew Stephenson, Marissa Bond Evaluating Handwritten Cheat Sheets for Weekly Quizzes Annabelle Du, Alex Kornblum, Zachary D King, Risa B Myers Warm-Up Assignment as Scaffolding for First-Year Programming Students Md Masbaul Alam Polash, Hisham Akhtar Exploring the student perspective on changing from portfolio to traditional assessment in final year software engineering Nicole Ronald, Charlotte Pierce Bridging the Feedback Loop: A Digital Tool for Enhancing Communication Between Course Coordinators and Tutors Md Masbaul Alam Polash, Xi Wu, Caleb The-Tjoean, David Lowe Exploring LLMs for Assessing Student Contributions in Group Software Development Logan James Nilson, Asma Shakil, Shyamli Sindhwani, Anna Trofimova Reduce or Re-direct? Rethinking Critical Thinking in the Age of AI Muqing Guo, Winn Chow, Arzoo Atiq, Joshua Burridge, Sally Male
15:00 – 15:30	Afternoon Tea
Stream	CySEA Workshop	ITCSREC	ACE
Room	Wadawurrung 1	Wadawurrung 2	Gunditjmara 1
Session Chair
15:30 – 16:00	View the full program here: https://www.cysea.org.au/acsw-workshop	15:30 – 15:50 A Comprehensive Blueprint for Australian Tertiary ICT Curriculum Indigenisation Syed Mahbub, Eric Pardede 15:50 – 16:10 A Hybrid Genetic Algorithm and Simulated Annealing Approach for Optimal University Course Timetabling Tian Qiu, Hannes Herrmann, Mahbuba Afrin 16:10 – 16:30 Leveraging Multimodal Generative AI to Enhance Engagement and Systematic Learning in ICT Education Mohammad Saiedur Rahaman, Ahsan Morshed, Paul Kwan 16:30 – 16:50 A Multimodal AI–IoT Framework for Monitoring Student Well-Being in Hybrid and Transnational Learning Environments Sanaz Zamani, Roopak Sinha, Minh Nguyen, Samaneh Madanian 16:50 – 17:10 A Federated Learning Framework for Predicting Student Success in Transnational Education Consortia Arijit Dutta, Sashikala Mishra, Kailash Shaw, Chinmaya Misra	Exploring Student Behaviors and Motivations when using AI Teaching Assistants with Optional Guardrails Amanpreet Kapoor, Paul Denny, Leo Porter, Stephen MacNeil, Marc Diaz
16:00 – 16:30			Evaluating CS1-LLM: Integrating LLMs and Examining Student Outcomes in an Introductory Computer Science Course Annapurna Vadaparty, David H Smith, Samvrit Srinath, Mounika Padala, Christine Alvarado, Jamie Gorson Benario, Leo Porter, Daniel Zingaro
16:30 – 17:00			Exploring Student-AI Interactions in Vibe Coding Francis Geng,Anshul Shah, Haolin Li, Nawab Mulla, Steve Swanson, Gerald Soosai Raj, Daniel Zingaro, Leo Porter

Wednesday 11 February 2026

08:30 – 17:00	Registration
Stream	Plenary		AusPDC	AISC
Room	Wadawurrung 1 & 2		Gunditjmara 1	Gunditjmara 2
Session Chair				Dr Muneeb UL Hassan
09:00 – 10:00	CORE Teaching Award Charanya Ramakrishnan, Macquarie University Coding with Care: Compassion as a Pedagogical Superpower When we think about programming, compassion is rarely the first word that comes to mind. However, in my experience, it has been the most powerful tool in my teaching practice. In this keynote, I share my journey of bringing care and empathy into introductory computing units, a space often defined by logic and precision rather than human connection. For many students, learning to code can feel intimidating and isolating. By embedding compassion into my pedagogy, I have worked to create classrooms where students feel supported, valued, and confident to take risks. This has meant rethinking assessments, prioritising safe judgment-free learning spaces, and using feedback to foster growth rather than fear of failure. I will share what worked, what did not, and the lessons I have learned along the way. I aim to show how small, intentional changes can make a big difference, not only in student success but in building a culture of trust and belonging in classrooms.		Industry Keynote Scaling the Energy Grid: Distributed Orchestration and Next-Generation Asset Management Mukaddim Pathan, GM – Enterprise Technology & Architecture at AGL	09:00 – 09:30 Official AISC Opening Dr. Jason Xue and Dr. Nasrin Sohrabi 09:30 – 09:50 AdaFed-HybridGAN: Adaptive Federated Aggregation with GAN-Driven Hybrid Model–Data Synthesis for Efficient Cyber Attack Detection in Edge Computing Zeseya Sharmin, Yong Xiang, Md Palash Uddin, Feifei Chen 09:50 – 10:10 Leveraging Transformers to Discover Software Vulnerabilities based on Source Code Slices. Abdur Rehman Khan, Yue Xu, Yuefeng Li 10:10 – 10:30 RV-Sec5: Enhancing RISC-V Security Evaluation via Targeted ISA-Level Instrumentation using gem5 Muhammad Awais, Maria Mushtaq, Lirida Naviner, Florent Bruguier, Jawad Haj Yahya
10:00 – 10:30	CORE Teaching Award Early Career Dr Jack Li, Deakin University
10:30 – 11:00	Morning Tea
Stream	ACE	AISC	AusPDC
Room	Wadawurrung 1	Wadawurrung 2	Gunditjmara 1
Session Chair		Prof. Joseph Liu
11:00 – 11:30	LLMs Unplugged: Teaching Resources for a ChatGPT World Ben Swift	11:00 – 12:00 Keynote Presentation Preparing for the Emerging Criminal Threats from Generative AI Professor Chris Leckie	11:00 – 11:45 A Hybrid Reactive-Proactive Auto-scaling Algorithm for SLA-Constrained Edge Computing Suhrid Gupta, Muhammed Tawfiqul Islam, Rajkumar Buyya 11:45 – 12:30 GAL-MAD: Towards Explainable Anomaly Detection in Microservice Applications Using Graph Attention Networks Lahiru Akmeemana, Chamodya Attanayake, Husni Faiz, Sandareka Wickramanayake
11:30 – 12:00	Bot or Prof: Comparing the Characteristics of AI-generated and Instructor-written Responses to Student Queries in an Introductory Programming Course Forum Tony Haoran Feng, Steffan Hooper, Paul Denny, Burkhard C Wünsche, Andrew Luxton-Reilly
12:00 – 12:30	How do Students Select an Algorithm Design Technique? Dip Kiran Pradhan Newar, Peter Fowles, Seth Poulsen
12:30 – 13:30	Lunch and ACE Poster Session
Stream	ACE	AISC	AusPDC
Room	Wadawurrung 1	Wadawurrung 2	Gunditjmara 1
Session Chair		A/Prof Amin Sakzad
13:30 – 14:00	Enabling Postgraduate Projects in Computing Education through Synthetic Research Data Generation Paul Denny, Kaitlin Riegel, Andrew Luxton-Reilly, Juho Leinonen, James Prather, Stephen MacNeil	13:30 – 14:30 Keynote Presentation Securing AI: From Agentic AI to Software, Models, and the Physical World Professor Yang Xiang	Tutorial Quantum Cloud and Software Systems: Fundamentals and Practice Dr. Hoa Nguyen, Research Scientist at CSIRO’s Data61
14:00 – 14:30	Unraveling Ambiguities: Analyzing Student Approaches to Solving Probeable Problems Viraj Kumar, Paul Denny, Juho Leinonen, James Prather, Stephen MacNeil
14:30 – 15:00	One Line at a Time: Scaffolding Reflective Code Evaluation through Structured AI Assistance Victor Qiu, Liam Parker, Kaitlin Riegel, Nasser Giacaman, Paul Denny, Stephen MacNeil, James Prather
15:00 – 15:30	Afternoon Tea
Stream	ACE	AISC	ADC
Room	Wadawurrung 1	Wadawurrung 2	Gunditjmara 1
Session Chair		Dr. Ahmad Salehi Shahraki
15:30 – 16:00	Teaching with Gen AI in Australasia – Birds of a Feather	15:30 – 15:50 Securing CAN Bus Transmissions with Lightweight AEAD Ciphers Joshua Copeland, Leonie Simpson, Geoff Walker 15:50 – 16:10 A Framework for Authentication of Internet Connected Critical Infrastructure David de Jong, Leonie Simpson, Mir Ali Rezazadeh Baee, Zahra Jadidi 16:10 – 16:30 How Linguistic Variation Shapes Hallucination Risk in Large Language Models: A Psychometric Perspective Moomal Farhad, Mohammad Masud, Ashika Abdul Rasheed, Namya Musthfa 16:30 – 16:50 VeriFed: Cryptographic Accountability for Privacy-Preserving and Robust Federated LLM Fine-Tuning Mir Tahmid Hossain, Mahsa Sanaei Nourani, Md Nawab Yousuf Ali 16:50 – 17:10 Adaptive Privacy-Security Orchestration Framework in Distributed Contextual Intelligence Systems for IoT Ravindi de Silva, Bang Dieu Mach, Valeh Moghaddam, Arkady Zaslavsky 17:10 – 17:30 Privacy-Preserving Authorization in Blockchain Systems Based on RSA Accumulators Juhar Abdella	S2Q: Teaching Language Models New Facts Through Knowledge Graph Instruction Synthesis Zixu Zhao (UNSW); Xin Cao (UNSW) LLM-Enhanced Processing of Complex Spatial Queries Ruiyi Hao (The University of Melbourne); Guanli Liu (The University of Melbourne); Renata Borovica-Gajic (The University of Melbourne) An Experimental Study of Graph Pattern Mining Systems Yi Ding (UNSW); Yijie Zhao (UNSW); Wantong Zhang (University of California, Berkeley); Zhengyi Yang (UNSW); Wenke Yang (UNSW); Dong Wen (UNSW); Xiaoyang Wang (UNSW) Advancing Spatial Keyword Queries: From Filters to Unified Vector Embeddings* Kaan Gocmen (The University of Melbourne); Guanli Liu (The University of Melbourne); Renata Borovica-Gajic (The University of Melbourne)
16:00 – 16:30
16:30 – 17:00

Thursday 12 February 2026

08:30 – 17:00	Registration
Stream	ACE	AusPDC	ALIS
Room	Wadawurrung 1	Wadawurrung 2	Gunditjmara 1
Session Chair
09:00 – 09:30	“It’s not cheating…yet”: A layered formative intervention approach to AI misuse Julien Ugon, Charlotte Pierce, Andrew Cain, Brianna Laird	Academic Keynote From Little Acorns: How to Make a Difference in the Development and Delivery of Production-Level Cloud Platforms Professor Richard Sinnott, Professor of Applied Computing Systems at the University of Melbourne	09:00 – 09:45 Keynote: On Formal Explainable AI Associate Professor Alexey Ignatiev, Monash University 09:45 – 10:30 Keynote: Beyond the Model: Architectures for Trustworthy Adaptive AI Systems Rahi Garnavi, Director, RAIsE Hub, RMIT
09:30 – 10:00	The Impact of Randomised Questions on Student Outcomes in Introductory Programming Assessment Henry Hickman, Tim Bell
10:00 – 10:30	One Credential, Many Journeys: Persona-Aligned Assessment for Postgraduate Microcredentials in Emerging Technologies Laura Tubino, Nayyar Zaidi
10:30 – 11:00	Morning Tea
Stream	ACE	AusPDC	AISC
Room	Wadawurrung 1	Wadawurrung 2	Gunditjmara 1
Session Chair			A/Prof Wei Luo
11:00 – 11:30	Ambiguity by Design: Practicing Requirement Clarification through Natural-Language Dialogue with LLMs Kay Tang, Hoanh Nguyen Hosea Tong-Ho, Kaitlin Riegel, Paul Denny, Nasser Giacaman, Juho Leinonen	An Empirical Evaluation of Kubernetes Resilience in Cloud–Edge Deployments Using Failure Injection Techniques Zihao Chen, Mohammad Goudarzi, Adel N. Toosi	11:00 – 12:00 Keynote Presentation Private Data Processing in the Quantum Age Dr. Muhammed Esgin
11:30 – 12:00	Further Study of Leveraging LLM Tutoring Systems for Non-Native English Speakers in Introductory Computer Science Sriharsha Kavuri, Danae Delgado-Diaz, Kristhian Ortiz, Alex Chao, Ismael Villegas Molina, Benjamin Ochoa, Leo Porter	LLM-Driven Intent-Based Privacy-Aware Orchestration Across the Cloud-Edge Continuum Zijie Su, Muhammed Tawfiqul Islam, Mohammad Goudarzi, Adel N. Toosi
12:00 – 12:30	Sense of Belonging, Trust and Anxiety in STEM in a regional Australian University Raina Mason, Carolyn Seton, Alexander Hendry	A Comparative Analysis of Deep Learning Models for Deployment on an Australian Bushfire Detection Satellite Richard Sinnott, Travis Davies
12:30 – 13:30	Lunch
Stream	ACE	AusPDC & AISC	ALIS
Room	Wadawurrung 1	Wadawurrung 2	Gunditjmara 1
Session Chair
13:30 – 14:00	Jumpy – Reinforce Learning about Reinforcement Learning from an AI’s Point of View Annika Vielsack, Martina Landman, Tobias Kohn	Industry Keynote Architecting Cloud for AI workloads Rakesh Singh, Enterprise Architect at Oracle Corporation	13:30 – 13:45 To Be or Not To Be: Respecting when Socially Interactive Agents Should or Should Not Conform to Expectations Deborah Richards, Filippo Cenacchi 13:45 – 14:00 ALIAS: An Open-Ended Adaptively Learnable Intelligent AI System for Efficient Domain Adaptation Nitin Vetcha, Sashikumaar Ganesan 14:00 – 14:15 Q3Vision: A Vision-Based Framework for Game-State Reconstruction in Quake III Arena Duc-Minh Pham, Jaehee Kim, Daniel Franklin, Mehran Abolhasan, Raymond Owen 14:15 – 14:30 Bridging AI and Clinical Reasoning: Abductive Explanations for Alignment on Critical Symptoms Belona Sonna, Alban Grastien 14:30 – 14:45 A Sensor-Based Framework for Early Hazard Detection of Lithium-Ion Battery Incidents in Smart Waste Collection Fleets Muhammad Islam, Valeh Moghaddam, Sutharshan Rajasegarar 14:45 – 15:00 Human Engagement-Based Smoother Topic Transition in Dynamic Conversations with Social Assistive Robots Rithvik Jayaprakash, Shengyuan Xie, Will Midgley, Francisco Cruz
14:00 – 14:30	Finding the Right Balance: Facilitating the Exploration of Sorting Strategies using 3D-Printable Weights and Scales Annika Vielsack, Martina Landman
14:30 – 15:00	Designing and Validating Multiple Assessment Options with Equivalent Difficulty for Introductory Programming Charlotte Pierce, Andrew Cain, Lashi Bandara, Nicolas Pallant
15:00 – 15:30	Afternoon Tea
Stream	ACE	AusPDC	AISC
Room	Wadawurrung 1	Wadawurrung 2	Gunditjmara 1
Session Chair			Fitrio Pakana & Dr. Nasrin Sohrabi
15:30 – 16:00	SIGCSE Australasian Chapter Annual Business Meeting All welcome.	Panel Session Agentic AI and Distributed Systems Panelists: Professor Richard Sinnott, The University of Melbourne Rakesh Singh, Oracle Xiao Liu, Deakin University	15:30 – 15:50 Securing LLM-as-a-Service for Small Businesses: An Industry Case Study of a Distributed Chatbot Deployment Platform Jiazhu Xie, Bowen Li, Heyu Fu, Chong Gao, Ziqi Xu, Fengling Han 15:50 – 16:10 Chargeback Fraud Detection on Anonymised Merchant Data: An Industry Case Study Brayden Killeen, Minh Trung Tran, Tony McGrath, Fitrio Pakana 16:10 – 16:30 Adaptive Detection of DeFi SLID Scams: A Data-Driven and Industry-Oriented Framework for Large-Scale DeFi Security Minh Trung Tran, Brayden Killeen, Tony McGrath 16:30 – 16:50 Smart Contracts as Semantic Signalling for AI Agents on Blockchains Fitrio Pakana 16:50 – 17:10 Operationalizing Security Best Practices for IEC 61850-Based SCADA: A Checklist and Lessons Learned from Lab Measurements Wei Zha, Yuxin Yang, Juhar Abdella
16:00 – 16:30
16:30 – 17:00

2026 Program

Program Updates

Program Time Zone

Tuesday 10 February 2026

Wednesday 11 February 2026

Thursday 12 February 2026

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