The types of professionals who have traditionally presented at ICE conferences include:

• Administrative and organizational leaders of certification programs;
• Psychometricians and other credentialing professionals focused on assessment methodology;
• Credentialing researchers and faculty;
• Individuals who have worked with credentialing consultants to develop or enhance credentialing programs; and
• Credentialing consultants
  *If you are an employee of a company that provides products or consulting services to credentialing organizations, you must co-present with at least one representative from a credentialing body. Proposals that do not indicate at least one credentialing body representative as a co-presenter will not be considered.

Speaker Limitations

• To promote diverse sessions, speakers are not permitted to speak at more than two concurrent sessions per conference.
• Each session must feature at least one speaker from a credentialing body.
• After the original proposal is accepted, speaker substitutions or additions must be requested in writing and approved by the ICE Program Committee. The committee reserves the right to help identify an appropriate speaker/co-presenter or reject a previously accepted session based on speaker changes.

Session Limitations

• Promotion of specific product solutions or services is not permitted in concurrent sessions. Inclusion of such material may result in your session being excluded in conference recording packages and may preclude the organizers from being allowed to submit proposals for future ICE conferences. Please be careful that your case study does not accidentally turn into a product solution showcase.

Cancellation Policy

Once a session has been accepted and printed in promotional materials, it imposes a serious burden to ICE to cancel. Please do not submit a proposal if you are uncertain that you will be able to fulfill your obligation to organize and conduct the session. Once a session is accepted by the Program Committee, cancellation by the session organizers may preclude the organizers from being allowed to submit proposals for future ICE conferences.

The 2014 ICE Exchange is the conference for the credentialing community. The conference was re-branded in 2013 as the ICE Exchange in order to highlight the aspects that the attendees reported as the most important: exchanging ideas on industry trends and best practices through making connections with each other and taking part in high quality education.

The educational program is intended to be diverse, educating on the many aspects of a credentialing ecosystem: business of certification, security records and data management, testing development and administration, etc. The educational program should include sessions suitable for a wide range of experience levels and blend foundational concepts such as best practices and standards with new concepts and innovative approaches to credentialing.

The ICE Exchange aims to create a variety of learning experiences which appeal to different preferred styles of learning. We are considering introducing a mix of session lengths (60 or 90 minutes) as well as encouraging unique learning formats; last year, we launched the Learning Lounge which is a high-energy venue featuring five different learning environments and connection points.

An outstanding attendee experience is the primary goal of the conference. With your commitment, the ICE Exchange 2014 will deliver!

The Program Committee welcomes submissions on any topic of interest to the credentialing industry. The below list represents examples of well-received or relevant topics presented in random order. 

Governance

• organizational strategy and leadership
• moving your Board from tactical discussions to strategic discussions
• best practices for promoting cohesion
• strategies for optimal board member engagement
• enhancing the role of the public member
• new governance models
• strategic planning and long term visioning
• when to sunset or expand or specialize a certification.

Legal Issues

• what's new in case law?
• accommodations
• due process
• trademark and copyright steps
• separate legal incorporation (why and why not)
• intellectual property protection
• non-profit vs. profit models.

Recertification and Continuing Education Methodologies

• future models for building continuing competence programs
• technological impacts on recertification process/tracking

Testing Methodologies and Exam Development Best Practices

• performance-based testing (why do it, reliability issues in scoring, training and calibration of raters)
• remote or online proctoring (new considerations for test administration and security)
• job analysis; using job analysis data to identify exam design
• alternate methods for setting a cut score
• alternate methods for determining and validating knowledge, skills, or competencies
• creating right-sized relationships with your outsourced testing companies
• creating efficient RFPs for outsourced services.

Marketing and Communication

• promoting the value of your credentials
• soliciting feedback from the public and other stakeholders (besides including them on your board)
• innovative strategy in social media
• developing your value proposition
• innovative ways to capture and use current data for strategic planning/marketing
• defining and responding to competitive programs
• impact of MOOCS on your certification
• understanding what employers and the public need to know about your certification.

Working with Lawmakers (local, state, and federal)

• identifying key messaging and statistics that capture attention

Psychometric Principles

Accreditation

• why and why not
• how to leverage accreditation in your value proposition

Assessment-based certificate programs

• certificate vs. certification
• strategic use of certificate programs
• best practices for certificate development.

Research

• what can your program research teach others?
• using data visualization strategies to communicate your data to your stakeholders
• what can demographic trends and generational characteristics say about future certificants?

Trends

• what are employment trends teaching us about the future of credentialing?
• how is workplace training competing with certifications?
• update on the efforts to integrate military credentials into workforce
• is micro-credentialing a friend or foe to the certification field?

International

• when to consider going international
• anticipating the challenges an international expansion may bring
• how a certification’s value proposition may change internationally

In addition to current good or best practices, the Program Committee encourages submissions on trends that you believe will have a profound effect on the industry in the future. 

According to the 2013 ICE Exchange Conference Survey, 80% of attendees are of a manager level or higher. However, a portion of this population may be volunteer board members who are looking to learn the fundamentals of governing and operating a certification or certificate program. ICE's program committee strives to create an overall educational program that incorporates diverse topic areas and is suitable for beginning, intermediate, and C-level audiences.

All proposals MUST be submitted through the online proposal system by 5:00 pm ET on April 1, 2014 and MUST include all required fields. Late or incomplete proposals will not be reviewed by the ICE Program Committee.

The online proposal application must be submitted in one, timed sitting. To ease your process, please gather your resources before beginning the application. You may consider typing all required information in a separate document before copying and pasting the following information into the online system:

Session Title Session Description* (As it will appear in conference promotion: 75 word limit) Session Learning Objectives (Minimum of 3)  Teaching Formats, Methods, Strategies

Identified Session Submitter** Presenter & Co-presenters confirmed Presenter & Co-presenters' bios

* If accepted, the session description will be printed in conference promotional pieces, including the registration brochure, on-site conference guide, website, and mobile app. Without exception, all session descriptions are limited to 75 words. The session description should be written with particular attention to attracting attendees and submitted in the correct format on the proposal submission form. Other speakers and their topics can be mentioned in the description, but there is no space for a detailed agenda. ICE reserves the right to edit session descriptions as needed to fit in the allotted 75-word limit in the marketing materials.

**All sessions must have an identified session submitter who serves as the main point of contact for ICE Staff and as the liaison to the other session presenters. This person must be readily available by email and phone in the months leading up to the meeting and is expected to be present at the session. Please ensure that any co-presenters listed in your session proposal are committed to speaking at the session.

Selection Process

The ICE Program committee appreciates the time and energy that all submitters put into the development of their session proposals. Committee members individually read and rate each proposal based on factors such as relevance, validity, originality, and more.

There are always more positively rated proposals than there are slots available, so the committee then meets to discuss their individual evaluations and rank the proposals - factoring in past performance as appropriate. With the intent of creating a rich, diverse overall program in mind, those with the highest rankings are accepted.  

Selection Timeline

ICE staff will notify the session submitter of acceptance by early June 2014. It is the responsibility of the session submitter to communicate the decision to all additional, necessary parties.

The flat speaker fee is $695, which is discounted to equal that of the Member, Early-Bird  full conference registration price.

Acceptance of your proposal does not obligate ICE beyond assuring you meeting space and recognition in conference promotional materials. We stress that presenting at the ICE Exchange is done so on a volunteer basis and no ICE funds are available for honoraria or travel expenses for concurrent session speakers.

If you would like to bring handouts for your session, we cannot reimburse for printing; however, we will gladly post them prior to the conference for attendees to print and bring themselves. We can post handouts in a conference attendee-only section of our website and on the mobile app. Advanced deadlines apply.