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Organizing a Workshop: CHI 2009 Call for Participation

Quick Facts

  • Submission Start: 18 June 2008 using PCS submission system
  • Submission End: 18 July 2008
  • Notification: 12 September 2008
  • Camera Ready extended abstract: 12 January 2008
  • Submission Format: Three page proposal and four page extended abstract both in Extended Abstracts format, 250 word call for participation, cover sheet with contact information
  • At the Conference: One- or two-day session (April 4-5, 2009) with 15-20 participants
  • Archives: Extended abstracts; DVD and ACM Digital Library
  • List of Accepted Workshops

Message from the Workshops Chair

Workshops are a chance for members of a community with common interests to meet in the context of a focused and interactive discussion. If you are working in an emerging area in HCI, please consider organizing a workshop. They are an opportunity to move a new field forward and build community. CHI workshops might address basic research, applied research, HCI practice, new methodologies, emerging application areas, design innovations, management and organizational issues, or HCI education. Each workshop should generate ideas that will give the HCI community a new, organized way of thinking about the topic or that suggest promising directions for future research. Some workshops have resulted in edited books or special issues of journals; you may consider including this goal in the design of your workshop. Others have created communities that spawned new, more specialized conferences.

Robert J.K. Jacob, Tufts University
Contact: workshops@chi2009.org

What is a CHI Workshop?

Workshops will be held on Saturday and Sunday April 4 and 5, 2009. A workshop may be one or two days in length. Workshops are scheduled for six working hours per day, with a mid-morning break, a lunch break, and a mid-afternoon break. Workshops typically have 15 to 20 participants. Focused interaction among participants is important, so participants must have informed positions based on prior experience. And workshops should ideally foster discussion and exchange; they should not be miniature paper presentation sessions.

There are two groups of people involved in a workshop: the organizers and the participants. Workshop organizers submit a workshop proposal to CHI using the PCS submission system. The proposals are reviewed and either accepted or rejected. If a workshop is accepted, the workshop will be publicized by both CHI and the workshop organizers.

Workshop participants attend the workshop. If a person is interested in being a workshop participant, they must submit a position paper to the organizers of that workshop. Position papers are reviewed by the workshop organizers using their own criteria, and the organizers decide on the final list of participants. Workshops are only open to people who have had their position paper accepted by the workshop organizers. Participants must register for both the workshop and the CHI conference itself.

Preparing and Submitting a Workshop Proposal

The workshop proposal must be submitted as a single PDF file via the PCS submission system by July 18, 2008.

The proposal must have the following, four distinct sections:

  1. A proposal
  2. An extended abstract
  3. A call for participation
  4. A cover sheet

These documents should all be in the CHI Extended Abstract format and submitted in one combined file, in PDF format, no larger than 4 megabytes. See below for Submitting a Workshop Proposal.

Part 1. Cover Sheet

Each submission should have a cover sheet giving contact information for the primary workshop organizer. This person will serve as the main point of contact with the Workshops Chair.

Part 2. Proposal

The proposal is for the Workshops review committee. It should not exceed 3 pages. The proposal must describe the topic, a detailed plan for conducting the workshop (before, during, and after), and the organizers' backgrounds.

Part 3. Extended Abstract

Prepare a description of the workshop using a maximum of four pages, suitable for publication in the CHI 2009 Extended Abstracts. It should contain a summary of the workshop goals and issues. It must be prepared in the Conference Extended Abstracts Format. Note that this is the only document from the workshop that will be published at CHI.

Part 4. Call for Participation

Prepare a 250-word Call for Participation suitable for posting on the CHI 2009 web site. It should describe the format and goals of the workshop, the participant selection criteria, requirements for position papers (e.g., page length, topics to address), where these papers should be submitted, and the fact that at least one author of each accepted papers needs to register for the workshop and for one or more days of the conference itself. Workshop fees for participants in 2009 are estimated to be ??? for a one-day workshop and ??? for a two-day workshop.

Organizers are encouraged to develop an external web page with additional information about the workshop for potential participants. For an example, see http://www.cs.tufts.edu/~jacob/workshop/.

CHI Workshop Review Process

Review criteria include the workshop's potential for generating stimulating discussions and useful results; the expected community interest level in the topic; the organizers' ability to demonstrate in the proposal a well-organized process and plan for the workshop that fosters interactivity; and the overall balance of topics in the Workshops program. If multiple submissions are received on the same or similar topics, the organizers may be encouraged to merge them.

Upon Acceptance of your CHI Workshop

Organizers will be notified of acceptance or rejection by August 29, 2008. Organizers of accepted workshops will receive instructions on how to submit the final, publication-ready Extended Abstract, which is due on December 5, 2008.

Workshop Registration Fees

The workshop registration fee will be waived for two workshop organizers. All other participants will need to pay the workshop participation fee. Workshop fees for participants in 2009 are estimated to be ??? for a one-day workshop and ??? for a two-day workshop. In addition to the workshop fees, workshop attendees are required to register for at least one day of the CHI conference.

Organizer Responsibilities: Before the Conference

Organizers are expected to:

  • Publicize their workshop: organizers of an accepted workshop are encouraged set up and maintain their own web page in which they provide further and updated information about their workshop. The local page of the workshop will be linked from the official CHI workshop site.
  • Solicit position papers from potential participants: A position paper is generally 2-4 pages long and outlines the submitter's view on the workshop theme and the reasons for the submitter's interest in the topic. The deadline for submitting a position paper will be specified in the local web page of each workshop and should be around October 24. The list of local workshop pages will appear at: WorkshopParticipants.html.
  • Select participants on the basis of position papers submitted to them: Notify the participants of acceptance or rejection by November 28, 2008.
  • Send the list of confirmed participants to the Workshops Chair
  • Distribute position papers and other pre-workshop materials to participants in advance of the workshop
  • Develop a final agenda of workshop activities

Workshop Organizer Responsibilities at the Conference

At the workshop, the organizer is responsible for facilitating discussion, maintaining productive interaction, and encouraging participation. The emphasis should be on group discussion, rather than on presentation of individual position papers. Diversity of perspectives should be encouraged.

Organizers will be expected to produce a poster summarizing the results of the workshop for display at the CHI conference.

Workshop Organizer Responsibilities After the Conference

It is expected that workshop results will be communicated to a larger audience. In addition to the poster the organizers will produce for the conference, each workshop may be asked to produce a report for publication in the SIGCHI Bulletin or a similar venue. We encourage additional avenues of communication, such as organizing an informal Special Interest Group (SIG) at the conference, preparing an edited book or special issues of journals following the conference, or maintaining a web site to network with others who might be interested.

FAQ and Late-Breaking Information

Please see the following page for the workshops FAQ and any late breaking information:
http://taramatthews.org/workshop-faq.html