- Submission: 3 Oct 2007 (5:00pm PDT)
- Notification: 3 Dec 2007
- Camera Ready: 11 Jan 2008
- Submission Format:Unanonymized up to 4 page extended abstract and up to 8 page proposal, both in Extended Abstracts format.
- At the Conference: Accepted panels will be presented in a 90 minute session at the conference.
- Archives: Extended abstracts; DVD and ACM Digital Library.
In the spirit of the CHI 2008 theme “art.science.balance”, we encourage submission of proposals for Panels that aim to strike a balance between various creative tensions found in our work and within our community. Panels serve as interactive sessions (as the venue was named in CHI 2007) that allow focused conversation between a set of experts and the audience. For this reason, the format of Panels is intentionally vague in order to provide organizers with maximal flexibility to create the optimal environment for these conversations to occur.
Whether you have a topic that would be informative to discuss or an interesting controversial one, we look forward to receiving your submissions and seeing you at CHI 2008.
Desney S. Tan, Microsoft Research
Contact us: chi2008-tp@acm.org
Panels are 90-minute sessions that involve significant interaction with audience members. A Panel can come in many forms, but often these sessions include an invited group of experts who may debate or critique concepts or artifacts, enact some aspect of their expertise, or reflect on and compare their diverse experiences. Panels should also include involvement from the audience, often through questions and answers, voting or critique of the experts' presentations, and so on.
Potential examples of Panels include:
- Debate among two or more experts who hold radically different views on how to design or evaluate an HCI system, what makes for effective use, who the stakeholders in an HCI project should be, etc.
- A "goldfish bowl", where experts begin by debating a set of central questions or propositions, but where participants are replaced in a rotating fashion by audience members who volunteer to participate in the debate.
- A real-time demonstration and/or critique of HCI expertise (e.g., in design, analysis, etc.)
- A skit, improvisation or contest where competing or complementary ideas are thrown out for reaction and discussion.
- Experts' responses to a set of questions or issues in round-robin style, where each expert is charged to respond as if they were speaking for one of their (competing) peers.
- A roast of notable CHI conference sessions, presentations, ideas, people, etc. over the years
The Panel proposal must be submitted as a single PDF file via the PCS submission system by 3 Oct 2007 (5:00PM PDT). Final submission PDFs must be no larger than 4 megabytes large. Panels can be submitted to and will be reviewed by any of the six communities: Design, Education, Engineering, Management, Research, and Usability.
The proposal must have the following two distinct sections, each written with the Extended Abstract format:
Part 1. The Extended Abstract
The primary submission material consists of a 4-page extended abstract in the
Extended Abstracts format.
The extended abstract should include the title; the names and affiliations of the organizer(s), as well as each proposed invited participant. For the extended abstract, include only the invited participants who have been confirmed (others can be described in the session proposal, see below). Within the 4-page constraint you should summarize the lessons or experiences you hope to convey in the session. This should include the topic(s) to be covered, as well as contrasting or controversial perspectives on the topic(s). Your extended abstract must stand alone; readers must be able to get something out of the abstract even if they do not attend the interactive session.
Part 2. The Session Proposal
Along with your extended abstract, you must develop a session proposal of up to eight pages. This proposal will not appear in the Extended Abstracts but rather will be used by the reviewers to judge the suitability of your concept as an interactive session. Thus it should address a number of issues, including:
- the main topic(s) to be presented, debated, discussed, enacted, etc.
- who will participate, how they have been (or will be) recruited, why these people, what qualifications they bring, etc. In this proposal document, you may include participants who you hope to recruit but have not yet confirmed participation.
- the session format - how you will run it, the invited participants' role, your role, the audience role
- logistics we need to consider to host the session (e.g., special seating or A/V, audience size limitations, use of student volunteers, expectations about attendee background or interests, etc.)
- any other considerations that will help reviewers appreciate your concept.
Regardless of the topic, all session proposals should include a plan for engaging audience members in the interaction.
The reviews of Panels are organized by the appropriate Community Co-Chairs, using a committee selected by them. Each submission will be reviewed by at least 3 reviewers. There is no mechanism for author response in the review of Panels and decisions are final. Organizers will be provided with the reviews of their submission after the decision is announced.
Review Criteria
Panels present ideas that are novel, controversial, or engaging for other reasons to the audience, inspiring the audience to respond and further elaborate the ideas. The review criteria will consider the extent to which the session proposes:
- one or more topics likely to evoke a lively response from the CHI attendees
- invited participants who will contribute unique perspectives, content, or other interactive content to the session
- a well-organized and feasible session plan
- a clear mechanism for audience engagement and interaction
- useful and interesting contributions to HCI
Confidentiality of submissions is maintained during the review process. All rejected submissions will be kept confidential in perpetuity. All submitted materials for accepted submissions will be kept confidential until the start of the conference.
Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection on 3 Dec 2007, or shortly after. Contact authors of accepted Panels will receive instructions on how to prepare and submit the camera ready version of their Panels. These will be due on 11 Jan 2008.
Panels will take place during the main conference in parallel with other sessions. Session organizers are strongly advised to meet with their invited participants prior to their session to ensure a coordinated effort. If any special logistics are involved (e.g., seating, student volunteers, special A/V) organizers should also check in with Scooter Morris, Technology Liaison chi2008-technology@acm.org.
Accepted Panel abstracts will be distributed in the CHI Conference Extended Abstracts DVD. They will also be placed in the ACM Digital Library, where they will remain accessible to thousands of researchers and practitioners worldwide. Some of these Panels may also be recorded at the conference and distributed by the ACM.
