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Special Interest Groups (SIG) Meetings:
Call for Participation

A schedule of all due dates can be found on the Submissions page.

SIG Meetings Quick Facts

  • Submission deadline: 9 Jan 2012 using the PCS Submission System
  • Notification: 10 Feb 2012
  • Camera-ready deadline: 17 Feb 2012
  • Submission format: Camera-ready, four-page maximum non-anonymized document in Extended Abstract Format, suitable for publication, as well as supplementary material describing the SIG.
  • Selection process: Juried
  • At the conference: Accepted SIGs will have a scheduled session at the conference.
  • Archives: Extended abstracts will appear on the Conference Proceedings DVD and in the ACM Digital Library.

Message from the Special Interest Groups Chairs

Special Interest Groups (SIGs) provide an opportunity to attract a group of conference attendees who share a common interest and engage them in face-to-face discussions. Organizing a SIG is a great way to start or extend your involvement in the CHI conference program — several SIGs have evolved into other successful contribution types at subsequent conferences. In addition to interesting and innovative SIG topics, we also encourage interesting and innovative approaches to organizing and conducting the SIG itself. Feel free to contact us before submitting a proposal to discuss your ideas and questions.

Daphne Raban, University of Haifa
Kaisa Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila, Tampere University of Technology

sigs@chi2012.acm.org

What are Special Interest Groups?

Special Interest Groups (SIGs) enable conference attendees sharing a common interest to meet informally for 80 minutes of facilitated discussion during a scheduled session at the conference. SIGs offer excellent opportunities for dialog and deliberation on a specific topic. The conference provides each SIG with meeting space and advertises SIG meetings to the rest of the conference in the Extended Abstracts and Conference Program.

Preparing and Submitting Special Interest Groups Proposals

Submissions for SIGs must be received by 9 Jan 2012. Make submissions via the PCS Submission System. You will need to submit a single PDF file, no larger than 4 megabytes large, consisting of:

  • a four-page description of the SIG, suitable for publication in the Extended Abstract Format and
  • supplementary material including: (a) a brief description of the community (or communities) to which this SIG would be of interest and why it is of interest; (b) assumed attendee background; (c) the approach you will use for organizing and presenting the SIG; (d) an informal schedule of discussion topics; and (e) which organizer should serve as the primary contact.

While not strictly required, we prefer that proposals be authored by a minimum of two individuals representing at least two different organizations. We also encourage prospective submitters to examine examples of accepted SIG abstracts from recent CHI conferences, available for download from the ACM Digital Library.

Special Interest Groups Review Process

Submissions will be reviewed independently by reviewers, with final acceptance decisions made by the SIGs chairs. We will notify authors of acceptance decisions by mid February.

At the Conference

Accepted SIGs will have a scheduled session at the conference. After your SIG is accepted, we will notify you what technical support will be available — the SIG rooms may not have A/V support provided, but you can provide your own projector if desired. Rooms will be set up to facilitate discussion.

After the Conference

After the conference, organizers are encouraged to continue their SIG by organizing a workshop at a future conference or creating and maintaining a website. Accepted SIG abstracts will be distributed in the CHI Conference Extended Abstracts, available at the conference on DVD and in the ACM Digital Library, where they will remain accessible to thousands of researchers and practitioners worldwide.