Student Research Competition

Quick Facts / Dates

• Submission deadline: 13 January 2016 (12:00pm PT)
• Notification: 29 January 2016
• Camera ready deadline: 5 February 2016

Submission Information

• Authorship limit: Submissions can only have one author (the student).
• Online submission: PCS Submission System
• Submission format: Camera-ready, non-anonymized 6-page paper in Extended Abstracts Format, poster, and proof of student status
• For this venue, references DO count towards page length.
• At the Conference: Each student will give a poster presentation. Based on the juried poster session, a group of students will advance to the next round and be invited to give a short talk. Please see the Information for Poster Presenters for poster requirements.
• Archives: Extended abstract in ACM Digital Library

Highlights about the Student Research Competition

• This year we plan to have posters included in the ACM Digital Library along with the extended abstract, and we will be asking our reviewers to pay particular attention to the quality of the poster, including appropriate level of detail and quality of graphic design.
• We once again strongly encourage participation from undergraduate students – you are judged in a separate category from graduate students, so please submit your work!

Message from the Student Research Competition Chairs

The Student Research Competition (SRC) is a forum for undergraduate and graduate students to showcase their research, exchange ideas, and improve their communication skills while competing for prizes at CHI 2016. Sponsored by Microsoft Research, the CHI SRC competition is a branch of the ACM Student Research Competition which hosts similar competitions at other ACM conferences.

The Student Research Competition has the following goals:

• to give undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to share their research ideas and results at CHI in a special forum that provides visibility for their work
• to give students the opportunity to meet with and interact with CHI attendees to share ideas, gain new insights, and understand possible practical applications
• to give students an opportunity to sharpen their communication skills
• to provide detailed feedback to students about their research and presentation, from a panel of distinguished judges from industry and academia
• to recognize and reward outstanding student research

Participants must be students pursuing an academic degree at the time of initial submission. The contest has two categories, one for undergraduate research and the other for graduate research. Three winners will be selected in each category. Research completed while the student was an undergraduate may be submitted to the undergraduate category even if the student is now a first-year graduate student.

Each competition entry must be authored by one student only – neither supervisors or other students are allowed as co-authors.

For work accepted to the CHI 2016 Student Research Competition, a travel grant of up to US $500 will be awarded to help cover travel expenses to the conference. While the student must be an ACM member to qualify for travel funding and awards, she/he does not need to be one to submit to the competition.

The top three winners at CHI 2016 in each category (undergraduate and graduate) will receive prizes of US $500, US $300, and US $200, respectively. All winners will receive a medal and two-year complimentary ACM membership with a subscription to ACM’s Digital Library. Winners will be recognized during the closing plenary session of the CHI 2016 conference. The first-place winners will also go on to compete in the ACM grand finals with winners from other ACM conferences.

Jerry Alan Fails, Computer Science, Montclair State University, USA
Tilde Bekker, Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands

CHI2016 Student Research Competition Co-Chairs
studentresearch@chi2016.acm.org

Preparing your Student Research Competition Submission

A submission to the Student Research Competition should describe recently completed or ongoing student research in any of the topic areas covered by CHI. Even if the research was completed under the supervision of a supervisor, the submission must be authored by the graduate student alone (no co-authors – even other graduate students – are allowed). For undergraduate students, a group of undergraduate students who worked together on a project can submit the research with all their names on it, but all students must be undergraduates and the faculty advisor cannot be listed as an author. Submissions should be original work that is neither in submission elsewhere nor already published in CHI or another conference or journal.

Papers should describe:

• The research problem and motivation for the work
• Background and related work
• Research approach
• Novelty of the research
• Results and contributions to the field of HCI

To submit:

• Submit to the Student Research Competition category via the conference submission system
• The work (extended abstract and poster) should be submitted as PDF files no larger than 4 megabytes. Your poster design should be reduced to one standard letter page in size and submitted in PDF format.
• You must submit proof of student status by sending a note signed by your academic supervisor verifying all of the following information:
  • your university
  • whether you were a graduate or undergraduate when the work was done
  • proof confirming that you are currently registered in an academic program full-time: Participants must be students pursuing an academic degree at the time of initial submission.

Selection Process for Student Research Competition

The Student Research Competition is a juried track for CHI 2016. Juried content is reviewed by a jury of experts that will evaluate the work based on its overall quality, originality, and relevance to the CHI community. While not considered archival, Student Research Competition extended abstracts will be archived in the ACM Digital Library. Publishing in the Student Research Competition will not constrain future submissions. Your abstract and poster are not considered to be a prior publication of the work for the purposes of a future CHI Paper or CHI Note or for a journal publication.

Submissions will be evaluated based on:

• Quality of work
• Novelty of approach
• Significance of the contribution to the field of HCI
• Clarity of written presentation
• Visual presentation (poster)

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, with the exception of title and author information which will be published on the website prior to the conference. Submissions should not contain sensitive, private, or proprietary information that cannot be disclosed at publication time.

Up to twenty-five students in total will be chosen to participate in the competition at CHI 2016.

Submissions not accepted for the Student Research Competition may be invited to be part of the Works-in-Progress track.

Upon Acceptance of your Student Research Competition

Authors of all accepted submissions will receive instructions on how to submit the publication-ready copy of their Extended Abstract. Publication-ready submissions are due on 5 February 2016.

A travel grant covering expenses for travel to CHI, including conference registration, transportation, lodging, and meals, up to a limit of US $500 will be provided to each student whose submission was accepted to the Student Research Competition. Students must be members of ACM to qualify for these awards.

At the Conference

The first round of the competition evaluates the research during a poster presentation at CHI. The presentation will be evaluated on two dimensions, given equal weight: (1) the presentation of the research, including visual aspects of the poster and the student’s verbal discussion, and (2) the research, specifically its quality, novelty, and significance of the contribution.

Based on the results from the poster session, the judges will select students to advance to the second round. During the second round, students will have the opportunity to give a short presentation of their research (10 minutes) followed by a question and answer period (5 minutes), which will be evaluated by a panel of judges. Winners will be announced during the closing plenary.

Student Research posters will be on display for the entire conference.

Specific guidelines for preparing posters

• Each poster will have a display space approximately 48 inches wide x 48 inches high. Each board holds two posters on each side, so your poster may not be any larger than these dimensions.
• Audiovisual and computing equipment will not be supplied. Power outlets will not be available. The participants may include QR codes in the poster to link to supplementary material online (such as scenario videos or interactive prototypes).
• Please note that posters must be secured with pushpins (which will be provided). If you prefer, you may also bring velcro.

The poster must include

• Title, name, co-author names, school affiliation
• The perspective taken to address the research
• A concise description of the research
• Clear illustrations of key aspects of your research
• Compelling, effective visual design

Logistics for Student Research posters are as follows:

• The posters will be displayed the whole time, but usually authors are expected to be by their posters for one or two specified break periods so people can ask them questions
• Poster setup Monday, May 9 from 13:00 – 16:00
• Open for Monday evening reception (18:00 – 19:30), and Tuesday coffee breaks (10:50 – 11:30 and 15:50 – 16:30), as well as Tuesday lunch.

• Open for Wednesday coffee breaks (10:50 – 11:30 and 15:50 – 16:30), Wednesday lunch, Thursday morning coffee break (10:50 – 11:30) and Thursday lunch.
• Posters must be removed by Thursday, May 12 by 13:30

Competition Judges

TBA

After the Conference

The first-place winners from each category will advance to the ACM Grand Finals of the Student Research Competition where the winners of several ACM conferences compete for more prizes and recognition.

Accepted Student Research Competition Papers will be distributed in the CHI Conference Extended Abstracts, available on USB. They will also be placed in the ACM Digital Library, where they will remain accessible to thousands of researchers and practitioners worldwide.