Student Research Competition Call for Participation

Quick Facts

Submission deadline: January 4, 2010
Notification: date TBA
Camera Ready: date TBA
Submission Format: Camera-ready non-anonymized 6 page extended abstract in Extended Abstracts format, plus proof of student status
At the Conference: Poster and possibly a short talk. Please see the Information for the Poster Presenters.
Archives: Extended abstracts; DVD and ACM Digital Library

Message from the Student Research Competition Chairs

The Student Research Competition (SRC) is a forum for undergraduates and graduate students to share their research results, exchange ideas, and improve their communication skills while competing for prizes at CHI 2010. Sponsored by Microsoft Research, the CHI SRC competition is a branch of the ACM Student Researc Competition which hosts similar competitions at other ACM conferences. For work accepted to the CHI 2010 Student Research Competition, a travel grant of up to US $500 will be awarded to help cover travel expenses to the conference for one student per submission. Students must be members of ACM to qualify for travel funding and awards.

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, including visual, organizational, oral, and aural modalities
to provide detailed feedback to students about their research and presentation, from a panel of distinguished judges from industry and academia

The Student Research Competition is meant to be an opportunity for junior students to develop their skills as researchers and to give them an opportunity to showcase their work. As such, papers must be authored by students alone - no co-authorship with supervisors is allowed. NEW for this year's competition: A paper may have multiple student authors, but only one travel grant will be provided to support student travel for each submission that is accepted. The top three winners at CHI 2010 in each category (undergraduate and graduate) will receive prizes of US $500, US $300, and US $200, respectively. As with the travel grant, only one student will receive a cash prize per award level. However, all winners (including co-authors in the case of group submissions) will receive an award certificate 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 2010 conference. These winners will also go on to compete in the ACM grand finals with winners from other ACM conferences.

Michael Terry, University of Waterloo

Joanna McGrenere, University of British Columbia

Contact email: studentresearch@chi2010.org

What is a Student Research Competition Submission?

A submission to the Student Research Competition should describe recently completed or ongoing student research (possibly under the supervision of a supervisor), in any of the topic areas covered by CHI. Submissions should be original work that is neither in submission nor already published in CHI or another conference or journal. Student Research Competition submissions will be simultaneously considered for the Work in Progress track, and students not accepted to participate in the Student Research Competition will be considered for the Work in Progress track.

The Student Research Competition is a juried track for CHI 2010. 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, content from most juried venues will be represented 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.

Participants must be undergraduates or graduate 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.

Note that for co-authored submissions, if one or more of the authors was a graduate student at the time the research was conducted, the submission will be deemed to be in the graduate category.

Preparing and Submitting your Student Research Competition Paper

Students should submit a camera-ready non-anonymized short paper (6 pages maximum) written in the Extended Abstracts format. The student competing in the research competition must be the primary contributor of the work and must be the first author on the paper. Supervisors may not be co-authors of the paper, though other students can be listed as co-authors.

Papers should describe:

The research problem and motivation for the work
Background and related work
Approach and novelty of the research
Results and contributions to the field of HCI

To submit:

Submit to the Work-In-Progress category of CHI 2010 via the conference submission system
On the Work-in-Progress submission page, check the check-box indicating that the work should be considered for the Student Research Competition
The work should be submitted as a PDF no larger than 4 megabytes
If you wish to be simultaneously considered for the Work-In-Progress track, a poster preview must also be submitted
You must submit proof of student status by sending a note signed by your academic supervisor verifying all of the following information:

your university
your ACM member number
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

For submissions that are co-authored, the above proof of student status must be provided for all co-authors
All materials must be received by the submission deadline

Student Research Competition Review Process

Submissions will be reviewed by a panel of experts, and evaluated based on:

Quality of work
Novelty of approach
Significance of the contribution to the field of HCI
Clarity of written presentation

Up to twenty-five students (15 undergraduate and 10 graduate) will be chosen to participate in the competition at CHI 2010. 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.

Upon Acceptance of Your Student Research Competition Abstract

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 for one student for each submission 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 oral discussion, and (2) the research, specifically its quality, novelty, and significance of the contribution.

The poster must fit on a panel 36" wide by 48" tall, printed portrait style. Please see the Information for the Poster Presenters.

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.

Competition Judges

TBA

After the Conference

The winners from each category will advance to 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 DVD. They will also be placed in the ACM Digital Library, where they will remain accessible to thousands of researchers and practitioners worldwide.

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