Call for Doctoral Consortium Participation

PhD students working in the areas of user-centered approaches to the design and evaluation of systems for information access, retrieval, and use, are invited to submit their proposals for participation in a Doctoral Consortium. We welcome submissions representing a broad spectrum of research topics relevant to the CHIIR community, including research on information (seeking and searching) behaviour (IB), human computer interaction (HCI), and information retrieval (IR).

The CHIIR Doctoral Consortium, held in conjunction with the main conference, provides an opportunity for PhD students to present and discuss their research with senior researchers and other doctoral students in a seminar format. The Doctoral Consortium focuses on 1) advising students regarding current critical issues in their research, and 2) making students aware of the strengths and weaknesses of their research as viewed from different perspectives.

The Doctoral Consortium is targeted to students halfway in their PhD program. At minimum, students ought to have formulated their research problem, theoretical framework and suggested methods, and at maximum, to have submitted some of the early PhD work for publication.

Mentors

  • Nicholas Belkin, Rutgers University
  • Gerd Berget, Oslo Metropolitan University
  • Katriina Byström, Oslo Metropolitan University
  • Robert Capra, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Morgan Harvey, University of Sheffield
  • Heather O'Brien, University of British Columbia
  • Vivien Petras, Humboldt University
  • Ian Ruthven, University of Strathclyde
  • Chirag Shah, University of Washington
  • Luanne Sinnamon, University of British Columbia
  • Pertti Vakkari, Tampere University

Proposal Format & Submission

The Doctoral Consortium proposal (maximum 4 pages including references) should include: Title of research proposal, Name of student, Stage of degree (e.g., 2nd year PhD), Affiliation, Name of supervisor(s); Abstract; Introduction and motivation; Research problem and questions; Research methodology and techniques (planned or ongoing); Progress made; and Future plans. The proposal should provide an overall idea of the thesis work and, in particular, clear discussions on:

  • The research problem and questions being addressed
  • The relation of the work to the state of the art in HCI, IB and IR
  • The research methods being applied
  • The results/solution being expected and their validity

The proposals should be discussed with the students’ respective supervisors before submission.

Proposals should be submitted to EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=chiir2021.

Submitted proposals will be reviewed by the Doctoral Consortium program committee. The review of each proposal will take into account its originality, its potential for advancing the CHIIR-related research, and whether the work is at a stage where the student can benefit from participating in the consortium, in addition to general clarity in writing and structure. Rejected submissions will receive written feedback. While the submissions are not anonymous, confidentiality of submissions will be maintained throughout the review process.

Participation

Participation requires an accepted proposal and presentation at the Doctoral Consortium. PhD students will be notified of the result of their submission by 10 December 2020. Accepted students will receive instructions on how to submit a camera-ready copy of their proposal to be included in the conference proceedings, as well as information on the preparation of the presentation.

Important Dates

  • November 8, 2020 - DC paper submission
  • December 10, 2020 - Notification of acceptance
  • March 14, 2021 - DC runs (online)

Deadlines refer to 23:59 (11:59pm) in the AoE (Anywhere on Earth) time zone.

Format and submission

Please use the ACM Proceedings format with Word and LaTeX templates here: https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template.

Submissions for the doctoral consortium will be single-blind reviewed, and should not be anonymized.

Submissions: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=chiir2021.

Doctoral Consortium Chairs

  • Katriina Byström, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway (katriina.bystrom@oslomet.no)
  • Gerd Berget, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway (gerd.berget@oslomet.no)

Please contact the chairs if you have any questions.