By organizing a Special Interest Group (SIG), you can attract a group of conference attendees who share your interest in a topic and meet for 90 minutes of facilitated discussion. Organizing a SIG is a great way to get involved in the CHI conference program - several SIGs have evolved into successful workshops at subsequent conferences.

Formal SIGs

To hold a formal SIG, you must prepare a proposal as described below and have it accepted by the review committee. Accepted SIGs are scheduled in advance of the conference, appear in the CHI 2003 program, and receive limited A/V support. Accepted proposals are published in the CHI proceedings.

Informal SIGs

Informal SIGs may be organized at the conference on a space-available basis. Unlike formal SIGs, there is no submission process, no publication in the CHI program, and no A/V provided. There will be a sign-up sheet at the conference to reserve a room and time. (We do not know whether it will be possible to sign up for a room in advance of the conference - for more information, contact co-chair Carolyn Snyder at chi2003-sigs@acm.org.)

Proposals for formal SIGs must be authored by two or more individuals who represent at least two organizations. There is no upper limit, though submissions by more than four people are unusual. SIG proposals will be reviewed by a minimum of three reviewers in addition to the co-chairs. Acceptance is based on the relevance of the topic to HCI and the 2003 conference theme, and the plan for attendee interaction and participation. SIG topics may be of an academic or practitioner nature (or both).

SIG acceptance and success depends on planning and leadership. The SIG co-chairs are happy to help you - feel free to contact Carolyn and Rolf before submitting a proposal to discuss your ideas and questions by e-mailing them at chi2003-sigs@acm.org. If you would like a Word document with CHI formatting to use as a starting point, e-mail the co-chairs and tell them what version of Word you're using. The co-chairs can also assist you if you need help to prepare a PDF version.

Prepare a 1-2 page proposal describing the content of the SIG, its relevance to the HCI community, and how the SIG discussion will be organized, including a draft schedule indicating how the 90 minutes will be used. At the end of your proposal, list any references or related submissions that you have made to CHI 2003. Accepted proposals will be published in the extended abstracts, so think of your proposal as a way to attract CHI attendees who are interested in your topic. For guidance in preparing a high-quality proposal, we suggest that you read the following:

• The complete list of the SIGs that were accepted for CHI 2002.
• Sample CHI 2002 proposal: How Can Usability Be Certified? A Practical Test of Your Skills and sample reviews of this proposal.
• Sample CHI 2002 proposal: User Involvement in the Web Development Process.

E-mail your proposal as a PDF file to chi2003-sigs@acm.org. You will receive e-mail confirmation of your submission within 24 hours of its receipt by the co-chairs. Submissions for formal SIGs must be e-mailed by 3 January 2003 at 5pm (sender’s time). Submissions received after the deadline cannot be accepted. We recommend submitting before the deadline so that any obvious problems that would result in automatic rejection (such as only one organizer) can be discovered in time for you to fix them.

Notification Date

You will be notified of the acceptance or rejection of your submission by 3 February 2003, along with feedback from the reviewers. If your SIG is not accepted, you are still allowed to organize an informal SIG at the conference as described above.

Before the Conference - Promoting Your SIG

Accepted SIGs will be announced in the conference schedule, and their proposals will also be published in the CHI conference program as a means of attracting participants. To further promote the SIG program, the SIG co-chairs will prepare an e-mail that contains a summary of all accepted SIGs and their scheduled times. We will post this summary to CHI-related discussion lists such as CHI-announcements. Individual SIG organizers are encouraged to publicize their session on other lists - contact Carolyn and Rolf for suggestions.

The only audiovisual support provided for SIGs is an overhead projector. Each SIG will be scheduled for a 90 minute session. We recommend that you ask someone to take notes during your session so you’ll have a record of the discussion. You may wish to collect e-mail addresses of attendees so you can notify them when the summary is available, but this is at your discretion. SIGs will be evaluated by participants, who will be given an opportunity to fill out a review form. SIG organizers will receive a summary of their evaluations.

SIG organizers are strongly encouraged to write an article or summary of their SIG after the conference and to submit it to a CHI-related publication/site such as the SIGCHI Bulletin, interactions magazine, or CHIplace. For an example of a SIG summary, see http://www.ecommerceusability.com/html_signotes.htm. Several SIGs have led to proposals for successful workshops at subsequent CHI conferences.

• Proposals must be authored by two or more individuals that represent at least two organizations.
• Your submission should contain no proprietary or confidential material and should cite no proprietary or confidential publications. Responsibility for permissions to use video, audio, or pictures of identifiable people rests with you, not CHI 2003.
• Your proposal must be in English, and submitted as a 1-2 page PDF file.
• Submissions arriving after the January 3 deadline will not be considered.