Case Studies: Call for Participation

Quick Facts

• Submission Deadline: 8 October 2010 (5:00pm PDT) using the PCS submission system
  • see PCS Submission FAQ for new procedures.
• Notification: 26 November 2010
• Camera-Ready Deadline: 21 January 2010
• Submission Format: Case Studies can be submitted as either Long Case Studies (16 pages maximum) or Short Case Studies (4 pages) in Extended Abstracts format. Supplementary materials that authors deem appropriate may also be submitted.
• At the Conference: Accepted Case Studies will be presented at the conference.
• Archives: Extended Abstracts; DVD and ACM Digital Library.

Message from the Case Studies Chair

Case Studies provide an excellent venue for presenting results that represent the synergistic combination of practice and research, addressing particular phenomena in real-world contexts. A Case Study could involve an in-depth, possibly longitudinal, study of a specific event or a particular problem encountered and solved. We expect the author(s) to have gained a better understanding of why the event happened as it did or why the problem occurred, and also to reflect on issues arising from the experience that should be investigated more fully and extensively. Case Studies may be submitted to one or more of the communities and are judged according to criteria appropriate to each community together with the essence of a Case Study. Of particular importance are the lessons learned from the activity reported for the audience in practice and research. We look forward to receiving your submissions and seeing you at CHI 2010.

Case Studies Chair: Manfred Tscheligi, University of Salzburg & CURE
casestudies@chi2011.org

What is a Case Study

Case Studies are examples of HCI practice based on real-world experiences that will be instructive and of interest to other members of the community.

Potential types of Case Studies include, but are not limited to the following:

• Illustrative Case Studies describing interesting problems in a specific domain, especially domains with which the audience may not otherwise be familiar
• Exploratory Case Studies constituting pilot studies preceding and informing larger-scale investigations
• Critical Instance Case Studies that explore particular cases of interest with little concern for generalization
• Cumulative Case Studies summarizing work that may have been completed at different times but that does form a coherent whole
• Narrative Case Studies describing the development of unfolding trends within a domain
• Method Case Studies describing the application of a specific method or tool and the lessons learned around it
• Design Case Studies describing the design of a specific interface instance and the rationale and experience around it

Case Study topics overlap with papers and CHI notes, but different criteria apply to the review process. A Case Study reports a specific instance or event and reflects on how the techniques used, or the lessons learned, may be generalized. Case studies focus on the success of the approach in a particular context, showing the idiosyncrasies of that context, and leaving it to the listener to determine the degree to which the approach could be applicable to his or her environment. Of course, a compelling case study is potentially relevant to a wide range of contexts and situations, but the author is not necessarily expected to establish the applicability outside the original situation.

Preparing and Submitting your Case Study

Authors should submit the following:

Part 1: Extended Abstract

The primary submission material consists of an extended abstract in the Extended Abstracts format. Case Studies can either be submitted as Long Case Studies (maximum of 16 pages) or Short Cases Studies (4 pages). Long Case Studies allow for richly detailed descriptions. However, authors should strive to be concise, and use fewer pages if possible; reviewers may take the page count into consideration when assessing the value of the contribution.

The extended abstract should describe the experience, focusing on the lessons you want readers to take away from the presentation. Your extended abstract must stand alone. Readers must be able to understand the Case Study with only this material.

Part 2: Supplementary Material

You may augment the extended abstract with additional material. The submission of any supporting material should take into account the demands of the reviewing process and neither be excessive in length nor require close scrutiny. Typical supporting materials comprise documents (pictures, etc.) or interactive media (e.g., Adobe Flash prototypes) that have been produced for other purposes, but which may help the reviewing committee to understand why this work is of interest to the CHI community. Our intent is to make submission of Case Studies lightweight by allowing practitioners to adapt material created during the activity, without the need to rewrite it completely for publication.

Authors who submit supplementary materials should also include a list of the auxiliary documents in their submission. This should explain the nature and purpose of each item submitted.

Authors will submit and resubmit their materials to the online PCS submission system as often as they please before the submission deadline of 8 October 2010 at 5pm PDT. If a case study is relevant to one or more of the four communities (User Experience, Design, Engineering, or Management), include that information with the submission. Case studies will be judged by criteria specific to the appropriate primary community. However, authors can specify multiple secondary communities, who will also review the Case Study.

Files must be combined into a single zipped document and submitted by the submission deadline.

Case Studies Review Process and Criteria

Case Studies are reviewed by the appropriate Community Co-Chairs, using a panel selected by them and a panel selected by the Case Study Chair. Authors will be provided with the reviews of their submission after the decision is announced.

Case Studies offer narratives of the challenges of an activity, the processes/techniques used, and the results achieved (good or bad), including the impact on all stakeholders, such as the user community, the sponsoring organization, and technology providers. Accepted submissions will be chosen on the merit and contribution of the report, not only on the quality of the outcome that it describes. This means that a valuable lesson learned from a poor outcome is just as acceptable as a valuable lesson learned from a good result.

Specifically, the review criteria will be the extent to which the case study report meets the following:

• is of interest to a broad segment of the targeted community or communities
• advances the state of the practice
• is described in a way that others can replicate the activity in their own environment
• makes a convincing argument that the experience is applicable beyond the specific example described
• clearly outlines the limitations of the report as well as of the activity described

Confidentiality of submissions is maintained during the review process. All rejected submissions will be kept confidential in perpetuity. The supporting material will be kept confidential, though the committee expects that much of it will be communicated in the presentation. The extended abstract should contain no sensitive, private, or proprietary information that cannot be disclosed at publication time.

Upon Acceptance of Your Case Study

Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection on 26 November 2010, or shortly thereafter. Authors of accepted submissions will receive instructions on how to prepare and submit the camera-ready version. These will be due on 21 January 2010.

Your Case Study at the Conference

Participants will present their report in a scheduled session. The committee will assign reports to talk slots depending on the length of the submission. Please see Standard Technical Support for information about the kind of technical and A/V support that will be provided by the conference.

Your Case Study after the Conference

Accepted Case Studies will be distributed in the CHI Extended Abstracts. They will be placed in the ACM Digital Library, where they will remain accessible to thousands of researchers and practitioners worldwide. Selected supporting material may also be archived on the Conference DVD and the ACM Digital Library.

Best Case Study Award

The SIGCHI “Best of CHI” awards honor exceptional submissions to SIGCHI sponsored conferences. The CHI Case Study committees nominate some of their submissions as Award Nominees. A separate Case Study Awards Committee then chooses one Best Case Study Award and a few Honorable Case Study Mentions.