Courses: Call for Participation

Quick Facts

• Submissions Due: 16 July 2010
  
• Submission Format: 500 word advanced program description, 4 page detailed description of material, and sample Course material
• Notification on: 21 Sep 2010
  
• If your course is accepted: Course Notes Due: 14 Feb 2011. Course note submission instructions
• Final version of Course Description for Advance Program: 17 Dec 2010
• At the Conference: Accepted Courses will be taught in one to four 80-minute sessions during the conference
• Archives: Course descriptions will be printed in the Advance Program.
• New: CHI courses 2011 have 80 min sessions. Please take this into account when (re-)submitting a course.

Message from the CHI Courses Chairs

CHI 2011 will offer Courses with durations ranging from one to four 80-minute sessions. Courses should cover the wide variety of all our CHI communities. We encourage submissions of courses that focus on new and emerging areas, methods and technologies as well as courses describing the foundations of HCI. If you are interested in developing a course, but are unsure of its suitability for a CHI audience, we would gladly discuss possibilities with you.

What is a CHI Course?

Courses allow CHI attendees to extend their knowledge beyond their current community and their current areas of expertise. Participants will include members of all CHI communities, and may be designed for novices to a specific field or experts.

As an example, a Course could:

• Introduce researchers to emerging areas, new technologies and methods within HCI research
• Provide a substantial overview of state of the art research or technology areas
• Provide researchers, communities and/or students with insights on the foundations of HCI
• Create opportunities to learn new techniques for use in research or practice
• Educate CHI communities about other CHI communities
• Provide master level classes for experienced CHI attendees
• Provide advanced instruction in CHI-related tools

Duration

Courses will be offered in one to four 80-minute sessions. Courses will run in parallel with the technical program.

We strongly encourage instructors to submit a Course of one or two sessions. Full day Courses (four sessions) can be proposed but there is limited space in the program for full-day courses and few will be accepted. Instructors are encouraged to break a full-day course into two or more shorter courses. Instructors may explicitly link two or more interrelated course proposals that should be accepted or rejected together. The dependencies between these courses must be defined, including whether the courses must be held on the same day or in a particular order.

Instructor Compensation

Each Course will receive one complimentary registration or $550 (instructor's choice) for the first session of instruction. You receive an additional $550 honorarium for each subsequent session of instruction. If there are multiple Course instructors, you must decide who will get the complimentary registration and how the additional honoraria will be divided.

Preparing and Submitting your CHI Course Proposal

A Course proposal must be submitted as a single PDF file via the PCS submission system by 16 July 2010. The proposal must have the following, three distinct sections:

Part 1. Advance Program Description (500 words)

The Advance Program Description is your opportunity to market your Course to prospective attendees. Be concise yet provide enough information so that prospective attendees can make informed decisions about the Course(s) they want to attend. Please limit the description to 500 words.

Components of the description should include the following elements. For examples see CHI 2011 Advanced Program.

• Title of the Course (please make this short but descriptive)
• Names and affiliations of the instructors.
• Benefits: Summarize the skills and knowledge the attendees will gain as a result of attending this Course. This should include the reasons that CHI attendees would want to take your Course.
• (optional) Origins: Describe the history of this Course (for example, whether it was given as a tutorial at past CHI conferences or related venues).
• Features: A bullet list of the educational goals and/or major elements of the Course content.
• (optional) Audience: State the disciplines and/or organizational roles of attendees who would be interested in your Course.
• (optional) Prerequisites: Described any background required to understand the Course, including attendance at any other course in the program if that is a requirement.
  
• Presentation: List the various presentation forms used in the Course, for example, lecture, demonstration, exercises, videos, group discussions, and/or case studies.
• Instructor background: List the background for each instructor, including current employment and activities, previous professional activities, and relevant publications.
• (optional) Resources: Web site or other resources (e.g., books) that might be accessed to provide more information about the Course or instructor(s).

Part 2. Detailed Course description (up to 4 pages)

The Course description is the most important part of your proposal. The reviewers will evaluate the course based primarily on this description and the material sample in Part 3. Please be clear about your plans for the course and its justification. This part of the proposal must not exceed four pages. It should contain at least the following information:

• Duration of the Course (total number of sessions).
• Linkage to other courses, if any. A linkage should be defined if there is a dependency between the courses requiring that they be considered together. Linked courses will be accepted or rejected together. Include scheduling constraints, such as the order of the Courses and whether they can be scheduled on different days.
• Learning objectives
• Justification: Explain why this Course would be of interest to a CHI audience.
• Content: Describe in detail the material that will be covered.
• Background of attendees: Describe the assumed background and expected skills of attendees. Include who should not take the Course.
• Presentation format: Explain how the Course will be conducted.
• Schedule: Describe time allocations to the Course content.
• Audience size: What is the preferred audience size? The average number of registrations for Courses at CHI in recent years was 43 (stddev=18), with 10 of the 28 Courses having over 50 registrations. If the Course is very popular, would you consider teaching it more than once? We will contact instructors of Courses that have significant enrollments by the end of the second week of registration.
• Course history: If the proposed Course has been given previously, describe where it was given, the evaluation it received from attendees, and how it will be modified.
• Student Volunteers: Specify and justify student volunteer help for your Course.
• Audio/visual needs: CHI can generally provide a projector, screen, computer audio, and podium microphone. Budget constraints make it unlikely that additional equipment can be provided. CHI also provides a small budget for instructors to buy office supplies for their course. Please define all your requirements for audio visual aids and office supplies.

Part 3. Material sample

Provide a sample of the Course material you will present in this Course.

Evaluation Criteria

1. Factors such as relevance, suitability, timeliness, importance, audience appeal, attendance limits, presentation methods
2. Previous presentations and evaluations of the Course and number of times this course (or a similar course or tutorial) has been offered over the past years
3. Prior experience and qualifications of instructors
4. Proposals will also be considered for their fit within the overall CHI experience, considering such factors as relationship to the theme of this year's conference, overall distribution of topics, approaches, audience experience levels, and specialties of the intended audience
5. Courses that promote products (solely for marketing purposes) will not be considered. Courses may discuss techniques or products in the context of larger issues.

Upon Acceptance of your CHI Course

Instructors will be notified of acceptance or non-acceptance on or about 21 Sep 2010. Instructors will receive more information about the expected format of the Course notes and logistics (student volunteers, audio visual, evaluations, payments, etc.) after acceptance.

As a general guideline, Course notes are intended to provide the attendees with carry-away materials that will enable them to concentrate their attention on the presentation and participation, rather than on hastily taking handwritten notes. The notes should include materials such as:

• Introduction
  
• Copies of presentation material
  
• Annotated bibliography and/or recommended reading
• Copies of relevant background material or scholarly papers (for which the instructors have obtained any necessary reprint permission)
• Course exercises, as appropriate
• Instructors will be required to sign a release form giving CHI one-time-only permission to utilize the notes for Course participants and to sell notes at the conference.
• Course notes must be submitted by 14 Feb 2011. If the Course notes are not received on time, we cannot open the Course for registration and the Course will be cancelled.

Your CHI Course At the Conference

Your CHI Course will be allotted one or more 80-minute sessions for presentation. We will coordinate A/V requirements with accepted Instructors and Instructors should see Presenting at CHI 2011 for information about standard computing and A/V equipment that will be provided by the conference.

Your CHI Course After the Conference

The Course description in the final CHI 2011 program is the only official archive of courses. Course notes and additional descriptive material will not be available in the Proceedings or the ACM Digital Library.