Call for Participation

Papers and Notes

There are changes this year, please read the entire call for Papers and Notes for details.

Deadlines

• April 18, 2008: Submissions due
• June 10-17, 2008: Author response
• July 3, 2008: Notification of acceptance
• August 19, 2008: Camera ready versions of accepted papers and copyright release forms due

Submissions and Reviewing: http://precisionconference.com/~sigchi/

(See also Guide to Successful Submissions)

Papers and Notes should present original, unpublished research on how technology mediates the activities of collections of people. Both Papers and Notes will be presented at the CSCW conference and will be included in the conference Proceedings and as archival works in the ACM Digital Library. Papers and Notes should present research contributions to knowledge in the field of CSCW. In accordance with ACM policy, CSCW does not accept submissions that have been published previously in refereed or formally reviewed publications or currently under consideration for such publication.

This year, Papers (10 pgs.) and Notes (4 pgs.) will be reviewed together by the same committee of reviewers and go through the same review process. This change will provide more uniform quality between Papers and Notes and enable authors to submit to the venue which better fits the scope and contribution of their work. Guidelines for deciding whether a Paper and Note is the most appropriate for your submission are described below.

Regarding topic areas, collaborative activities broadly include, but are not limited to, activities at work, in the home, in education, in medicine, in the arts, and for entertainment. CSCW is an international and interdisciplinary conference that has a special focus on how technology intersects with social practices. Potential areas of interest for stimulating new ways of thinking about, studying or supporting shared activities include:

• empirical investigations - findings, guidelines, ethnographic descriptions, etc. from studies of current practice or use of existing technology with clear relevance to the design and deployment of collaborative systems.
• novel designs & prototypes - descriptions of the design, architecture, usage experience, evaluation, etc. of new collaborative systems.
• theories & models - critical analysis or organizing theory with clear relevance to the design or study of collaborative systems.
• methodologies & tools - new methods and tools applied to studying or building collaborative systems.
• system design - architectures, interaction design, technical foundations, etc. that enable building new collaborative systems.
• current trends - critical analyses of current trends in Web 2.0, virtual worlds, social networking, online gaming, etc. that inform the design, deployment, or study of collaborative systems.
• crossing boundaries - studies, prototypes, or other investigations that explore interactions across disciplines, cultures, generations, etc. to help better understand how to collaborate across social boundaries.

All Papers and Notes should make the case, for how the work relates to previous research or experience, what aspects of the work are new, and the major contributions it makes. They will be evaluated on the basis of originality, significance of the contribution to the field, quality of research, quality of writing, and contribution to conference program diversity. The different length of Papers (10 pages, 20-minute talk) and Notes (4 pages, 10-minute talk) allows authors to choose an appropriate submission based on the amount of contribution or scope of the work. Submissions will be evaluated according to the venue (Paper or Note) selected by the author - there will be no mechanism for re-considering a submitted Paper as a shorter Note. We recommend that submitters consider carefully whether their work in its current state is more appropriate for a Paper or a Note. See our guide on What's a Note? for some examples to help decide the appropriate venue for your submission.

CSCW 2008 will continue the 'Best of CSCW' awards program which will run in accordance with SIGCHI guidelines. After first review, papers of a suitable standard will be nominated for secondary review in order to award 'Most Honorable Mention' and 'Best' status to outstanding submissions. Approximately 5% of submissions may be nominated for best Paper or Note and 1% of total submissions are awarded "Best of CSCW" status.

See the Submission Instructions for more details. Papers must include an abstract of no more than 100 words. Authors who are submitting papers are also encouraged to consider submitting videos that illustrate their work, either as a short video figure (judged as part of your submission) or as a stand alone longer video (that you should submit as an independent video submission). The video figure must be no more than two minutes in length and 30MB in size. Good quality video figures will appear in the Video Proceedings. Please refer to the Call for Videos for details on Full Videos and how to produce videos of acceptable quality.

Note that this is a blind review process: the submitted copy should have all authors' names and affiliations blanked out, and should avoid any obvious identifying features. While authors should leave citations to their own relevant work unanonymized, they should reference it in a way that doesn't readily identify them as the authors. For example use "Prior work by [ref]" instead of "In our prior work."

CSCW 2008 Papers and Notes submissions must be received by Friday, April 18, 2008, 5:00pm (17:00) Pacific Time. Submissions received after this date will not be considered. Submissions must be uploaded online at the ACM SIGCHI conference site: http://precisionconference.com/~sigchi/

There will be an author response process from June 10-17 where the primary contact author will have access to the reviews of the submission and can respond with clarifications and reactions to the reviews before the final decision is made. Submitters should plan to be able to access the PCS system during that time and budget time to formulate a response. We expect to communicate final decisions by July 3rd.

Confidentiality of submissions is maintained during the review process. All submitted materials for rejected work will be kept confidential in perpetuity. All submitted materials for accepted Papers and Notes will be kept confidential until the date of the conference with the exception of the paper's title, authors and abstract which will be used as part of the advanced program description. Submissions should contain no information or materials that will be proprietary or confidential at the time of publication, and should cite no publications that will be proprietary or confidential at the time of publication.

Final versions of accepted Papers and Notes and copyright release forms must be formatted according to the detailed instructions.