Bullring

Call for Participation

You are invited to participate in HCI 2012, which will be held in the UK's second city, Birmingham.

Please download our poster (PDF format).

Open calls:

Some History

HCI 2012 is the 26th Annual Conference of the Specialist HCI group of the BCS, the BCS Interaction SG. Since its establishment in 1985, the conference has become the leading annual HCI conference in Europe. As well as being a leading venue for dissemination, the conference has a history of nurturing research careers - many of the leading HCI researchers published their early papers here and it is recognised for helping students and new academics as much as being a leading forum for established researchers. We want to carry on this well-established tradition into 2012.

Conference Theme

This year we have returned to the founding theme of the conference: "People and Computers". This is to encapsulate and highlight the growing diversity of our field of HCI in one event. Technology is now common in all walks of life and HCI practitioners and researchers have more areas of impact than ever before. We want the conference to reflect this growing importance and diversity.

Papers will be published in the BCS e-WIC repository and in the ACM Digital Library.

The Venue

The City of Birmingham has undergone a transformation over the past few decades. It now boasts more canals than Venice, a plethora of canalside restaurants, bars and cafes, a range of cuisine from around the world, coupled with a compact city vibe. Birmingham is easily accessible by road, rail (Birmingham New Street, Birmingham Snow Hill) and air (Birmingham International Airport). It is also well located for extending your stay, whether you plan a city break to explore the centre, or a short trip into the countryside to Stratford-upon-Avon, Wales, the Peak District, or the rolling Chilterns and Oxfordshire.

The main conference will be held at the IET at Austin Court, a purpose-built facility in the centre of town within walking distance of major hotels, restaurants, bars and nightlife of the city.

Socially, the conference will build on its reputation for the liveliest, friendliest place to meet other HCI researchers. The conference dinner will be held at the Botanical Gardens, complete with outdoor spaces, tropical hothouses, exotic birds and beautiful parkland.

Submission Tracks

The conference will have usual tracks of high-quality research papers, written as either Full or Short papers. Full papers should be a maximum of 10 pages in length. These submissions should be of original work and should not have been previously published. Short papers should be a maximum of 6 pages and should be compact short pieces of original work. There is also a "work-in-progress" category. We strongly encourage participants to reflect the spirit of the track by submitting early-stage, surprising or incomplete results that may be of relevance and interest to the community. The submission dates for the tracks are below.

Following on from last year we have also included an alt-HCI track. This track is for work that highlights a more extreme, unusual and less mainstream side of HCI. The more alternative the work is, the better. We are looking for high quality contributions that might be highly contentious, using atypical methodologies, critical of established ideas or focused in an unconventional domain. If your work is alternative, controversial and interesting, then alt-HCI is the track for you.

The conference will also host a variety of workshops and a doctorial consortium. These will be held on the leafy campus of the University of Birmingham, in Edgbaston. A redbrick University and member of the Russell group, it offers a pleasant green environment.

Submissions

We encourage submissions that focus on human interaction with technology and computer systems. Whether your work is at the fundamental end of the spectrum (theory, design, or principle), or at the practical end (evaluation, product, or impact) we are interested in encouraging high-quality submissions to the conference.

The dates for submission for each paper track are:

Relevant topics areas include, but are by no means limited to, the following:

All tracks will be peer reviewed by an international panel of leading researchers.

In keeping with the BCS HCI ethos, early career researchers are especially encouraged to submit to the main conference, whilst those still undertaking PhDs should consider applying for the doctoral consortium, a training and supportively critical forum in which to discuss your research.

To recognise outstanding contributions to this years conference and to nurture the HCI researchers of tomorrow we will have best paper and best student paper awards, which will be judged by the reviewers and announced at the conference dinner.

Please see our submissions page for full details.

HCI 2012 News and Views:

We want to hear what are saying about HCI 2012. This year we have made twitter a major part of our website through the HCI 2012 Twitter Chatter banner. All tweets will be displayed on this site's homepage so people can see the community's views, opinions and comments about HCI 2012.

The conference twitter feed is also the way to keep one step ahead with news about HCI 2012, just follow @hci2012. To share your tweets use the hashtag #hci2012uk.

We are looking forward to welcoming you to Birmingham!

Paper Track Details

Full papers (10 pages) DEADLINE PASSED

We invite submission of full research papers for publication in the conference proceedings. Papers may address any area of HCI. Submissions should report original work and must not have been published previously. All full research paper submissions will be peer-reviewed by an international panel of experts. The review process will retain the anonymity of authors and reviewers.

Short Papers (6 pages)

We invite submissions for short papers that address any area of HCI. Authors are encouraged to submit late-breaking research results that show timely and innovative ideas. Short paper submissions should report original work and must not have been published previously or be a condensed version of previously published papers.

Work in Progress Papers (6 pages)

A Work-in-Progress is a concise report of ongoing work relevant to HCI. The difference between Works-in-Progress and other submissions is that the work submitted to the Work-in-Progress track represents work that is "hot off the press" or perhaps not quite completed. A significant benefit of a Work-in-Progress submission is the discussion between the presenter and conference attendees that will be fostered by the face-to-face presentation of the work. This submission category aims to attract participation from a broad range of disciplines covering a spectrum of topics and methodologies. Work in Progress will be submitted, reviewed, and published as a short paper.

 

Call for Workshops

BCS HCI 2012 will host satellite workshops on emerging areas of human-computer interaction. Workshops will take place on the 10th and 11th September 2012.

We welcome proposals for workshops on new and challenging HCI topics. In particular, workshop proposals with innovative content and presentation formats, and with high quality keynote talks on emerging HCI areas are highly encouraged. Duration of workshops can be either half a day or a full day.

Workshop proposals should include:

Workshop proposals should not exceed 4 A4 pages and will be selected based on their quality and the relevance of their topic to the main conference.

Important dates:

Submission deadline for workshop proposals:   April 16th, 2012
Notification of acceptance: April 30th, 2012
First call for papers published by: May 14th, 2012
Workshop papers due: June 15th, 2012
Workshop camera-ready papers due: Aug 6th, 2012
BCS HCI 2012 Workshops: September 10th and 11th, 2012

The conference organisers will make arrangements for the facilities, coffee breaks and registration for all workshops. Workshop organisers will be responsible for distributing the call for papers, organising the papers' review and selection process, and preparing the final workshop program.

Please send workshop proposals and questions to the BCS HCI 2012 workshop chairs:

 

Doctoral Consortium

The HCI 2012 Doctoral Consortium provides an opportunity for Doctoral students to explore and develop their research interests in an interdisciplinary workshop, under the guidance of a panel of senior researchers in the field. The aims of the Doctoral Consortium are to:

The Consortium is designed for students currently registered for a PhD in HCI or a related field, and is open to students at any stage of their PhD studies.

The Consortium will engage a small group of students in a series of challenging activities based around their HCI related doctoral studies. Applications are open to students who are currently registered on an HCI-relevant doctoral programme, but preference will be given to those who are at least 6 months away from their intended submission date.

Important dates:

Submission deadline:Friday 15th June, 2012
Notification of acceptance:Friday 27th July, 2012

Submission Format

A four-page (maximum) document following the format and structure outlined in the BCS template. Please see the submissions page for full details of the submissions process.

At the Conference

Accepted submissions will be presented at the Doctoral Consortium, which is a venue open only to participants. There will also be an opportunity for students attending the Doctoral Consortium to present their work to other students attending the main conference.

The Doctoral Consortium will be held on Tuesday 11th September 2012.

DC Chairs: Dr Steve Love, Brunel University & Dr Leon Watts, University of Bath.