Workshops Call for Participation

Call For Workshop Proposals

Ubicomp & ISWC

UbiComp and ISWC 2017 invite proposals for the workshop program of the 2017 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing, and the International Symposium on Wearable Computers. Workshops provide a forum for attendees with common interests and are a great opportunity for community building. They can be one or two days in length, and vary in size and format depending on their objectives. All workshops will be held on Monday, September 11, and Tuesday, September 12, 2017 before the main conference.

We are soliciting workshop proposals on any topic of relevance to Ubiquitous Computing and/or Wearable Computing. There are many ways in which workshops can enrich a conference, and we are aiming to accommodate diverse opportunities for the community to engage. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • Workshops that provide a forum to share advances in an area of special interest to the community. Such workshops would typically solicit original research contributions and involve a peer-review process for submitted papers, but would be open to wider attendance. All accepted workshop papers can be included in the ACM digital library and the supplemental proceedings.
  • Workshops that aim to gather a group of researchers for a focused activity, such as hands-on prototyping, or joint development of a cross-disciplinary research agenda. Such workshops typically involve a selection process for attendance, but not necessarily a solicitation of material for publication.

We encourage the organizers to consider a juried or lightweight review process. Workshops are not intended to be mini-conferences and we would like the organizers to come up with proposals that can include and engage members from the community. To that end, having a large PC for workshop papers is probably not needed, but encouraging the senior people and experts to attend the workshop is strongly recommended. Likewise, the organizers can have paper presentations in their workshops, but we would also like to see proposals that encourage other activities such as having substantial discussion times to engage workshop participants. We also encourage organizers to run an open workshop—that is, conference participants can sign up for the workshop and attend without submitting a workshop (position) paper. This allows workshops to draw more people from the community who are interested in the subject matter.

Pre-proposal Submission Inquiries

Should you wish to discuss ideas for a workshop proposal prior to the submission deadline, feel free to contact the Chairs of the Workshops Program at workshops-2017@ubicomp.org.

Workshop Proposal Content

The proposal should be prepared as a document of no more than 4 pages in SIGCHI extended abstract format, and must in addition include a CfP (Call for Papers, or Call for Participation as text). It must describe the topic, rationale and objectives for the workshop, the organizers' backgrounds, an estimate of expected attendance (and whether participation will be limited), and a detailed plan for conducting the workshop (including any plans for pre-workshop preparation and/or post-workshop follow up). Some guiding questions:

  • What is the objective of the workshop and how is it achieved?
  • Why is it topic timely and why is it relevant?
  • Why should this workshop be a part of Ubicomp / ISWC 2017?
  • How will it make an impact for the community?
  • What types of submissions are you looking for and how will the accepted papers be selected?
  • What activities are planned during the workshop?
  • What is the planned schedule and proposed duration (i.e., 1-day or 2-day workshop).
  • Do you want to opt out of running an open workshop? If so, please justify why you choose to run a closed workshop (i.e., only the accepted participants can attend it).

Upon acceptance, the workshop description is expected to be revised and adapted for inclusion in the supplemental proceedings.

All workshops have the option to solicit contributions for inclusion in the ACM Digital Library and supplemental proceedings of the conference. Workshop organizers must clearly describe in their proposal whether they wish to have workshop contributions published in this way. Organizers can specify page numbers for papers they solicit, but all workshop papers must be in the SIGCHI Extended Abstract format (Word | LaTeX).

Workshop Selection Process

Workshops will be reviewed by a jury of experts who will evaluate the work based on how compelling they expect it to be to UbiComp and ISWC attendees. The jury will consider several factors during the selection process, including:

  • The potential for the topic of the workshop to generate stimulating discussions and useful results.
  • The expected interest level in the topic in the community.
  • The relevance and timeliness of the topic suggested.
  • The organizers' ability to demonstrate in the proposal a well-organized process and plan for the workshop.
  • The feasibility of the planned activities and schedule.
  • The overall balance of topics in the Workshops program. If multiple submissions are received on the same or similar topics, the organizers may be encouraged to merge them.

Submitting Your Proposal

Please submit your proposal via PCS linked on the conference web page. For further questions please email to the workshop chairs at workshops-2017@ubicomp.org. The deadline for submission is Friday, April 7, 2017. The submission should be a single PDF file in the extended abstract format that includes the proposal (max. 4 pages) and an appended CFP. Please download and use the required templates to prepare the proposal.

Submissions can be made at http://precisionconference.com/~ubicomp/