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Panels

Quick Facts

 

Important Dates:

 

Submission Details:

  • Submissions are not anonymous and should include all author names, affiliations, and contact information.

 

Selection Process: Curated

 

Chairs: Dan Russell, Leila Takayama (panels@chi2021.acm.org)

 

After the conference: Extended Abstracts will be published in the ACM Digital Library.

 

Message from the Panels Chairs

 

Panels are an interactive, discussion oriented forum in which audience members are participants in the discussion. Panelists are strongly encouraged to propose topics likely to be of broad interest in the CHI community and interactive sessions that will engage both the panelists and the audience in creative ways. Panels should not be a series of short talks, akin to a papers session.

 

Panels differ from Papers in that panels do not need to contain original research. They differ from other venues like Demonstrations in that they do not need to present a system or service. Panels are distinctive in their focus on: 1) discussing topics of interest to the CHI community; 2) focusing on audience interaction with the panelists.

 

Hot Topics

A key feature of Panels is the importance of the issue in our community. The following list is a few examples that we have considered may be exciting for CHI 2021, but look forward to receiving proposals based on your ideas, too.

  • Designing Futures
  • Implicit Data Streams
  • Conversational Agents
  • Human-Robot Interaction
  • Augmented Human Intelligence
  • Careers in HCI / UX

 

Panel Format

 

Panels are held in their own 75-minute session at the conference.

 

In previous conferences, highly successful panels had the following characteristics:

  • The presence of a strong moderator who was able to facilitate, help people express their opinions as well as limit off-topic discussions.
  • Frame the discussion as a debate with a clear question.
  • Pick speakers with naturally opposing viewpoints, positions and backgrounds.
  • Ensure that speakers are prepped and debriefed for the session.
  • Have clear strategies for involvement of the audience in discussions

 

Effective panels have been designed in many forms and formats. For example, a panels session may include a group of experts who debate a topic or theme, enact some aspect of their expertise, or reflect on and compare their diverse experiences. Panels must include involvement from the audience, through questions and answers, voting or critique of the experts’ presentations, and discussion, using web-based or mobile technologies, use of the physical room, or other mechanisms, and your proposal should clearly explain how you would involve the audience. Panels can take the form of a traditional panel of discussants with a moderator, a fireside chat in which an individual gets interviewed by a moderator, a roundtable in which the moderator(s) pose the questions to the audience for discussion, a town hall session, or another proposed format. While we encourage discussions that provide multiple perspectives and controversy, rancor or ad hominem attacks are not professional and must be avoided.

 

We highly encourage panel organizers to minimize the number of panelists to provide for fruitful and cohesive discussion; we will not allow more than five panelists and note that the best panels tend to have fewer speakers and more interaction with the audience. We also encourage debate and discussion; we will not accept panels where time is primarily allocated to pre-prepared presentations by panel members.

 

It is important to us that panels represent the diversity of CHI’s community, including diversity of gender, experience, national origin, native language, race, ethnicity, and sexual identity. Panels that have all representatives from one part of the globe or one gender may be less favorably considered. Additionally, a diversity of ideas is strongly encouraged. Panels can cover issues of pragmatic or applied importance in addition to research issues. Panels are a great place to sound some of the major debates of the field, whether about how we develop scholarly knowledge or teach and apply that knowledge.

 

Preparing and Submitting your Panel

 

Panels proposals must be submitted by the submission deadline. The Panel proposal must include an Extended Abstract submitted as a single PDF file.

 

  • Extended Abstract: A maximum 7 page proposal (including references) in the ACM Master Article Submission Templates (single column). Note that we eliminate the old CHI extended abstract format (landscape) and use the same format as full papers. The extended abstract should include the title of the panel; the names and affiliations of the organizer(s), confirmed participants, and participants who have been invited but have not yet confirmed. Although they can be invited only at the time of the submission, we encourage organizers to get confirmation from as many participants as possible prior to submission. All participants must be confirmed at the time of publication ready source files submission, no exceptions. Within the 7-page constraint you should summarize the main topic(s) to be presented, debated, discussed, enacted, and any lessons or experiences you hope to convey in the session, as well as contrasting or controversial perspectives on the topic(s). You need to persuade the chairs that your panel will be exciting, enjoyable, well-attended, and relevant to the CHI community. You must list who will participate, how they have been recruited, why these people were selected, what qualifications they bring, and so on.

 

All speakers must be listed as Authors in the proposal and in the PCS Submission System for scheduling reasons, and all authors must be panelists or the panel moderator, no exceptions. You must include the session format: how you will run it, the invited participants’ role, your role, the audience role, and any special logistical needs (e.g., special seating or A/V, audience size limitations, use of student volunteers, expectations about attendee background or interests, etc.).

 

Your proposal must stand alone; readers must be able to get something out of the abstract even if they do not attend the panel session. Regardless of the topic, all session proposals should include a plan for engaging audience members in the interaction.

 

Submissions should not contain sensitive, private, or proprietary information that cannot be disclosed at publication time.  Submissions should NOT be anonymous. However, confidentiality of submissions will be maintained during the review process. All rejected submissions will be kept confidential. All submitted materials for accepted submissions will be kept confidential until the start of the conference, with the exception of title and author information which will be published on the website prior to the conference.

 

Authors are strongly encouraged to work on improving the accessibility of their submissions, using recommendations found in the Guide to an Accessible Submission.

 

Selection Process

 

Panels will have a mix of invited and curated content. All proposals submitted through this open call will be Curated. We will determine which panels are accepted on the basis of the review criteria below, and may decide to bring in outside experts for further review. There is no mechanism for author response in the review of panels, and decisions are final. In some special cases, the Panels Chairs may request changes to the panel proposal as a condition of its acceptance: a “conditional accept.” We encourage panel organizers to respond rapidly to suggestions from the Panel Chairs as part of the conditional accept and to engage in constructive dialog to produce the best overall panel experience for the conference.

 

Authors of accepted panels will receive instructions on how to prepare and submit the publication ready source files for their panel. These will be due on the publication-ready deadline.

 

Review Criteria

 

Panels present ideas that are novel, controversial, or engaging, inspiring the audience to respond and further elaborate the ideas. We aim to select a balance of panels to appeal to the wide variety of CHI attendees. The review criteria will consider the extent to which the session includes:

  • One or more topics likely to evoke a lively response from the CHI attendees,
  • Invited participants who will contribute unique perspectives, content, or other interactive content to the session,
  • A well-organized and feasible session plan,
  • A novel and creative session plan that emphasizes audience interaction,
  • Useful and interesting contributions to HCI,
  • Appropriate levels of diversity in panelist selection,
  • Likely to draw large attendance, and
  • Content that is unlikely to be seen by CHI audiences elsewhere in the conference.

 

At the Conference

 

Panels will be included in the conference program, and will have a 75-minute slot in parallel with other sessions. Session organizers are strongly advised to meet with their invited participants prior to their session to ensure a coordinated effort. If any special logistics are involved (e.g., seating, student volunteers, special A/V) organizers should also check in with the panels co-chairs (panels@chi2021.acm.org).

 

Panel organizers are also reminded that panelists invited to speak/present at the session are responsible for their conference registration fees. There are one day registrations available for panelists who do not wish to attend the entire conference.

 

After the Conference

 

Panels can often be a jumping-off point for future work. Previous panels have become the starting point for special issues of journals or books, or follow-up panels, papers, workshops, SIG meetings or Communities. We encourage panel organizers to think about the potential of their panels to inform future work or public audiences. Accepted Panel abstracts will be distributed in the CHI Conference Extended Abstracts and in the ACM Digital Library, where they will remain accessible to thousands of researchers and practitioners worldwide. Some of these discussions may also be recorded at the conference and distributed by the ACM.

 

An Important Note on CHI 2020 Panels

 

When you submit your panel, we will ask you if this is a re-submission of a panel that was accepted to CHI 2020. Such panels will be given special consideration but are not automatically accepted. The nature of panels is such that appropriate topics and organizers change very rapidly; some will be more relevant than last year and some will be less relevant. Our space limitations, too, will be particularly significant this year.

 

The core responsibility of the Panels Chairs is to create a carefully curated list of panels which reflect the needs and desires and requirements of the community. We also need to be able to propose modifications and augmentations, like suggesting that panels be combined where appropriate. As such, panels accepted to CHI 2020 should feel free to plan on submitting for CHI 2021, and are welcome to inform their potential attendees of that fact, but should not go forward under the assumption that they will necessarily be accepted.

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