[Asis-l] HCIR '09: Oct 23, 2009 in Washington, DC

[Ryen White]

Third Workshop on Human-Computer Interaction and Information Retrieval

The 3rd Annual Workshop on Human-Computer Interaction and Information Retrieval (HCIR '09) will be held at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC on October 23, 2009. Our keynote speaker will be Ben Shneiderman, professor at the University of Maryland and founding director of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory.

WEBSITE

http://cuaslis.org/hcir2009/

WORKSHOP CHAIRS

Bill Kules, The Catholic University of America
Daniel Tunkelang, Endeca
Ryen White, Microsoft Research

BACKGROUND

When we held the first HCIR workshop in 2007, the idea of uniting the fields of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Information Retrieval (IR) was a battle cry to move this research area from the fringes of computer science into the mainstream. Two years later, as we organize this third HCIR workshop on the heels of a highly successful HCIR 2008, we see some of the fruits of our labor. Topics like interactive information retrieval and exploratory search are receiving increasing attention, among both academic researchers and industry practitioners.

But we have only begun this journey. Most of the work in these two fields still stays within their silos, and the efforts to realize more sophisticated models, tools, and evaluation metrics for information seeking are still in their early stages.

In this year's one-day workshop, we will continue to explore the advances each domain can bring to the other.

FORMAT

We invite 4-page position papers that will be reviewed by the workshop chairs and additional reviewers. Position papers will be judged based on relevance to HCIR. Idea diversity across all submissions may also be considered. The revised versions will be produced in hardcopy for attendees and published on the website. The workshop time will be used for what participants have told us that they found most valuable: posters and directed group discussions.

We will select 4-6 position papers for presentation in a workshop panel. All other attendees are strongly encouraged to present posters during the morning "poster boaster" session.

Our target is to have 40-50 participants.

Possible topics for discussion and presentation at the workshop include, but are not limited to:

* Novel interaction techniques for information retrieval
* Modeling and evaluation of interactive information retrieval
* Exploratory search and information discovery
* Information visualization and visual analytics
* Applications of HCI techniques to information retrieval needs in specific domains
* Ethnography and user studies relevant to information retrieval and access
* Scale and efficiency considerations for interactive information retrieval systems
* Relevance feedback and active learning approaches for information retrieval

Demonstrations of systems and prototypes are particularly welcome.

IMPORTANT DATES

August 24: Submission deadline for position papers
September 11: Decisions sent to authors
September 25: Submission deadline for camera-ready copies

NOTE ON TRAVEL/ACCOMMODATION SUPPORT

In the past, people have asked whether there are funds available to defray travel or accommodation expenses. Unfortunately, our funds only allow us to cover the costs of the workshop itself. It is our hope that the growing success of this workshop will attract additional funding in future years. If your company or organization is interested in sponsoring travel scholarships, please let us know as soon as possible.