CHI 97 Electronic Publications: Workshops
Basic Research Symposium
Susanne Jul
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of Michigan
1101 Beal Av.
Ann Arbor MI 48109 USA
sjul@umich.edu
Tel/Fax: +1 313-763-9074
Leon Watts
Human-Computer Interaction Group
Department of Psychology
University of York
York YO1 5DD
United Kingdom
law4@york.ac.uk
Tel: +44 1904 433186
© 1997 Copyright on this material is held by the authors.
Overview
The Basic Research Symposium is a special event with a five-year history at CHI. It is a hybrid between a mini-conference and a workshop that presents an opportunity for researchers from different disciplines to share their visions through exchanging new developments and insights from their own fields. The goal of the Symposium is to provide an interactive forum to promote and enhance scientific discussions of developing research issues. It is designed to advance understanding and dialogue among fellow researchers as well as to encourage asking of questions and reflection on methods and results. It is a unique opportunity to learn about the variety of perspectives present in the international HCI research community and to apply the often radically different criteria associated with those perspectives to one's own work.
The goal of the workshop is to draw implications for the design of navigable
worlds and navigational aids from a common understanding of navigation,
including its relationship to other activities, and its requirements. The
workshop provides an opportunity for individuals who are currently separated
by discipline and domain to meet and create a shared understanding.
Vision Statement
The Symposium is about intellectual stimulation, celebrating diversity and looking to the future. It is not a market for selling our own projects, products or personalities, but rather an occasion for sharing the successes and failures, joys and frustrations of our ongoing work in order to focus emerging research. Views and experiences will be offered openly in the expectation that critique rather than criticism is offered in return. The fundamentals that underlie the study of human-computer interaction will guide an informal discussion in a challenging environment.
Our special vision for the CHI 97 Basic Research Symposium is that it shall be a voyage of discovery for those who attend, blazing a trail of new perspectives for the benefit of the conference as a whole and for the HCI community at large. Together we shall seek viewpoints overlooking the future of research into human-computer interaction and look for theoretical paths for practical applications of HCI.
Topics and Themes
The identity of the Basic Research Symposium is determined by current research
issues in the Human-Computer Interaction research community: the event will
thus be defined by the contributions received and accepted by the Committee.
As the Symposium attains its vibrancy from the wide range of disciplines
represented and the critical but informal interchanges between them, contributions
are invited from all areas of HCI research. At the Symposium cognitive scientists,
computer scientists, psychologists, sociologists, management scientists,
creative designers and others work together to envision the scope and direction
of tomorrow's human-computer interaction.
The vision statement stresses that the Symposium is not for reviewing well
established and 'safe' methods and findings. Instead we seek contributions
that anticipate the future: tentative, controversial, ongoing and emerging
research. One of the Symposium's strengths is that it embraces the current
interests of all the participants and provides a forum to present research
that is in the early stages of maturity.
Basic Research Symposium 1996
From the report on the CHI 96 Basic Research Symposium[1]:
The discussion was direct and dynamic, but we recall no occasion where a questioner attacked a piece of work for not employing the techniques of the questioner's own field. Instead, critique was based on the understanding that criteria and methodology differ between fields. This acceptance of differences was paralleled by an openness and frankness: most presentations ended with questions rather than final answers: "do you know of similar work", "do you have any ideas on", "I'm not sure the right way to continue this, can you help"; in one case the technical work touched very directly on the presenter's personal life, at another time, the entire room stood up and shook their legs in time to emphasise a point.
References
1. Dix, A., Modugno, F. CHI 96 Basic Research Symposium. SIGCHI Bulletin, Vol.29 No.1, January 1997.
CHI 97 Electronic Publications: Workshops
