Call for Experience Reports

October 23-26, 2022

Research on accessible and assistive technologies is primarily motivated by the needs of people with disabilities and other stakeholders, like caregivers and educators. Understanding these needs is crucial, but often requires first-hand experience that might be unavailable to all researchers in the community. ASSETS 2022 invites submissions that reflect people’s experiences with disabilities and the challenges and opportunities related to accessible and assistive technologies. These reports will be reflective in nature and will give authors an opportunity to share their experiences as people with disabilities, caregivers, rehabilitation professionals, educators, researchers, developers, entrepreneurs, or other stakeholders.

Experience reports should clearly explain how the research community will benefit from the reported experience. This year submissions can be structured in a variety of ways (see submission guidelines below). When applicable, the technology and the focus of the report should be described, including the citation of appropriate references. Potential topics include but are not limited to:

accessibility challenges or solutions in existing technology;
every-day problems for which effective assistive technologies do not yet exist;
challenges in accessing technologies due to costs, cultural aspects, etc.;
needs of specific communities, such as people with multiple disabilities;
age-specific needs, such as children with disabilities;
challenges or solutions in the development and distribution of accessible and assistive technologies;
challenges or solutions related to regulatory policies;
challenges or solutions arising in the field of accessibility and computing education;
good practices possibly not yet supported by appropriate technologies;
challenges or solutions during rehabilitation processes;
limitations or benefits of tools and methodologies in the field of education of people with disabilities or specific learning disorders;
new trends in practices and habits.

Please note, unless explicitly advised by the technical paper review panel, authors should not submit papers that were not accepted to the technical paper track for review within the experience report track.

Given the hybrid format of the conference, the current expectation is that at least one author from all accepted submissions physically present their artifacts in Athens at the conference. In addition, we will ask all authors to prepare prerecorded and captioned videos that will be made available to all attendees (both virtual-only attendees and on-site attendees). If you have disability or health concerns that prevent travel, please contact assets22-leadership@acm.org.

Important Dates

All deadlines are 5 P.M. Pacific Time (GMT -8:00).

Submission deadline: Thursday, June 23, 2022
Notification of Acceptance: Thursday, July 21, 2022
Final versions of Experience reports, due. Following this deadline, authors will receive instructions for completing their eRights forms, validating and submitting their paper to TAPS, and submitting their final accessible pdf. Friday, August 5, 2022
Video presentation deadline: Monday, August 15, 2022

Submission Guidelines

Experience Reports proposals should be submitted using one of the templates found on the Submission Templates page.

Submissions are NOT double-anonymized: the authors' names should be on the paper.

New Format Options This Year

In an effort to be more inclusive, we are expanding the options for Experience Report formats this year. Taking inspiration from the alternative formats that other conferences have offered (for example, Alt.CHI), we welcome submissions that use a variety of creative formats including, but not limited to the following:

Traditional format
- Position papers https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/1878803.1878807
- Case studies https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3441852.3476468
Conversational, e.g.,
- https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3308561.3355617
Pictorials, e.g.,
- https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3374920.3375006
- https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3461778.3462018
Audio/Video, e.g.
- A video submission might take the form of a walkthrough with narration detailing the creation of a new immersive accessible play area for children—something that would be challenging to accurately describe in a written paper. Please note that you need to include video descriptions for each scene of the video when relevant and you will also need to submit a caption file. You can find more info on video descriptions at the following two links https://www.afb.org/consulting/afb-accessibility-resources/video-description and https://webaim.org/techniques/captions/#ad
- We welcome audio and visual submissions limited to a maximum of 8 minutes (max file size 400MB). We request they are accompanied with a text submission that includes the transcript or other alternative format to ensure the submission is accessible. We also require a PDF is submitted with author details, an abstract and references. If your audio/video submission is accepted, you will still be required to create a conference presentation recording that focuses on summarizing the main points (see details below). Please note that you need to include a transcript of the audio, which you can submit as supplementary materials.
Something else? Ask the chairs
- Authors could email the chairs if they have an idea for a submission and they aren’t sure if the format would be suitable.

Experience Reports proposals are limited in length to 8 pages in the single-column submission format and references do not count toward page limits (see above for audio/video submission requirements). We have chosen to apply a page limit rather than a word limit to account for the different formats (e.g., pictorials) and how space is utilized differently with images vs words. Although deviation from the format may be required for some submissions, please ensure the first page and references follow the strict template requirements. If you want to do something unusual or are unsure, check with us first at experience-reports-assets22@acm.org. Submissions should not be accepted or under review anywhere else while in submission.

Given the hybrid format of the conference, the current expectation is that at least one author from all accepted submissions physically present their artifacts in Athens at the conference. In addition, we will ask all authors to prepare a prerecorded and captioned video of their conference talk (length to be determined), which will be made available to all attendees (both virtual-only attendees and on-site attendees). If you have disability or health concerns that prevent travel, please contact assets22-leadership@acm.org.

Accepted Experience Reports will be published in the conference proceedings. Your PDF file must be accessible. Please refer to the instructions on Creating an Accessible ACM Conference Paper for information on how to accomplish this.

All submissions will be peer-reviewed by an international panel, per the ASSETS policy on Program Committees. Writing Guidelines are available to help authors choose appropriate language for writing about technology and people with disabilities. Finally, please refer to the ACM policy on plagiarism for guidance.

How to Submit

The submission deadline is Thursday, June 23, 2022, 5 P.M. Pacific Time (GMT -8:00). Please submit via the ASSETS 2022 Experience Reports submissions site.

IMPORTANT - Author PCS Account Details

ACM continues to update the publication process and now paper metadata will be pulled directly from your personal PCS account. This means that it is crucial for you and all of your co-authors to update the contact information so that names, affiliations AND primary email addresses are stylized exactly in the way that you all would want to see them in the ACM digital library and on your paper. For example, if you use a personal email address (xyz123@hotmail.com) as your primary contact email in PCS then this email will appear on your paper. Please check your author information and make necessary changes.

Further Information

For further information or any questions regarding the event or submissions, please contact the Experience Report Chairs, Garreth Tigwell and Kate Ringland, at experience-reports-assets22@acm.org.