Call For Workshop Proposals

We invite you to submit a proposal for workshops at ASSETS 2022. Workshops will bring together attendees with shared interests to meet in the context of a focused and interactive discussion. ASSETS workshops should include topics relevant to the ASSETS community, including design, systems, tools, scientific understanding, methodology, or social issues relevant to and including people with disabilities or older adults. It may also focus on enabling technologies, technology use by people with disabilities, disability justice, legal and policy issues, or accessibility in computing education. Each workshop should generate ideas that will suggest promising directions for future work for the ASSETS community. If you are working in an emerging area in accessibility, please consider organizing a workshop.

Important Dates

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

• Thursday, June 23, 2022 – Submission deadline
• June 24 - July 8, 2022 – Open discussion (via PCS)
• Friday, July 15, 2022 – Notification of acceptance
• Friday, July 29, 2022 – Workshop website online
• Friday, July 29, 2022 – Camera-ready deadline
• Week of Oct 17th – ASSETS'22 Workshops (see Accepted Workshops page)

Following the camera-ready deadline, workshop organizers will receive instructions for completing their eRights forms, validating and submitting their final workshop proposal to TAPS, and submitting their final accessible pdf.

Workshop Format

Workshops will be an online only event and take place the week of Oct 17th or on October 23. Please note that workshops will not have a physical space at the conference.

Please see the Suggestions sections for more details on how you might plan your workshop.

Preparing and Submitting your Workshop Proposal

A workshop proposal must be prepared according to the ACM Master Article Submission Templates (single column). It must be submitted via the PCS Submission System as a single PDF file. The proposal must be no more than 6,000 words (excluding references) and have the following structure:

• Background: Provide a strong rationale for the workshop, describe the issues to be addressed, and state concrete goals for the workshop.
• Workshop Plans: Explain in detail the workshop structure, including activities, timing, resources, and any follow-up activities or tangible outcomes. Please note that there is no on-site space provided. Please provide details regarding what specific technical capacity will be necessary to support the online workshop day.
• Diversity and inclusion considerations: Please elaborate on how you plan to promote diversity and how you would create an inclusive environment at the workshop.
• Organizers: Present the organizers’ backgrounds, including the main contact person.
• Website: Provide details of the planned website, including the URL. (This may be TBD until after acceptance).
• Pre-Workshop Plans: Please provide plans for how participants will be made aware of the workshop and how you will encourage community-building (e.g., through a website or other communication with participants).
• Call for Participation: Provide a 250-word Call for Participation that will be posted on the conference site to recruit participants for your workshop. This should appear at the end of your workshop proposal, and should include the following:
  • The goals of the workshop
  • The participant selection criteria
  • Requirements for position papers (e.g., topics to address, page length, format) or workshop artifact
  • Where these position papers or workshop artifacts should be submitted
  • The requirement that at least one author of each accepted position paper or workshop artifact must attend the workshop and that all participants must register for workshop
  • A link to the workshop website. (This may be TBD until after acceptance)
• References: References are not included within the word limit.

This proposal is the only document from the workshop which will be included in the ASSETS Extended Abstracts proceedings. Any position paper or other material submitted by workshop participants are not included but may be distributed through avenues like the workshop website. The workshop organizers may also consider submitting an actionable summary or lessons learned-type of report after the workshop to SIGACCESS newsletter.

Suggestions for planning your inclusive online workshop

To help reduce videoconferencing exhaustion and to broaden participation, we encourage organizers to think creatively and inclusively to make the workshops interactive. Workshop organizers may consider supporting offline activities ahead of / during the workshop (such as sending design kits to participants). Organizers may also want to consider tasks and activity design where attendees might be co-located (e.g., a workshop that connects multiple research groups) and could physically work together prior to joining the online workshop event.

While traditionally at in-person workshops we would often work for upto 8 hours at a time, in online workshops we recommend that you reduce the length of time that your participants will be on the video call and opt for shorter, more interactive activities.

We expect to have participants from all around the world, as such it is vital that you plan your workshop to accommodate participants joining from a number of timezones. You might consider more break out asynchronous activities that participants can do on their own, complemented with shorter synchronous interactions where participants get together and discuss.

Workshop Selection Process

We would like the ASSETS community to guide and shape the workshops that will be included in the conference. As such, ASSETS Workshop track will follow an open review and then a Juried review process.

During the period between submissions and notifications researchers and practitioners who work in the areas of accessibility, disability and computing will be invited to comment and discuss the workshop proposal submissions within a reviewer forum via PCS in a non-anonymous format ^*. Authors will also be encouraged to invite relevant members (such as potential attendees) to review the proposal and provide feedback. Such discussion and feedback we hope will give the authors an opportunity to refine and adapt their workshop plans (if they choose) to ultimately create a successful workshop.

After the discussion period, the final selection will be curated by the workshops chairs based on the following assessment criteria:

• Does the workshop foster community-building and look to broaden diversity in the ASSETS community?
• Alignment of the workshop topic with the interests of the ASSETS community.
• Workshops potential to generate discussion on new directions of future work by the ASSETS community.
• Level of engagement and proposed interactivity in the workshop. For workshop proposals of comparable quality, preference will be given to workshops containing discussion, interactive sessions and a diverse organization team.

* all reviewers will be required to consent to a review agreement prior to participating in the selection process.

Reviewing for Workshops

1. Interested reviewers must volunteer to review for the ASSETS 2022 Workshops Track via PCS. Visit the PCS volunteer page.
2. You will then have access to the bidding page and see a list of all available titles and abstracts. For any you wish to review, please select “want” or “willing”. You can bid on more workshop proposals at any time during the review period, and can deselect reviews if you change your mind.
3. You will have access to the submissions, discussions and reviews through your reviewing page.
4. Reviewers and authors are encouraged to actively engage in discussions about their workshop proposals throughout the reviewing process.

Responsibility of Workshop Organizers: Upon Acceptance of Workshop Proposals and Before the Workshop Day

Workshop organizers upon receiving notification of acceptance, must prepare to fulfill the following responsibilities prior to the workshop day:

• Set up a website: Organizers of an accepted workshop must set up and maintain a website with information about their workshop (deadlines, CfP, programme, templates, accepted papers/participants, organizers,etc.). We will include the link to the workshop’s page on the official ASSETS workshop site.
• Advertise your workshop: Share your call for participants within your professional network. Accepted workshops will also be listed on the ASSETS’22 web page.
• Collect position papers or workshop artifacts: From potential participants (depending on how the organizers run the workshop). A position paper can be a 2-4 pages document. An artifact can be a video or images of physical objects that outlines the submitter’s view on the workshop theme and the reasons for the submitter’s interest in the topic.
• Set up a review process: Select participants accordingly. We expect workshops to target a minimum number of 10 participants.
• Plan for pre-workshop activities: If applicable, share and distribute any pre-workshop materials (e.g., design kits) to participants in advance of the workshop.
• Distribute: Share accepted position papers or workshop artifacts. This will help participants to familiarize themselves with workshop content and encourage more in-depth discussions.
• Ensure the workshop organizers and participants are aware of the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.

Registration for Workshops

Workshop Organizers: All organizers who plan to attend the workshop must register for the workshop and at least one organizer must register for the entire conference.

Workshop Attendees: Must register for the workshop they are attending.

Registration fee: Workshop registration fees can be found on the registration page – attendees do not need to register for the conference to attend the workshops.

For further information or any questions regarding workshop submissions, please contact the Workshop Chairs – Sowmya Somanath and Kyle Montague at workshops-assets22@acm.org.