Open Sessions

The ACM SIGCAS/SIGCHI Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies (COMPASS 2023) invites you to submit proposals for open sessions by May 15, 2023. COMPASS 2023 as a conference aims to include perspectives and participation from industry, policymakers, civil society, practitioners, academia, and government. The Open Sessions provide this opportunity to ensure the representation of projects, experiences, and viewpoints that will benefit the COMPASS community, especially where they do not fit the full papers or notes formats.

Open sessions typically include multiple presenters convening around important, cross-cutting themes. They may take the form of panels, workshops, tutorials, “ignite” talks, debates, participatory activities, or other types of communication and exchange. Successful proposals will work towards inclusiveness, relevance, and excellence. Session organizers may extend invitations to particular participants to attend, or present based on emerging themes in disciplines such as computer and information sciences, social sciences, environmental sciences, and engineering; likewise, participation is open to any conference attendee who wishes to join on the day of the session.

To propose an open session, please submit through HotCRP using the button below. Please provide a 75-word summary and an additional description detailing your goals for the session and how you plan to achieve them. The deadline for submission is May 15th, 2023, at 11.59 pm Anywhere on Earth (AoE).

The description should be as PDF using the current ACM two-column conference format, with up to 4 pages of content and unlimited references. Suitable LaTeX, Word, and Overleaf templates are available from the ACM Website (use “sigconf” proceedings template for LaTeX and the Interim Template for Word). ACM’s CCS concepts and keywords are not required for review but may be required if accepted and published by the ACM.

For LaTeX, the following should be used:

documentclass[sigconf,natbib=true]{acmart}

Submissions need not be anonymous and should be submitted electronically via the HotCRP portal linked below.

Upon acceptance, authors will be provided the choice of opt-in/opt-out of the ACM DL proceedings for the conference.

Guidelines

Open Sessions welcome a variety of submissions and formats. We invite extended abstracts that include proposals for panels, workshops, young researchers’ meet-ups, and more.

Open sessions will be 90 minutes in length by default. They can also be 180 minutes long, but only if there is sufficient justification. Note also that they can be half-day or full-day in length for sessions such as workshops. Although sessions (and session proposals) will be expected to be held in English, we are open to proposals for sessions in other languages, as well. In such cases, please mention the proposed language and indicate why it is important to the session topic. Given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we also expect some attendees to be joining the open sessions remotely. So, please describe an appropriate plan to make open sessions inviting and accessible to both remote and in-person attendees.  

Proposals for sessions will be reviewed and assessed according to the criteria below:

• They should be accessible to a highly interdisciplinary COMPASS audience.
• They should be lively, inclusive, and participatory in style and content.
• They should be on topics relevant to the COMPASS community. 
• They should demonstrate careful planning and a clear agenda.

Examples of sessions and formats: 

• A panel of researchers and practitioners to discuss and brainstorm post-PhD opportunities for researchers. 
• A workshop organized by 2-3 researchers to discuss in small breakout sessions the role of gender (what it is and what it should be) in computing projects. 
• A short course on co-design in research areas pertaining to global health. 
• A workshop to set an agenda for future research on digital financial services. 
• An ice-breaker session for researchers and practitioners to learn about and from each other and their work.
• A series of short, lightning talks followed by an open discussion, where each talk represents an extended abstract on a common, chosen topic such as caste-related inequities. 

Submit Open Session

Important Dates

• April 15, 2023: System open for Submissions
• June 1, 2023: Deadline for submission of Open Sessions
• June 15, 2023: Notifications to the authors
• July 15, 2023: Deadline for the camera-ready version of the accepted submissions (opt-in for the ACM DL proceedings is optional for the authors)
• August 16th-19th, 2023: ACM COMPASS 2023 Conference

Open Session Chairs

• David Nemer (nemer@virginia.edu)
• Kagonya Awori (kagonyaawori@microsoft.com)

If you have any questions, please reach out to both chairs via email.