Diversity & Inclusion Statement

At ACM COMPASS we want everyone to feel safe, welcome and included. ACM COMPASS affirms the principle that its meetings, communications, and other activities shall be accessible to any and all persons, and will make every reasonable effort to accommodate their needs for attendance and participation. We want to ensure that no-one is prevented from attending our conference, and equally assure people that the conference will present an accessible experience for both attendees and presenters. If you are in need of any assistance in navigating the conference virtually, or are interested in a pre-conference tour, please contact us at accessibility@compass.acm.org

Reasonable adjustment requests: To help ensure that everyone who wishes to attend or submit to COMPASS 2024 is able to do so, we want to provide a clear process for requesting reasonable adjustments. As part of the registration process, we have a section in the form where you can share the information required for us to enable an inclusive conference experience for you. All requests will be treated in strict confidence. To ensure that we can fully accommodate your needs, please contact us as soon as possible, as certain adjustments may not be possible without sufficient notice. Below we have listed some examples of reasonable adjustments that can be requested, as well as anticipatory steps we are already taking: 

  • Advance access to materials: Where it helps attendees will be provided with advanced access to written materials prior to the conference. This could be appropriate for someone who needs to have them converted into a different format (e.g. Braille), or needs additional time to read the materials in order to decide which sessions that they would like to attend (for instance as a consequence of Dyslexia). 
  • Accessible materials: We require that all final camera-ready submissions and presentations will be accessible, and are providing support and guidance (currently in preparation) in order to help facilitate this. All the final camera-ready submissions will be accompanied by a pre-recorded video talk in the language of the authors’ choice, which will carry close caption in English. We will make the video materials available just before the conference for engagement for both who are attending in-person and via online. We will also be making them available for post-conference access and engagement. 
  • Accessible Venue: We ensure that the venue for the conference will be physically accessible, with lifts and ramps for all levels of the sessions. Further we will offer spaces for quiet time, and resting of the senses, and for child-care, along with gender neutral washrooms. The navigational signs will include braille and we will also have volunteers for language support, including the South African Sign Language / ASL?  
  • Hybrid Engagement: The conference will offer a hybrid—in person and digital—experience. We are working out the details of how to enable a hybrid experience that offers everyone a deeply engaging and satisfying experience of the program and community, irrespective of whether they are attending in-person or online. We will update here with more details as we work them out.  
  • Author support: We are able, upon request, to undertake limited steps to assist with the review of submissions if someone has been particularly disadvantaged by virtue of their disability. This might include cases where an author was impacted by their disability near the submission deadline, or where their ability to prepare the submission has otherwise been impacted (e.g. the formatting of the submission, including associated multimedia content, or in certain cases, understanding of the assessment criteria and process). Whilst we cannot adjust the competency standard in respect of the final submission, we can take steps to provide additional time and support with a submission (potentially including shepherding). If there are particular circumstances which may require reasonable adjustments, we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible, as reasonable adjustments in respect of submissions cannot be approved after the program committee has met to consider them. 

Website Accessibility 

ACM continues to take steps to improve web accessibility on compass.acm.org by aligning with best practices and standards of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines of the World Wide Web Consortium.  

Our website is created, monitored and tested periodically by our technical and internal teams, including our accessibility chair(s). These people help us identify usability issues and discover new solutions to further improve the accessibility of our site. 

Our conference accessibility expectations also follow ACM policies that require authors to provide presentations and papers that are digitally accessible. Our team is working hard to ensure the presentations, talks, and social interactions are also accessible to our audience. Additionally, we are offering extended accessibility support to persons with disabilities wishing to publish a paper at our venue. Please contact us using the form below to learn more. 

The ACM Special Interest Group on Accessibility (SIGACCESS) has issued an Accessible Virtual Conference Guide with information on digital and physical accessibility. This is one of our prime references to provide you with a better virtual conference experience. 

Accessibility Contact 

We warmly welcome suggestions and dialogue on how to improve accessibility at the conference—if you have any suggestions or ideas or having difficulty with our website or submissions process, please either contact us at accessibility@compass.acm.org