Mentoring

Co-Chairs	Important Dates
Kumiyo Nakakoji University of Tokyo Japan	Mentoring Request, Early Submissions: 7 June 2004 Mentoring Requests, Late Submissions: 13 September 2004 Additional Information
John Thomas IBM Research USA
Contact Us chi2005-mentoring@acm.org

About Mentoring

If you would like help with your CHI 2005 submission, you may ask for a mentor (please check the individual venues for restrictions on mentor availability). A mentor is a person who will help you with your submission to the CHI audience through one-on-one advising, usually via e-mail. A mentor will also familiarize you with the standards and deadlines of CHI submissions. Mentors are volunteers familiar with successful submissions in the various participation categories.

Mentors may be available for:

• Design Expo
• Interactivity
• Late Breaking Results
• Papers
• Workshops

To request a mentor, please send email to chi2005-mentoring@acm.org. The subject line of your e-mail must be in the format: CHI2005mentoringrequest-{your last name}-{Title of your submission}.

You must also include a description of your work (an abstract is a minimum requirement), an indication of which specific participation category you are interested in and any specific questions or areas in which you would like help. Also include your full name, affiliation, and contact information as well as some indication of your level of experience with the field and the conference. Please see individual venue pages on this web site for further help on ways to describe your work and specific deadlines for requesting a mentor.

If you wish to ask for a mentor, you must contact us by the dates in the box above by sending e-mail to chi2005-mentoring@acm.org. Please also include the following information in the beginning of your message, checking all that are appropriate:

• I need help in deciding whether CHI is an appropriate place to present my work.
• I need help in deciding which CHI venue is most appropriate for my work.
• I need help in formulating the design of my empirical work.
• I need pointers to relevant previous literature.
• I need help in how best to organize my contribution.
• I need some help in making sure the English is correct. (We cannot provide complete translation or re-writing; we suggest finding someone in your local area for that purpose).
• I need another kind of help (please specify)

We strongly recommend that you request a mentor early. A mentor's feedback will be most useful to you if it is early enough to influence the way you focus your work, not just the way you write it up for the conference. Reasonable expectations for a mentor might include giving advice as to the most appropriate forum for you work, suggesting improvements to your submission, suggesting how to deal with language problems or referring you to relevant research of which you might not have been aware. Typically, a mentor might spend 3-7 hours on a submission. We carefully match mentors to mentees, and wish to support you in getting your work focused into a high quality submission with a good chance of being accepted and published.

If you are a student, mentors are not meant to replace your own academic faculty, particularly if you are in an institution with people working in HCI. If you are a student, we recommend you discuss requesting a mentor with your faculty advisor. Although we will strive to find mentors for everyone who asks, mentors are volunteers and in some cases, it may not be possible to find a mentor.

Call for Mentors

We are seeking experienced people in the CHI community to give back to the community by mentoring. Mentors can help more junior people or experienced people who are unfamiliar with the CHI conference. Among other things, mentors can help mentees choose the most appropriate venue for work, suggest relevant literature, suggest improvements in study design, and give advice on the focus and structure of the work as presented. Typically, you might expect to spend 3-7 hours. While there is some time commitment expected, serving as a mentor can also give you a new perspective on the submissions process and help you discover potential colleagues from around the world. Mentoring ultimately increases the scope and quality of the entire CHI community.

If you are willing to serve as a mentor, please send e-mail to chi2005-mentoring@acm.org by the dates listed above. Please include the topics you are most interested in mentoring and complete contact information.