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Vol.28 No.2, April 1996

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From the Chairs: Quiz

ACM SIGCHI Development Fund

ACM SIGCHI Development Fund

Funding Criteria
Funds Available for FY '96
The Proposal
Submission Procedures
Questions Call for Proposals

Quiz

We will begin this column with a quiz. And we will warn you now that what may appear to be straightforward questions may, in fact, constitute a "trick quiz." Ready? Before reading on, answer the following questions. Answer each separately; list a minimum of three items for each question.

1. Why does SIGCHI exist?
2. Why are you a member of SIGCHI?

Now, since we obviously can't review and grade your responses now, we will speculate on how difficult we believe you found this quiz and on what we believe your answers are. We also invite you to share your answers with us (see the inside front cover for contact information).

The questions we posed constitute a difficult quiz. What we have posed as two questions are, in fact, a single question. You cannot answer "Why does SIGCHI exist?" without making reference to the members of SIGCHI. Similarly, you cannot answer "Why are you a member of SIGCHI" without referring to SIGCHI as a society. All of us, as members of SIGCHI, make up the society of SIGCHI. We gain from our affiliation with the society of SIGCHI and SIGCHI, in turn, gains from our individual contributions. Each of us will continue to affiliate with SIGCHI as long as the society offers the programs that we want to contribute to and that we derive benefit from.

In this column, we will highlight two initiatives that are intended to guide the Executive Committee in defining the programs that SIGCHI's membership wants -- a Membership Survey and the SIGCHI Development Fund.

Membership Survey

Over the next few months, many of you will be asked to participate in a Membership Survey. Working with both ACM staff and an independent market research consultant, Clare-Marie Karat, Marian Williams, Diane Darrow, and other Executive Committee members are leading an effort to actively ask SIGCHI members and potential members about all aspects of our society. This survey will include questionnaires, focus groups, and other means for collecting information from a cross section of SIGCHI's membership. If you are asked to participate in this survey, we ask that you do so.

SIGCHI Development Fund

The SIGCHI Development Fund provides support for projects which will contribute to advancing Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and to communicating information within SIGCHI. The Call for Proposals is printed opposite. This program is open to all members of SIGCHI and provides all of us with the opportunity to define and carry out programs that advance HCI and provide benefit to SIGCHI's members. We invite you to submit proposals and, by doing so, help define the future directions of SIGCHI.

While the Membership Survey and the SIGCHI Development Fund are two specific programs for soliciting information, we also invite a continuing dialogue. We will use this column to communicate to you, and invite you to communicate to us. Contact information is listed inside the cover of each Bulletin. We would like to hear from you and hope to engage in an active dialogue with you about our society and out directions.

CHI 96

Finally, we invite you to join us in sending our best wishes and our thanks to Kevin Schofield and Michael Tauber, the co-chairs of CHI 96, and to the hundreds of volunteers who make up the conference committees for the work they have done to enable CHI 96 to take place.

Mike Atwood and Guy Boy

atwood.chi@xerox.com
guy_boy.chi@xerox.com

Call for Proposals

The SIGCHI Development Fund provides support for projects which will contribute to advancing Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and to communicating information within SIGCHI.

Funding Criteria

The absolute criteria for funding are:

• High-quality work advancing the field of HCI and the communication of information within SIGCHI.
• The project must be relevant to and provide value to SIGCHI members.
• The project must disseminate its results to the relevant members.
• The funding must be for a single activity, although the activity can take place over a number of years. If the activity is the beginning of what will become a perpetuated event, the project must include a plan for obtaining continued funding from sources other than the SIGCHI Development Fund.
• SIGCHI Development Funding will, in general, not pay for labor cost of ACM and/or SIGCHI members where there is any potential conflict of interest.
• SIGCHI Development Funding discourages the purchase of equipment. If, however, equipment is absolutely required and cannot be provided by others there must be a plan for returning equipment, as directed, to the control of the SIGCHI Executive Committee.
• For events that span multiple years, funding may be only for the current year and funding for future years must be requested annually and cannot be guaranteed.
  

Funds Available for FY '96

The funds available for FY '96 (July 1, 1995-June 30, 1996) are $20,000.

The Proposal

Proposals can be submitted by any SIGCHI member.

An acceptable proposal should answer the following questions:

Title:

What is the project to be called?

Subject matter:

What is the purpose of this project?

People:

Who speaks for, and take responsibility for this project? Who else is on the team? What are their qualifications to do this project? What is your expectation of success?

Duration:

Will this project need on-going, continual funding? If so, how many years of seed money are being sought, and what is the plan for continuing funding?

Schedule:

When will it start and end?

Relevance:

What SIGCHI members are this project relevant to? Do they have similar projects already underway? How will they be involved?

Potential value:

What is the potential value of the proposed project to SIGCHI members?

Product:

What will be the outcome of the project?

Delivery vehicle:

Who is the audience for this outcome? How will these people be informed of the outcome? Where applicable, how will they get access to it?

Additional funding:

Have you considered other sources of funding? Will someone match SIGCHI Development Funding?

Dependency:

What other things does the successful completion of this project depend upon?

Previous work:

What work has already been done in this area and how will this project build on it?

Submission Procedures

Three copies of the proposal are to be submitted in hard copy to:

ACM SIGCHI Development Fund
Attention: Diane Darrow
ACM
1515 Broadway, 17th Floor
New York, NY 10036 USA

Proposals that meet funding criteria will be forwarded to the SIGCHI Chair, who will appoint an "advocate" from the SIGCHI EEC to work with the proposer.

The "advocate" will work with the proposer to help insure that the proposal is complete and meets the SIGCHI Development Fund funding criteria. When satisfied, the "advocate" will submit the proposal to the Chair of the SIGCHI Development Fund Review Committee.

The SIGCHI Development Fund activities will be reviewed three times a year, at the Spring, Summer, and Winter SIGCHI Extended Executive Committee Meetings. For purposes of planning consider deadlines for submission for the next year to be:

• Summer Meeting: July 1, 1995
• Winter Meeting: November 1, 1995
• Spring Meeting: March 1, 1996
  

The Chair of the SIGCHI Development Fund Review Committee will submit all complete proposals to the SIGCHI Executive Committee with funding recommendations. Funding decisions are based on a majority vote of the SIGCHI Executive Committee.

Questions

Questions regarding the SIGCHI Development Fund Policy are to be directed to the SIGCHI Vice Chair for Operations. The current SIGCHI Vice Chair for Operations is Marian Williams, who can be reached through email at williams.chi@xerox.com or by calling +1 508-934-3628.

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Vol.28 No.2, April 1996

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