How New Local Chapters Work: The Experience of Czech SIGCHI
Pavel Slavik and Boba Mannova
Czech SIGCHI & Czech Technical University, Prague, Czech Republic
January-February 2001 Local SIGs column
This issue's column, authored by Pavel Slavik and Boba Mannova, describes the experiences of a new local chapter in the Czech Republic. (Richard I Anderson, Editor and Local SIGs Chair)
In 1998, the Czech SIGCHI chapter was established. The idea was to bring together people in the Czech Republic who are active in the field of HCI. As HCI covers a wide spectrum of activities, people were working in their particular areas without being aware of related activities that had roots in other disciplines of computer science. There are many areas of computer science where lack of interaction has been a key issue. These areas include computer graphics, multimedia, special interfaces for users with special needs, distance learning, and some marginal topics (e.g., mobile computing). A common motive in all of these areas is development and implementation of user interfaces that comply with up-to-date requirements of new applications. The results achieved have been presented in various forms during the last four annual CHI conferences.
The main challenge is that the potential community is not very big. One of reasons for establishing the Local SIG was to create a platform for distributing knowledge about HCI in a broad sense (fundamentals, traditional applications, potential applications etc.). Another important area of interest was HCI education. Courses dealing with HCI issues are taught at all major universities in the country. One of tasks of the Czech SIGCHI should be coordination of the content of these courses. Also, the distribution of information about educational materials developed by SIGCHI should be one of the key activities of the Local SIG.
Since the potential community is rather small, it was necessary to define a way for the people to communicate. The idea was that Czech SIGCHI should serve as a sort of communication hub where people can exchange information about their topics of interest. This communication should have various forms. Besides the most common form of regular meetings, workshops on various topics have been organized. There should also be organized discussion forums in electronic form concerning some important topics related to HCI.
Czech SIGCHI works as a part of a national ACM chapter, so it is possible to use the ACM chapter's infrastructure. The main use has been the establishment of an HCI library in the ACM office. Besides books dealing with HCI topics, a set of proceedings and tutorial notes from recent HCI conferences is available for members. Information about conferences in related fields that take place in the Czech Republic is also distributed. This includes conferences from the field of computer graphics [3] and voice communication. The latter has a growing importance in the field of HCI; a special section dealing with general HCI issues is gaining more and more importance [2]. Also, information about international conferences is distributed.
Members of Czech SIGCHI try to integrate with the international SIGCHI community by taking part in annual HCI conferences. This participation has taken various forms, beginning with writing papers for the conferences, taking part in development consortia, and being involved in program committees.
Czech SIGCHI has been an organizer or co-organizer of several events during the past few years. The first type of these events was dedicated to multimedia and virtual reality. The second type was dedicated to distance education, which has growing importance in the Czech Republic (indeed, these events are now organized on a regular basis). The largest event of this type is an annual conference where teachers from basic and high schools gather together to discuss topics and experiences concerning the use of modern information technologies in education (including experience with the usability of the software used) [1]. A special emphasis has been put on the use of distance education methods. A very important fact is that the number of participants is about 200. In this way, it is ensured that the information is distributed into every area of the country. From this point of view, this activity has been the most successful activity performed within the framework of the Local SIG. The schemes used should be applied to other HCI areas as well.
These events were mostly events with international participation (distinguished speakers gave talks informing a local audience about the latest achievements in their respective fields). This sort of event has links to the current state of HCI education in the country at the university level. At the present time, there are three universities in the country that offer several courses in the field. Existing informal contacts should be more formalized in order to exchange experiences with different approaches towards HCI education.
Another very important activity concerns the cooperation between the Czech ACM Chapter - where Czech SIGCHI plays an important role - and governmental institutions. In the past year, a representative of the Czech ACM Chapter became a member of Forum for Information Society, which is a governmental institution. This representative is responsible for topics in the field of distance education and life long learning. These activities have been supported by Czech SIGCHI for several years. Recently, courses on new information technologies for seniors have been organized in collaboration with Czech Technical University. Moreover, a group of seniors was established that is active as a consultant body for the Forum for Information Society. Their expertise is used first of all for the area of the use of new information technologies by elderly and handicapped people.
Future activities should include creation of a database of people active in various areas of HCI. By means of this database, it will be possible to intensify mutual communication. Another important activity that should be developed would be a closer link with the international HCI community. This might be achieved by inviting distinguished speakers from abroad to give lectures about the current state of the art in various areas of HCI.
The communication channels will also be broadened. A web site currently exists (http://hpk.felk.cvut.cz/czechi) where basic information is displayed, but the volume of information should be extended. Another channel will be a bulletin that will in a regular way inform people about activities of the Local CHI chapter. These channels should serve to distribute information among various groups that are oriented towards a diversity of topics. Inviting distinguished speakers from abroad should attract more attention among potential members.
A lot effort will be devoted to bringing Czech SIGCHI to a level that could be comparable with Local SIGs elsewhere that have existed for a longer period of time.
[1] Conference POSKOLE: http://hpk.felk.cvut.cz/POSKOLE
[2] Conference TSD 2001 : http://www-kiv.zcu.cz/events/tsd2001
[3] Conference WSCG2001: http://wscg.zcu.cz
