Graduate Consortium

Call for Participation

The primary goal of the 2025 Graduate Consortium is to stimulate graduate students’ and other researchers’ thinking about the intricacies of novel computing technologies.

We invite submissions on any topic within the areas of interest of VL/HCC, as well as around the main conferences’ annual themes (see below).

The Graduate Consortium is a friendly meeting in which you can get constructive feedback and guidance on your work from peers and more seasoned academics. Please read on for the details on how to participate, and if you have any questions, please direct them to the GC chairs (Iyadunni Adenuga or Judith Good). We look forward to hearing about your work!

Special theme

Recent advances in computing have led to further co-mingling between computers and human society. People now live surrounded by, and as part of, many socio-technical systems. However, as these systems have grown in complexity, they have also become increasingly difficult for humans to understand and direct toward productive and meaningful ends.

This year’s event seeks to encourage graduate students’ and other researchers’ thinking about generative AI systems and people’s sense of agency as they might be interacting and programming such systems, looking to discuss issues such as creating usable interfaces for using generative AI tools while empowering users fairly and equitably, generative AI design approaches from a human perspective, or challenges and opportunities that generative AI systems pose for peoples’ experiences of agency.

Submissions along this theme are especially encouraged, but all topics within the areas of interest of VL/HCC are welcome.

Why You Should Participate

• Present your work to a smaller, more attentive audience.
• Get detailed, constructive feedback from a diverse panel of experts.
• Meet, learn from, and exchange ideas with other students working on similar problems.
• Funding is likely to be available to help cover your cost of attending VL/HCC (details below).

Who Can Participate

The consortium is open to both Master’s and PhD students worldwide, at any stage of the research process. Participation is particularly encouraged from PhD students who are close to proposing a thesis (following an American-style process) or within the first few years of their doctoral research (for the European-style PhD). Everyone who fits this criteria above is strongly encouraged to apply.

We invite both students who have participated once before at a VL/HCC graduate consortium (who will serve as senior-peer mentors), as well as students for whom this would be their first event. We expect to balance selected students following an approximate ratio of one-third returning / two-thirds new students; each returning student will be linked with a couple of new students in a mentoring arrangement.

To encourage a variety of ideas and approaches, if multiple applicants from a particular university apply, then no more than two per university will be selected. To be eligible, each applicant may have participated no more than once in the VL/HCC graduate consortia of past years.

Application Process

To apply, please submit the following documents via EasyChair, in the GC track:

• A 2-page research abstract, formatted as a PDF in the standard IEEE two-column letter Conference Proceedings format.
• Accepted participants’ abstracts will be included in the conference proceedings. To make it easier for you to write a successful abstract, we provide examples from past years below.
• Your curriculum vitae (CV), as a second PDF file. This CV should mention whether you have previously participated in any graduate consortia, and list them if so (e.g., “Participated in the VLHCC’23 GC and the CHI’22 GC”).
• Both submissions’ EasyChair titles must begin with your full name, for example: “Alex Smith: Jogging with Psychology while Programming” and “Alex Smith: CV”.
• Please use “VL/HCC GC submission” as the keywords.

In addition, please also ask your thesis advisor to submit the following, also via EasyChair, in the GC track:

• A letter summarizing your accomplishments and describing how far along you are in your Master’s or PhD program, and why attending the GC this year would be important for you. Please ask them to mention if you have already attended VL/HCC GC in any past year.
• The advisor’s submission must also begin with your (the student’s) full name, for example: “Alex Smith: recommendation letter from Petunia Matwani”. Please ask them to use “VL/HCC GC recommendation” as the keywords.
• For US applicants, who are applying for travel funds: the advisor’s letter should include a statement on the availability of funds (or lack thereof) for student travel, as well as a commitment to covering any costs that a travel grant is unable to cover.

Financial Support

We anticipate being able to offer at least partial funding for travel and/or attendance expenses for US participants. We will contact participating students when funding information is available.

Schedule

The consortium event will be a full day in-person event on Monday, the 6th of October, 2025. Participants are expected to attend at least one of the main conferences, as well as the graduate consortium. Other conference attendees are welcome to attend the consortium, to listen to the presentations, to interact with participants, and to give feedback to presenters. More details will be provided closer to the event, including times, location, and agenda.

Posters and Publication

Selected students will also be asked to present a poster on their work at the Showpieces Reception during the main conference. This is a good opportunity to discuss your research with the broader group of conference attendees and get additional feedback and guidance on your work. Details will be provided to accepted applicants. As mentioned above, accepted participants’ abstracts will be included in the published conference proceedings. Details of the publication process will be provided to accepted applicants; in the meantime, please ensure your submission is formatted as a PDF in the standard IEEE Conference Proceedings format.

Examples of Successful Applications

To be successful, a submission to the Graduate Consortium generally has to have the following parts:

1. The paper starts with a sentence or two that describes a real-world setting.
2. It then identifies a problem in that setting.
3. The remainder of the paper’s introduction outlines an approach for solving that problem.
4. In a subsequent section, the paper describes a prototype or preliminary study showing the feasibility of that approach.
5. The paper explains why more work is still required in addition to this prior work.
6. The paper concludes by describing future work that will build on this prior work in order to complete the approach.
7. Somewhere along the way, the paper explains how the approach builds on or differs from other related work.

We have annotated three excellent submissions that exemplify the pattern described above. We hope that you will find these examples thought-provoking and helpful as you design your own submission this year.

• Information on the Web: How End Users Make Use of Data
• Roles in Online Collaborative Problem Solving
• Re-forming the Internet with its End Users