News

CLARITY to host iHCI 2010 in DCU

26 August 2010

On the 2nd and 3rd of September, CLARITY will host the fourth Irish Human Computer Interaction Conference (iHCI) in DCU. iHCI is an opportunity for HCI researchers, practitioners and industry professionals in Ireland and overseas to meet, present and discuss their ongoing work. National and international researchers will be brought together across the two-day event to interact with one another and to share their ideas. The HCI community within Ireland is expanding and diversifying into a range of disciplines and domains. The conference programme emphasises and encompasses the broad range of work being undertaken within Ireland today, with over thirty contributions, including eight international, to be presented during the academic programme alone.

The theme of this year’s conference is “Crossing Boundaries”, which reflects the continued growth of the Irish HCI community. Many of the papers featured within this year’s program explore this theme by dissudssing or confronting the challenge of working in multiple domains and disciplines.           

Since its inception in 2007, iHCI has been first and foremost the venue for the Irish HCI community to meet and discuss their work “at home” - something that Ireland had lacked for a very long time - and to create national awareness and visibility for a growing field of research in Irish academia and industry. On its fourth edition, it is clear that iHCI has developed also into an established publication forum, showcasing high-quality papers submitted also by international authors.

Notably, the programme includes an Industry Session (coordinated by the IxDA Dublin and Limerick groups), a Student Forum, and a Poster and Demo Showcase along with short and full paper presentations. Contributions to all the sessions have been peer-reviewed, thus ensuring a high-quality standard throughout. Professor Richard Harper, Microsoft Research Cambridge, will deliver the opening keynote address: his talk entitled ‘Do we communicate too much?’ will ruminate on contemporary human expression in the age of communication overload. We are also delighted that this year’s programme further expands the contribution from overseas and we welcome speakers from several international institutions from Australia, Italy, Japan, Nigeria, Spain, and the United Kingdom. 

Although, iHCI 2010 is built upon the very successful formats of the past iHCI conferences, this year a dedicated forum for early stage researchers to present their ideas and gain feedback is being introduced. This reflects the growing number of students pursuing advanced degrees in HCI and related disciplines. The Student Forum will be featured on the Thursday morning and we hope it will become a valuable inclusion to the iHCI format and offer both interesting feedback and discussion for the students who are involved, and an opportunity for discovery of fresh thinking for those in attendance.

The conference was organised by CLARITY researchers Daragh Byrne, Dr Hyowon Lee and Professor Alan Smeaton and the program chair is Dr Luigina Ciolfi, from the University of Limerick.  More information about iHCI 2010 can be found at http://www.clarity-centre.org/iHCI2010/.