ASSETS 2009

SIGACCESS Student Research Competition (SRC) 2009

The ACM SIGACCESS Student Research Competition (SRC) is a forum for undergraduates and graduate students to present their research, exchange ideas, receive feedback from a panel of experts, and have an opportunity to win awards for their work. The SRC is sponsored by Microsoft Research.

The finalists of the ASSETS 2009 Student Research Competition are:

Undergraduate category:

1. First place: "Sensation Augmentation to Relieve Pressure Sore Formation in Wheelchair Users" (Raphael Rush, Queen's University)
2. Second place: "Designing AAC Interfaces for Commercial Brain-Computer Interaction Gaming Hardware" (Stephen Steward, University of Delaware)

Graduate category:

1. First place: "iSET: Enabling in situ and post hoc video labeling" (Mish Madsen, MIT Media Lab; Abdelrahman Mahmoud, American University in Cairo; Youssef Kashef, American University in Cairo)
2. Second place: "Defining Virtualization Based System Abstractions for an Indoor Assistive Living for Elderly Care" (Nova Ahmed, Georgia Institute of Technology)
3. Third place: "MGuider: Mobile Guiding and Tracking System in Public Transit System for Individuals with Cognitive Impairments" (Wei-Hsun Chen, Chung Yuan Christian University)

SRC Participants

The names and papers of SRC participants can be found in the Technical Program.

SRC Reviewers

• Ray Adams, Middlesex University, UK
• Tim Adlam, Bath Institute of Medical Engineering, UK
• Sonya Allin, University of Toronto, Canada
• Jinjuan Heidi Feng, Towson University, USA
• Donal Fitzpatrick, Dublin City University, Ireland
• Vicki Hanson, University of Dundee, UK
• Simon Harper, University of Manchester, UK
• Michael Hillman, Bath Institute of Medical Engineering, UK
• Christopher James, Southampton University, UK
• Simeon Keates, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark
• Marilyn McGee-Lennon, University of Glasgow, UK

SRC Judges

• Armando Barreto, Florida International University, USA
• Jeff Bigham, University of Rochester, USA
• Leah Findlater, University of Washington, USA
• Paula Forbes, University of Dundee, UK
• Simon Harper, University of Manchester, UK
• Matt Huenerfauth, City University of New York, USA
• Ravi Kuber, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA
• Sri Kurniawan, University of California Santa Cruz, USA
• Marilyn Tremaine, Rutgers University, USA
• Annalu Waller, University of Dundee, UK

Aims of the SRC:

• Give undergraduate and graduate students an opportunity to present their work to and establish themselves in the ASSETS research community.
• Provide students with detailed feedback from a panel of experts on their research and presentations.
• Give students the opportunity to meet other researchers in computer accessibility, both fellow students as well as the leaders in the field
• Encourage and inspire students to continue their work in this area.
• Recognize and reward outstanding students.

Eligibility

Participants must currently be enrolled in a university or college and have active ACM student membership. The project may be either an individual or a group research project, however, all authors on group papers must meet the eligibilty requirements. Students may only participate in one ACM SRC per program year, so those who participate in any other ACM SRC between July 1-June 30 will not be eligible. Following submission, participants will be asked to provide a letter confirming their eligibility.

Work accepted as a full paper for one of the technical sessions of the conference cannot also be considered for the Student Research Competition. Students having a technical paper, however, are encouraged to submit separate work to the Student Research Competition.

Submissions

Students wishing to participate should submit an abstract of their work on a topic relevant to the mission of the ASSETS series, as described by the call-for-papers. Submissions MUST contain substantial original, unpublished material.

Judges will look more favorably on complete, or nearly complete, work than research which is still in its early formative stages.

Submissions should be formatted using the ACM conference format for letter paper size (8.5" by 11"). Submissions should be a maximum of 2 pages long and submitted as a PDF. Successful entries will be published in the ASSETS 2009 proceedings and the ACM Digital Library.

Participating in the SRC

Students selected to participate in the SRC will receive partial support from ACM to attend the conference. ACM's SRC program covers expenses up to $500 for all students invited to an SRC. In the case of a group submission, only one representative of the team will be eligible to receive funding. At the conference, there will be two rounds of competition:

First Round Competition. Participants will display a poster and make a brief presentation to a panel of judges. After the judges have reviewed the posters and discussed the research with each participant, a group of semi-finalists will be selected to present at the second round of the competition.

Second Round Competition. Semi-finalists will then give an oral presentation on their work as part of a main conference session. A panel of judges will evaluate their knowledge of the research area, their contribution to the field, and the quality of the presentation.

Up to three undergraduate students and up to three graduate students will be designated as finalists, and receive cash prizes and award certificates from the ACM. The finalists will also advance to the SRC Grand Finals. Note: Upon request, American Sign Language interpreters will be provided for participants in the SRC, both during the competition itself and for the remainder of the ASSETS conference. Requests for an interpreter must be indicated on the conference registration form when registering for ASSETS.

Advancing to the SRC Grand Finals

All undergraduate and graduate student finalists from ACM SRCs held throughout the year advance to the SRC Grand Finals. A panel of judges will evaluate the entries through an on-line competition. From this competition, three undergraduate and three graduate students will be designated the SRC Grand Finals winners. They are invited, along with their advisors, to the annual ACM Awards Banquet, where they receive formal recognition.

Further details about ACM Student Research Competitions and the Grand Finals are available at ACM Student Research Competition Page.