SIGCAPH Annual Report
July 1997 - June 1998
Submitted by: Ephraim P. Glinert, SIGCAPH Chair
The past year was a very good one for SIGCAPH. Our membership figures appear to have remained relatively stable. Under the expert stewardship of editor Art Karshmer our sole publication, the SIG newsletter, continues to appear three times a year on a regular basis. Bowden Wise, although now employed full time at General Electric's Corporate Research and Development Center, continues to do a great job of maintaining our SIG web pages.
But, of course, the highlight of the year for our SIG was ASSETS'98, the 3rd International ACM/SIGCAPH Conference on Assistive Technologies, which was held this past April 15-17. The ASSETS series of conferences, inaugurated in 1994, has played a major role in revitalizing the SIG. The two previous meetings, ASSETS'94 held in Marina del Rey, California, and ASSETS'96 held in Vancouver, British Columbia, set the tone for this year's conference at which the organizing committee, energetically led by General Chair Arthur I. Karshmer of New Mexico State University (yes, our very own newsletter editor) and Program Chair Meera M. Blattner of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, succeeded in once again creating an environment where researchers, developers and practitioners could talk, listen and interact with each other in an atmosphere conducive to intellectual interchange. The single track technical session format and group dining stimulated a high level of social and professional discussion. The meeting returned this year to beautiful Marina del Rey. The hotel, situated right in the middle of the marina with spectacular water views in all directions, was chosen in part for its modest size which helped foster an air of congeniality.
This year the program was expanded to encompass three days, rather than two as in the past. A notable highlight was the pair of outstanding keynote speakers. In the opening session, Dr. Alexander Pentland, Academic Head of MIT's Media Lab, described his revolutionary vision of a world of "smart objects" which would be of great benefit to people with disabilities. The following day, Dr. Abraham Nemeth, developer of the Nemeth Braille Code for Mathematics, reminisced about his experiences with assistive devices for blind users doing science and mathematics, and speculated on how they might be improved in the future. A total of 32 presentations were accepted: 23 full length papers, 5 short papers, 2 position papers, a briefing, and a panel which focused on "smart homes" for tomorrow. The Program Committee continued the ASSETS tradition of rigorously reviewing all submissions to assure the highest possible quality.
An award for Best Student Paper, generously sponsored by Phillips Petroleum Company, was given on the unanimous recommendation of a special subcommittee of the Program Committee to Shari Trewin of the University of Edinburgh for her work on "A Model of Keyboard Configuration Requirements." Conference attendees voted to give the Best Presentation Award to Chieko Asakawa of IBM Japan's Tokyo Research Laboratory, for her talk (which was particularly notable for its good humor and excellent English!) on a "User Interface of a Home Page Reader" for blind users which was accompanied by a live demo of the system by the speaker (who is herself blind).
Although as of this writing the conference books have still not been closed, with 80 paid registrants, and considering the care exercised by the members of the organizing committee with regard to expenditures, I am confident that ASSETS'98 was financially in the black. With this year's highly successful meeting still fresh in our minds, it is naturally time to start preparing for the next conference! Our tentative plan is to hold ASSETS'00 in the UK, perhaps in Oxford, in the late summer or early fall of the year 2000. Helen Petrie, SIGCAPH Vice Chair, has graciously volunteered to serve as General Chair for the event, and Marilyn Tremaine, of great renown within the HCI world in her previous incarnation as Marilyn Mantei, has agreed to serve as Program Chair. The small size of our SIG notwithstanding, we believe it is reasonable and appropriate to hold our next conference abroad, both in view of the consistently high proportion of international attendees at all prior ASSETS meetings and in order to strengthen our SIG's relationship with the sizable European research community working on assistive technologies, whom we want to have feel at home within and as an integral part of our organization.
Turning finally to a different matter, I must confess it seemed to me as though the current SIG officers were elected only yesterday. Nevertheless, I was recently reminded by Lillian (Boots) Cassel, our SIG's Area Director on the SIG Board, that the appointed time for the next SIG elections is fast approaching! At her suggestion, I conferred with my fellow elected SIGCAPH officers, Vice Chair Helen Petrie and Secretary/Treasurer Harriet Fell, and the three of us agreed that it would be in the SIG's best interest to take advantage of the option to extend our terms of office for an additional two years without holding a ballot. I hope that our members will understand and approve of this decision. Furthermore, I wish to publicly state at this time that I've decided not to seek re-election when my current (extended) term of office as SIGCAPH Chair expires in 2001, as I think it will then be time to pass on the baton to new blood. I thank you all for your past and continuing support, and look forward to working with you for the good of our SIG during the remaining part of my final term as your Chair.
