Doctoral Consortium

We are pleased to announce the W4A Doctoral Student Consortium funded by Google Student Award. Up to 4 PhD students will be invited to participate in a special session with industry and research experts and get constructive feedback on their dissertation research.

  • Awardees will be reimbursed up to $1,000USD for conference registration, reasonable travel and accommodation; receipts will be required as evidence of purchase.
  • While Doctoral students with disabilities are encouraged to apply for both the Doctoral Consortium and the IBM PwD Student Award, the two awards cannot be combined.

Chairs

  • Vagner Figueredo de Santana, IBM
  • Yu Zhong, Google

Panel of Judges

  • Barbara Leporini, ISTI-CNR, Italy
  • Victoria Yaneva, University of Wolverhampton, UK

Logistics and Schedule

Participants:

  • Dalal Aljasem, from University of Birmingham Birmingham, United Kingdom. Supporting the Design of Data Visualisation for the Visually Impaired through Reinforcement Learning.
  • Lula Albar, from The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK. Contextual Adaptive Communication Aid: Supporting Individuals with Neurological Disease in Communication.

Schedule:

  • 22th April

Eligibility

This award is open to any Doctoral candidate at a University or other Higher Education institution, AND who is carrying out research that is directly relevant to the accessibility and usability of the Web, Mobiles, and Wearables. While early-stage doctoral students are prioritized, Masters students doing exceptional accessibility research and planning to go for a PhD in this area will be considered. We particularly encourage applicants from under-represented parts of the world.

Submission requirements

First: A two-page PDF file outlining your research, its novelty, originality, and its anticipated impact should be submitted via OpenConf. The submission should follow the formatting requirements of the main track. It may include limited references.

Second: After performing the submission of the PDF file, it is possible to add the required supplementary files. The supplementary required files are:

  • A PDF letter of support from your research supervisor, confirming your position and research area (to ensure that applications are from bonafide researchers)
  • A PDF file with the Application for Doctoral Consortium form, including personal details.

You will receive an acknowledgment email on successful receipt of your application.
Accepted papers will be included in the W4A 2020 proceedings published at the ACM DL.

Evaluation criteria

Submissions will be carefully reviewed by a panel of judges.
Submissions will be evaluated on the following quality factors:

  • Compliance with submission requirements and eligibility criteria.
  • Relevance of research to the W4A conference topics.
  • Awareness of the field and the state of technology.
  • Originality and potential impact of your research.

For the sake of openness, the judges will assess the submission using this review form.

Contact

If you have any questions relating to the submission process or the event itself, please email dc2020@w4a.info.