Courses

Course organisers provide high quality and relevant instruction on specific topics to enable participants to expand their knowledge in HCI/Interaction design. Courses introduce fundamental concepts, new technologies or emerging areas and/or provide advanced instruction in areas of HCI research, tools, and methodologies.

They can be organised as two or four 90-minute sessions (half-day or full-day) and oriented and presented in English or in other languages used in Africa. Courses will be held during the pre-conference sessions. Abstracts for courses will be published in the main written conference proceedings and online archive.

Submission format: PDF, 5-12 pages

Online submission: online submission system

Submission deadline: Wednesday, 9 March 2016

Notification of acceptance of course proposals: Wednesday, 13 April 2016

Final for Website – by email: Wednesday, 4 May 2016

Final camera-ready of Course Abstracts for proceedings: Wednesday, 24 August 2016

Confirmed registration in Courses by participants: 17 August 2016

Objectives

AfriCHI courses aim to contribute to professional development and capacity building in HCI theory, method and practice. Courses can include but are not limited to covering, for instance:

Fundamentals of human-computer interaction (HCI)
Introduction to Interaction Design
Empirical research methods
User-experience design methods
Visualization design
Evaluation
Designing for accessibility
Afro-centric research methods
Developing HCI curriculum in Africa
Applying HCI theory to practice

Responsibilities of Course Organisers

This is the call for submissions by course organisers, if you would like to attend a course, please see the list of accepted courses (available from 13 April 2016). Course organisers are responsible for topics, logistics, objectives and final learning outcomes. They must submit a proposal, which contains several items (see below), and after we accept it they must:

Help recruit participants. AfriCHI will publicise all accepted courses on our website but each course organiser must also help generate attendance where possible, such as by sending to relevant mailing lists and advertising on other locally appropriate fora.
Answer queries about their course from interested participants.
Monitor the size of their own course. The size of a course is limited to the number of participants indicated in your initial course proposal, with a maximum of 30. AfriCHI’s registration system will not allow more that 30 participants to register. Contact the Courses Chairs at courses at africhi dot net if you need to change the size of your accepted course. Courses that do not have at least 5 confirmed registrations by participants by 17 August 2016 may have to be cancelled.
Register for at least one day of the AfriCHI’16 conference. All Course organisers must register for AfriCHI’16 and are responsible for their own travel and accommodation costs. We will waive course registration fees for up to two organisers of each course, but participants and all other organisers who attend the course must pay the course registration fee.
Distribute preparation materials to participants prior to their course.
Organise equipment used at the course. Please note we will provide minimal technology support, to keep course attendance fees low. Thus, organisers should plan to bring their own equipment insofar as it is possible to do so (e.g., laptops, portable supplies) and will be responsible for the security of their own equipment.
Facilitate excellent and appropriate teaching suited to a diversity of people.

Submission

Your course proposal is between 5 – 12 pages and must include the following:

1) Course Description as an Extended Abstract;
2) Course outline;
3) Sample material; and,
4) Course organisers

All items should be well-written and use English language. Please see general conference guidelines about English use. For questions regarding the formatting and uploading of submissions, please contact: submissions at africhi.net. All items in the course proposal should be submitted as a single PDF file.

1. Extended Abstract: Course Description

Your course description describes the content and presentation of your course in English using the CHI Extended Abstracts template. The course description is the main part of your submission and the only document published in the conference proceedings. Your Reviewers will evaluate the relevance and potential quality of your course based on this submission. You should describe in no more than 4 pages:

The length of the proposed course (2 or 4 sessions)
The credentials of the instructors
The background knowledge and skills required of participants if they are to benefit from the course
The learning objectives and anticipated learning outcomes
The benefits of the course to AfriCHI’16 participants
A rationale for providing instruction in languages other than English and evidence that this will attract at least ten participants
The material presented in the course, in accessible detail
The format of material conveyed and any active learning components you will use
Time allocation to the various course activities
Logistical requirements and justification for them; including: class size, the need for student volunteers, audio-visual specifications. Please note we will provide minimal technology support, to keep course attendance fees low. Thus, organizers should plan to bring their own equipment insofar as it is possible to do so (e.g., laptops, portable supplies) and will be responsible for the security of their own equipment.
Ways you will advertise the course to encourage participation
Past experiences in previously presenting the course, if any. This might include the conditions in which it was presented and feedback from participants
Ways you will modify the course if you have run it before.

2. Course Outline

Accepted course outlines will be published on the AfriCHI’16 website to advertise your course to inform potential participants. Your outline must be typed on a separate page in the document using 12pt font and describe in English in no more than 400-words:

The course title, names and affiliations of instructors
The major elements of the course content and the learning goals/objectives
Intended audience and any prerequisite knowledge or experience expected
Expected learning outcomes/knowledge participants will gain by attending the course
How the course will be presented/the format.

3. Course Sample

Please provide a sample of materials that you will use in teaching e.g. Powerpoint notes pages, exercises on content, scenarios, figures etc., Present your sample on 2 – 4 pages and use fonts no smaller than 10pt and margins no smaller than 2.5cm.

4. Credentials

Please provide brief CVs/resumes of instructor(s) to support their suitability to teach the proposed course. No CV/resume should exceed 2 pages.

Review & Selection of Courses

An independent jury of experts will evaluate the non-anonymous proposals for the local benefits of Courses proposed. The jury will consist of experts in teaching and learning about HCI in Africa and the topics proposed for the Courses. Jury assessment and curation by the Course Chairs will account for:

Suitability: appropriateness of course within the overall HCI education curriculum
Relevance: significance of the course to HCI in the African context
Delivery: ability to use innovative technologies and sound educational pedagogy to convey material and keep participants engaged.
Feasibility: ability to convey the necessary information within the time constraints.
Experience: Experience and qualifications of instructors.
The overall balance of topics in the Courses programme.

Courses that promote or advocate for specific products (e.g., marketing technological tool) will be rejected.

Accepted courses will be held at AfriCHI’16 only if they attract at least five registered participants.

Camera-ready Abstracts & Publication

We will include information to guide preparing and submitting the final camera-ready versions of your workshop abstracts with notifications of conditional acceptance. You should revise your extended abstract according to the reviewers’ report and submit your camera-ready, final Extended Abstract on 24 August 2016 using the online submission system. A member of the program committee will check that the final version of each abstract to confirm it meets publication requirements and, if so, will finalise acceptance. If an abstract does not meet publication requirements by the camera-ready deadline then we may omit it from the programme. The final camera-ready Extended Abstract should be no longer than 4 pages, excluding references.