NEW SIGIR CONFERENCE

Announcing the ACM SIGIR Conference on
Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR)
http://chiir.org
The ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR, pronounced“cheer”) is a newly-formed conference sponsored solely by ACM SIGIR. CHIIR provides a forum
for the dissemination and discussion of research on the user-centered aspects of informationinteraction and information retrieval. The conference focuses on elements such as human
involvement in search activities, and information seeking and use in context. The conference
represents a merger of two successful events: the Information Interaction in Context conference(IIiX) and the Human Computer Information Retrieval symposium (HCIR), which have run since2006 and 2007 respectively. IIiX has traditionally attracted more attendees interested in information
searching behavior and interactive IR, and HCIR has traditionally been more focused on search userinterfaces. CHIIR builds upon the combined strengths of these events, placing an emphasis on humaninteraction with information, information seeking contexts, and user-centered approaches toinformation retrieval, access, and use.
In addition to studies of interactive systems to support information interaction and retrieval, CHIIR
also encourages submissions on related topics. These include human-human information interaction,novel interaction paradigms, new evaluation methods, and research that draws upon related work in arange of communities such as sociology, ethnography, psychology, and human-computer interaction.
We expect that papers accepted for the conference will contain rigorous evaluations of any newmethods or measures that they propose, using techniques such as laboratory studies, fieldexperiments, qualitative research designs, simulations of search behavior, or log analysis.
CHIIR is an annual conference taking place in March. The conference will alternate, at least initially,
between North America and Europe. The 2016 event represents the first CHIIR. As such, we need toestablish the schedule for where the conference hosting cycle will begin. We are accepting bids fromany location in North America or Europe for CHIIR 2016 as well as CHIIR 2017 (closing date:October 31, 2014). The venues chosen to host CHIIR in these years will be announced to thecommunity soon.
The steering committee for CHIIR comprises the following members:••••••••••Nicholas Belkin, Rutgers University, USA
Katriina Byström, Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, Norway &University of Borås, Sweden
Luanne Freund, University of British Columbia, CanadaMarti Hearst, University of California at Berkeley, USAPeter Ingwersen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Jaap Kamps, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands (SIGIR Representative)
Gary Marchionini, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Ian Ruthven, University of Strathclyde, UKCatherine Smith, Kent State University, USA
Ryen White, Microsoft Research, USA (Chair)

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More information about CHIIR is available at http://chiir.org. Please direct questions about the event
to Ryen White, chair of the conference steering committee, at ryenw@microsoft.com.

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Vol. 48 No. 2 December 2014