Doctoral Consortium

The OzCHI Doctoral Consortium (DC) offers PhD students a valuable opportunity to present their research plans and discuss them with peers and senior researchers in a supportive and constructive environment. This full-day event aims to encourage collaboration, peer support, and mentorship. PhD candidates wishing to participate should submit a short DC paper of up to 4,000 words in the single-column ACM format following the instructions below. Selection for the consortium will be based on a review of the submitted papers by the DC chairs.

There is no fee to attend the consortium. However, participants must register for at least one day of the OzCHI conference. Accepted PhD candidates will be asked to deliver a short in-person presentation of their paper at the DC with a focus on issues or questions regarding challenges you experience in your research that you would like to discuss during the DC. The DC panel comprising the co-chairs and invited senior HCI colleagues will respond and provide constructive feedback. This is NOT a hybrid event, and we accept in-person attendance only. Accepted authors will be asked to register and confirm that you will be able to travel to Sydney and attend OzCHI.

The DC chairs are currently liaising with the Proceedings Chair and the ACM to confirm whether the DC papers will be published as part of the OzCHI 2025 conference proceedings in the ACM Digital Library. We will confirm this in due course.

Preparing and Submitting Your DC Paper

Step 1: Download the ACM Master Template

• LaTeX users download the template here or use the Overleaf template.
• Word users download the template here.
• Please ensure that you use the correct template. The single-column format must be used for the reviewing phase. Using different templates or formats may result in desk rejection.

Step 2: Write your DC Saper 

• Write up to 4,000 words in the single-column ACM format structured as follows: (1) Introduction setting up your PhD study’s research area and background in order to help the DC panel understand the context of your research, list your specific research aims, questions, and expected contributions, and argue why your research problem is significant based on key references to related works; (2) Methodology outlining your overall research approach; (3) Work-in-progress including your findings to date (if applicable) and next steps; (4) Questions and issues for discussion and what you hope to gain from attending the DC; (5) Author Bio – keep it short; (6) References formatted using the ACM style guide and including DOIs. Figures, photos, graphs, illustrations are very welcome. Your paper including references must not exceed 4,000 words. Submissions that exceed the word length requirement will be rejected.
• Keep in mind that the DC is NOT about presenting polished research findings or a traditional conference paper based on a completed study! Section 4 is the most important one so please include any issues or questions regarding challenges you experience in your research that you would like to discuss during the DC.
• Authors should acknowledge the use of generative AI in the creation of their content, including specifying the AI tools used and the extent of their contribution to the research, writing, or design process.
• DC papers are single-authored by the PhD student, i.e. the supervisors/advisors are not co-authors.

Step 3: Complete Submission

Submissions should not be anonymised. Submissions should be in PDF format (less than 5MB file size) and emailed to the doctoral consortium chairs: dc.chair@ozchi.org

Important Dates

• 18th August 2025: Submission deadline
• 17th September 2025: Notification of acceptance

Dates are given in Anywhere on Earth (AoE) time zone. The deadline for submission is 11:59 PM AoE on the specified date. You can check the current AoE time here.

Contact

Doctoral Consortium Chairs
Marcus Foth (Queensland University of Technology, Australia)
Kaisa Väänänen (Tampere University, Finland)
dc.chair@ozchi.org