[game_edu] CFP: First Workshop on Diversity in Games Research (DiGR 2014)

[R. Michael Young]

DiGR Workshop Call for Papers

The First Diversity in Games Research (DiGR) Workshop
Part of the AIIDE 2014 Workshop Program
October 4, 2014
NC State University,Raleigh, NC
http://dgrc.ncsu.edu/digrhome

Over the past ten years, the area of computer games has expanded to be a
significant area of computer science research, with a number of strong
annual conferences, IEEE Transactions-level journals and a growing
number of tenured faculty across the US. Students at the undergraduate
level are drawn in large numbers to pursue computer science degrees with
concentrations or focus on game creation methods and federal funders
like the DOD and NSF are supporting exciting new computational
developments relating to games. Nevertheless, the number of faculty from
under-represented groups in this area is significantly low. We announce
The First Diversity in Games Research Workshop to encourage
undergraduate and graduate students from under-represented groups to
engage in graduate training in games research and to better prepare them
for entry into an academic research career in this field.

In general, the workshop will involve a mix of “big picture” talks about
major research problems in the field (e.g., interactive narrative, game
analytics, procedural content generation), poster sessions for
student/post-doctoral attendees and panels/ targeted talks on career
development in the area of games (e.g., how games research fits in to a
conventional computer science department, where funding for games
research can be found, how to build collaborative relationships with
design, media studies and other related disciplines). We also hope to
arrange small group mentoring activities between participants and
leaders in the field of games research as well as (potentially) focused
mentoring activities at the larger AIIDE conference.

Target audience

The workshop will be designed to provide significant content for a range
of attendees at a range of experience levels, including junior faculty,
post-docs and recent doctoral awardees, graduate students and
undergraduates with an interest in pursuing graduate degrees. The 
workshop will be of particular interest to women and members of other 
underrepresented groups (e.g., Hispanic, African American, and Native 
American) across the academic community, including students, post-docs, 
and junior faculty who do not have access to mentoring networks at their 
home institutions.

Application to attend

Priority for attendance at the workshop will be given to individuals who
apply and are accepted via the process described below. Depending on the
number of workshop invitees, a limited number of seats may be made
available on a first-come, first-served basis once invitee attendance is
set. All applicants must follow the procedures listed here, providing
the required documentation by the submission dates indicated.

All applicants other than junior faculty must arrange for a letter of
recommendation to be emailed directly to Michael Young at
young at csc.ncsu.edu from a faculty member at their home institution. The
letter should describe the research or research potential of the
applicant, the applicant's interest in a research career and the
potential benefit to the applicant of attendance at DiGR. The subject
field for the email should start with the text "DIGR RECOMMENDATION."

All applicants must submit a two-page description of their work and
interests via the DiGR 2014 Easychair site. Content and process for this
submission is described below.

Important Dates

Recommendation letter submission: July 10, 2014
Two-page summary submission: July 10, 2014
Notification of invitation decisions/travel award offers to applicants:
July 24, 2014
Acceptance of invitation by applicants: July 31, 2014
Notification of additional seating availability: August 1, 2014
AIIDE early registration deadline: August 15, 2014
Camera-ready deadline: August 20, 2014
Workshop held: October 4, 2014


Submission

Applications should submit a 2-page statement of interest and
description of research, formatted according to AIIDE/AAAI proceedings
guidelines (see the author instructions page). Submitted papers will be
distributed to attendees for reference and discussion and used to group
attendees according to interests in panels, discussions and other
workshop activities. Submissions will not be collected into a published
proceedings, are not peer reviewed and are not intended to be cited.
Papers should contain technical content about the author's work
sufficient to serve as an overview for his or her research program that
can serve as a guide both to workshop organizers (to select relevant
applicants for invitation) and to workshop attendees (to introduce one
another's research efforts). Papers should be submitted in PDF format
via the DiGR 2014 Easychair web submission site:

https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=digr2014

Organizing Committee

Tiffany Barnes (co-chair, NC State University)
Hector Munoz-Avila (co-chair, Lehigh University)
R. Michael Young (co-chair, NC State University)


-- 
R. Michael Young, Ph.D.
Professor, Computer Science
Director, Liquid Narrative Research Group
NC State University
http://go.ncsu.edu/michael

-- 
R. Michael Young, Ph.D.
Professor, Computer Science
Director, Liquid Narrative Research Group
NC State University
http://go.ncsu.edu/michael