Quick Facts

• We will be using The ACM Publication System (TAPS) process supported by an external vendor.
• The correct template for submission is: single column Word Submission Template and single column LaTeX (using the “manuscript,review,anonymous” style available in template).
• The correct template for publication in the DL is: single column Word Submission Template and LaTeX template using “sigconf” style in acmart.
• Both papers and extended abstracts will use the same publication formats.
• There are no page length limits for papers. Length should be commensurate to its contribution. There are page limits for extended abstracts.
• You can download the Word/LaTeX Master Article templates and you can see some example papers using the TAPS compatible Word and LaTeX templates.

CHI 2021 will use ACM Master Article Templates AND Publication Workflow for publication of BOTH the proceedings and extended abstracts. This ACM page gives a rationale behind the change. This is a significant change, so please carefully read the following instructions. Additional Information is also provided in the later half of this page.

Quick Links

• Microsoft Word
• LaTeX (Use sample-manuscript.tex for submissions)
• Overleaf (or search for ACM Conference Proceedings "Master" Template)

CHI 2021 Proceedings Format

We will follow the workflow defined by the ACM, so please read the instructions on the ACM page carefully. A key difference is that the ACM workflow requests authors to produce final versions by themselves, but CHI 2021 will hire a vendor to complete this process.

1)  Authors prepare their manuscript in the designated single column format in pdf using Word or LaTeX. The authors then submit the pdf and source file to PCS. Reviewers will review the papers in the single column format. There is no minimum or maximum length imposed on papers. Rather, reviewers will be instructed to weigh the contribution of a paper relative to its length. Redundant or verbose writing is strongly discouraged. Here you can see some example papers.

2)  Upon acceptance of an article, authors revise the manuscript and submit publication ready source files (Word or LaTeX) to PCS. For Word users, the source files should be in the same single column format (word documents will be converted to two-columns by a vendor). LaTeX users should use the “sigconf” style, which will change the source file to two columns. For both Word and LaTeX source files, a vendor then runs validations and produces the final publication version of record (a two column PDF and responsive HTML) using TAPS. Authors must approve these proofs and can request layout changes if necessary. Here you can see some example papers.

CHI 2021 Extended Abstracts Format

We eliminate the traditional extended abstract format (landscape) and use the same template as full papers. So, please read and follow the instructions above. An important difference is that THERE ARE PAGE LIMITS for extended abstracts. Please follow instructions in the respective call for submissions regarding page limit.

Digital Accessibility

The CHI conference committee is asking all authors to work on improving the accessibility of their submissions. Please see the Guide to an Accessible Submission for more details.

Contact

If you have any questions or concerns with regards to publication templates, please contact CHI 2021 templates co-chairs templates@chi2021.acm.org.

Julie R. Williamson, University of Glasgow

Cliff Lampe, University of Michigan

Diego Muñoz, Swinburne University of Technology

Additional Information on the New Publication Workflow

The main motivation behind the new ACM publication workflow is to support accessibility and multi-format representations (here is an example). To that end, ACM decided to move to the new publishing culture that separates content from presentation. Another motivation is to reduce the manual work of editors to detect and fix problems in manuscripts for production. TAPS and the new template (partially) automate it.

The aim of this page is to provide an explanation and additional details caused by the change. This page concludes with Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

A critical aspect of this change is that what the reviewers see during the review process (single column) is different from how the final publications will appear (two columns), and here you can see some example papers. This is a change in the process from what we have followed before.  See Q&A below for details.

Another critical aspect of the new workflow is that page length is no longer the measure of the size of submissions. We have considered word or character counts as alternative measurements, but unfortunately there is no established, consistent way to count them. Different tools have different ways of counting words and characters. So, CHI has decided to remove the hard size limit from paper submissions. However, this does not mean that authors are allowed to waste readers’ time with redundant and verbose writing. Authors and reviewers are expected to work together to keep papers concise. The longer the paper is, the more significant the contribution must be. A paper that extends beyond the typical length will be scrutinized in particular detail.

Another related change is that we eliminate the traditional CHI extended abstract format (landscape). We use the same format as full papers (portrait) for extended abstracts. The author's submit their work in the ACM’s submission format (1-column pdf). If accepted, the authors upload publication ready source files (1-column Word or LaTeX) to PCS and our vendor, Aptara, will produce publication versions (pdf and html) using TAPS. The publication (pdf) will be in two-columns. There are page length limits for extended abstracts (at the time of submission, calculated using the single column template), but the specific numbers are different from previous years.

Figure 1: ACM approximation of the correlation between word count and page length in terms of pages.

Any transition of this significance will require work of people to adopt new practices. We recognize that some authors and reviewers will bear more of this work than others. We appreciate your kind understanding and cooperation. To be better prepared, we strongly encourage authors to test the new template early and familiarize themselves with it. If you have any questions or suggestions, please send them to templates@chi2021.acm.org. As volunteers we will try to provide you with help and support.

Figure 2: A SIGCHI diagram highlighting the different people and systems involved in publication.

FAQ: Questions and Answers:

Q: What’s the motivation for this change?

A: There are multiple motivations for us to adopt TAPS and the new templates associated with them. First, it allows us to create documents that are mobile adaptive and more accessible overall. Second, it helps our work become more discoverable in the ACM Digital Library. Third, it brings us into alignment with other ACM SIGs and conferences, allowing ACM staff their to focus on one, improved process. Fourth, it removes some dependencies we have had in terms of making papers ready for publication.

Q: What was the decision making process?

A: ACM has been working on transitioning to this new workflow for several years, following industry standards in publishing they decided to move to the new workflow. Other SIGCHI conferences have been successfully transitioning to this workflow over the past year. SIGCHI decided to follow it. The CHI Steering committee and CHI 2021 discussed the issue, and since the workflow hasn’t been used at the scale of CHI publication, they decided to move to the new workflow with the slight modification that a vendor produces final publication (version of record) pdf and html using TAPS, rather than the authors doing so by themselves to make the transition easier.

Q: What is the plan for 2022?

A: CHI 2022 will make their own decisions. We have it on good authority that they plan to use TAPS and the standardized templates.

Q: It is really important for me to have full control over the final layout and WYSIWYG feature of Word is critical. Will I lose such control in the new workflow?

A: For authors who have their paper accepted, they will be able to send both source and a PDF to the vendor managing TAPS for us. Authors can iterate with the vendor and TAPS until they get the layout they prefer. This will work similar to journal processes, where an author looks at proofs, marks them up, and iterates until satisfied.

The submission version will be in a different format than the DL-ready version. The single column submission format is intended to be easy to produce, but will look different than the DL version. Here you can see some example papers.

Q: Can I review a paper in the same format that appears in the final publication?

A: No. The single column review format has been optimized for the TAPS workflow, and has been used successfully in many ACM conferences. We are trying to move away from maintaining rogue formats and make publication workflow consistent across many ACM venues.

Q: What figure size shall I use in the single column submission?

A: Authors should put figures in the single column submission in a size equal to the size to appear in the final two column publication version. Column-wide (0.5 page width) figures in the final publication should appear as 0.5 page width figures in the submission, leaving 0.5 page blank space. Page-wide (1 page width) figures in the final publication should appear as 1 page width figures in the submission.

Q: Extended abstract venues impose page length limits to submissions. How shall I count page length? In single column (submission) or double column (final publication)?

A: Page length should be counted in the single column format (submission format in pdf). The same page length limit is applied when accepted authors prepare publication ready source files. The authors do not have direct control over the page length of the final publication (pdf and html produced by TAPS), so the length of final publication may vary.

Q: Will this have as many problems as previous template changes?

A: ACM and CHI have been working on moving to new templates since CHI2019. Previous template changes have had problems, and/or cost significant money to fix. While there will likely be some frictions as we change a major process, everyone involved has learned lessons from these early challenges, and we anticipate a smooth publication workflow. As always, your templates chairs are ready to help you in case you run into problems.

Q:  Please explain how to configure Overleaf.

A:

1. Go to the "Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) - Official Master Templates" in Overleaf
2. Since CHI is a conference, click on the ACM Conference Proceedings "Master" Template.
3. Delete the following files:
   1. sample-lualatex.tex
   2. sample-sigconf.tex
   3. sample-xelatex.tex
   4. sample-franklin.png
   5. acmart.pdf
4. Go to the file sample-authordraft.tex, to line 36 and replace the code for \documentclass[manuscript]{acmart}.  As an option, you can use the “review” and “anonymous” styles: \documentclass[manuscript,review,anonymous]{acmart}
   1. The review option adds line numbers to your paper
   2. The anonymous option replaces the authors section for "ANONYMOUS AUTHOR(S)". Please remember that your paper must be anonymized whether you use this style or not.
5. There are other files that you may delete or replace later:
   1. sample-base.bib: this is a sample bibliography. You can create your own bib file and use it for your references.

Now you are ready to begin.  You can rename your files if you want.